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13 September 2018
Florence Update
Here is an update on Hurricane Florence. It’s my 11 PM Weathercast Wednesday night on WBOC, here on the Delmarva/Eastern Shore of Maryland. I started with a comparison of the same storm in the 1960’s and how the water levels/storm surge would be different today. Rainfall guidance over the next 84 hours is showing as much as 27 inches (68.6 CM) of rainfall in some areas with over 30 …
5 September 2011
Weekend Science Digest- A Symphony of Science
Lots of science news this week caught my eye and number one on the list is the video above (thanks to “Bad Astronomer” Phil Plait) . John Boswell has his entire collection of videos online along with the music. You can download them for whatever you think is fair. These videos are IMHO a great teaching tool about what and who we are, and what science and scientific method …
4 September 2011
Quick Update on Tropical Storm Lee
TS Lee is dumping very heavy rains along the coast tonight and moving very slowly onshore west of Baton Rouge, LA. The heavy rains are forecast to move into central AL on Sunday and then into North AL (my location) by Sunday night. While the winds may never allow Lee to be called a hurricane, the strong Canadian high pressure system moving down from the north may give …
2 September 2011
Tropical Storm Lee May Swamp Louisiana- and Maybe MS. & Alabama
The NWP guidance continues to indicate very heavy rains over the Gulf Coast and some models are squeezing out over 15 inches of rainfall in spots. It seems likely that this system will move very slowly and still be dumping heavy rains over Alabama on Tuesday. If the past is a guide ( and it is), then we could see flooding well inland from Lee. As it was with …
1 September 2011
No doubt about it- There is trouble brewing in the Gulf
Strong tropical wave in the Gulf along with satellite based wind obs (ASCAT). From CIMMS. Update: TD 13 has formed and advisories have started from NHC. There is growing concern among my fellow forecasters tonight over the tropical wave in the Gulf. A late recon plane report indicates a tropical depression may be forming and numerical weather prediction models (NWP) are indicating development into a tropical storm over the …
NHC missed the Irene Forecast?? I Think Not.
Every meteorologist/forecaster I know agrees that the NHC forecasters did an amazing job on Irene. Yes, the intensity forecast was a little high on the landfall forecast for N. Carolina, but the skill in intensity forecasts is still a much bigger problem than track and the 24 hour forecast was quite close. There are few weather obs on the outer banks and I suspect the winds were higher than recorded …
28 August 2011
One Gorgeous Image of A Windy Lady
From NASA’s Aqua satellite. Taken with the MODIS sensor which has channels in the wavelengths of red, green, and blue light, so it’s true colour. Click for the HUGE “print that puppy and slap it on the wall” version.
Don’t Blame The Forecaster for Media/Politician Hype
You can see some experimental surge forecasts here, but they are based on a model underdevelopment, so do not base decisions on this alone. The surge forecasts show about what would be expected with a category one storm. Watching some of the cable news channels last night I saw computer images showing severe flooding through out Manhattan, and this is just not going to be the case with a …
Irene Pounding The Mid Atlantic Coast
The image on the right is from NOAA/AOML and shows a very large wind field around Irene. The latest NWP models continue to show a track near New York and Boston, but while Irene is a minimal hurricane the large wind field will cause significant flooding. So far, Irene is turning into a very wet storm with 8″ rainfall reports coming in from NC. Wind shear is affecting Irene and …
26 August 2011
Irene’s Core Heads for The Big Apple; Hurricane Warning for New York
Irene is now a cat two storm and the wind shear has weakened it just a bit today. The wind field is very large though and flood models are indicating that it will produce significant flooding, perhaps as high as a category two storm in some places. Winds may gust to hurricane force in NYC, but sustained winds will likely be at tropical storm strength as it passes, and …
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.