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23 April 2010
Update: Deadly Tornado Outbreak More Likley Now
A deadly weekend tornado outbreak is becoming more likely this evening. Conditions are coming together for potentially violent long track tornadoes across much of Mississippi and Alabama on Saturday. Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana are also threatened. It is quite possible conditions may reach the threshold for a rare High Risk outlook from the Storm Prediction Center (NOAA) in Norman. Several of the tornado watches tomorrow will be PDS watches. (Particularly …
20 April 2010
The Ash Is Thinning!
Great news for air travelers this evening. The eruption in Iceland is now putting out much less ash and the cloud is much lower. The low level ash is not headed toward the UK as the image above shows. The snow-cap that covered the volcano has melted away. This has reduced the steam/ash combination that was climbing to over 3,000 meters. Even more good news tonight. The upper level and …
18 April 2010
Iceland Volcano Quieting Down??
The weather radar at the Keflivik Airport is not seeing a plume from the ash cloud this evening. The last report from the UK Met. Office is a plume height of 16,000 feet. This is much lower than over much of the last 72 hours. There is also good news on the flight restrictions. The lower levels are looking much better. It looks possible that flights could operate from Paris …
17 April 2010
Ash Getting Worse! Flights Grounded Through Saturday
The UK has now grounded aircraft through 1AM GMT Sunday. The ash cloud has gotten worse and there is a new plume headed toward Europe as the image above indicates. Meteorologists from the Iceland Met Office flew o Friday near the volcano to check the height of the ash cloud and reported it is nearly 30,000 feet (10,000 meters). The upper level winds at this level will steer the ash …
3 April 2010
TV Weather People and Climate Change
A lot of TV weather people avoid talking about climate change on air. There are multiple reasons for this. Among them are the fact that the person you see doing the weather on TV in many cases does not know that much about science. (Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to stop some from saying some really silly things.) The number one reason is the political overtones involved in it. This is …
10 March 2010
Raob (Weather Balloon) Launch from Station 89007
I’ve seen quite a few Raob launches over the years. RAOB stands for Rawinsonde Observation. You can think of them as weather balloons. They are vital for making forecasts. We live in an atmosphere over 100 km thick, but most weather happens in the troposphere, the bottom 15 km or so. To forecast weather knowing only what is happening at the ground would be like guessing the outcome of a …
23 February 2010
The Blizzard That Snuck Up On NYC and Boston??
So while I am looking intently at the model guidance for next week and the possible blizzard up the East Coast, Mother Nature decides not to wait! It is looking very likely that a snow hurricane may develop in 48 hours over the Northeast! I bet my friends Harvey Leonard and Dick Albert in Boston are locked away looking at weather charts right now! Will it be too warm for …
22 February 2010
East Coast Blizzard??- Models Are Still Flaky
The long range numerical weather prediction models continue to show wild run to run swings regarding the possible next winter storm to pound the Eastern USA. There is little doubt that something is coming, but the track and the amount of cold air is still very questionable. Here is an example of the differences. The picture below is from the DGEX. It’s a long range model run this afternoon and …
7 February 2010
Some Context to The Historic East Coast Blizzard
If you live in the Northeastern USA or Western Europe you are living through a very historic winter. Same for those living ,where I write this tonight, in Tulsa Oklahoma. Snow, snow and a lot more snow. Baltimore is buried under at least two feet tonight. What’s causing it? The Arctic Oscillation. (AO) It also goes by other names. Older forecasters like myself prefer the NAO for North Atlantic Oscillation. …
22 January 2010
Huntsville Tornado Rated an EF2
We continue to get pics and video from viewers after yesterday’s tornado here in the Huntspatch (Huntsville AL). Viewer Lauryn Draper shot some great video fo it and put it up on YouTube. The video was shot a few blocks from our studios. The tornado WAS on the ground through most of this video I suspect. Tornadoes are wind and not cloud, so just because you could not see the …
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.