You are browsing the archive for March 2016 - Page 2 of 2 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
11 March 2016
The World’s Best Long Range Weather Model Just Got Better
Synoptic weather forecasters like me have been looking forward to the upgraded ECMWF forecast model for months now. This model is already the guidance of choice for medium and long range forecasts (2-10 days), and now it is running at an even higher resolution with other improvements as well. An ensemble of several different daily runs (that is key to diagnosing which solution is more likely when models differ) is …
9 March 2016
The Solar Eclipse as Seen from the Himawari Satellite
The Japanese weather satellite-Himawari is the only weather satellite that can send back true colour images of the planet, and yesterday it gave us an amazing view of the total solar eclipse. Pretty amazing no!
8 March 2016
This Winter Was The Warmest On Record Nationwide
From NOAA NCEI: The December–February average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 36.8°F, 4.6°F above the 20th century average, surpassing the previous record of 36.5°F set in 1999/2000. The exceptionally warm December boosted the contiguous U.S. winter temperature. The February temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 39.5°F, 5.7°F above the 20th century average, ranking as the seventh warmest on record and warmest since 2000. Preliminary indications are that globally, February …
Major Flood Event Underway From Texas to Missouri
A major flood threat is underway in Texas, and in the Miss. Valley tonight, and it will continue through the next 3 days or longer. Severe storms are also possible, but rain amounts of over 10 inches are possible, as an intense El Nino induced storm stalls over the area. This is the same storm that brought rain and snow to California late Sunday and Monday. This storm is moving slowly, …
South Central U.S. Is About to Get Very Wet and Quite Stormy
There is also likely to be a strong low level jet of deep tropical moisture, and model guidance is indicating the potential for 3 day rain totals of over 7 or 8 inches in some areas. The wind shear is also likely to be favorable for intense thunderstorms as far north as Missouri with tornadic storms also possible, due to increased low-level wind shear. All in all, it looks like …
6 March 2016
Beyond the Data on The Planet’s Temperature
Deke Arndt at NOAA is one of the smartest climatologists around, and I always look forward to hearing him talk, because he takes data and makes you see it in a way you did not immediately think about. By the way, for those of you who are still in school, some sage advice: always hang around with people smarter than you. You’ll never learn anything by being the smartest person in …
5 March 2016
It’s About To Rain In Southern California
So far this super El Nino has not been the drought saving weather pattern that residents hoped for, but this weekend will bring heavy snows to the Sierra and a good soaking of rain all the way south to LA. They will measure the snow in feet in the central Sierra, and it is here that the drought can be broken. That heavy snow will melt in spring, and fill …
The Science Behind The GOP Civil War?
This is a bit off track from what I write about here, but the science behind the present civil war in the Republican Party is very fascinating. There are now some mainstream press articles about this coming out, but they don’t tend to explain much about the research. So here goes my first (and likely last ever) post dealing with psychology. I actually have a minor in the field (which is …
4 March 2016
Looking Back Toward The Beginning of Time Itself
NASA released a video today that shows the most distant object ever photographed. A galaxy that is 13.4 billion light years away. The Universe was 3% of its present age then and the red shift is an incredible 11.1. This object is now much farther away than 13.4 billion light years, because the Universe is expanding and remember we are seeing this forming galaxy as it looked 13,400 million …
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.