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2 August 2011
Bartlesville, Oklahoma Reaches 110° at Solar Noon (1 PM CDT)
Take a look at the IR GOES image below, and you can clearly see where the hottest ground is. Keep in mind that the thermal IR satellite surface temps. are a combination of trees and grass etc., but it’s still a good look at the areas that will see the worst of the heat today. The amazing heat is even more amazing when you look at the data …
1 August 2011
Baked Sooners
Oklahoma is the world leader in weather research and has the world’s best network of weather stations, called the Oklahoma Mesonet. Take a look at some of the data it has recorded this summer. The number of days with temps. above 100 is approaching the numbers seen during the awful heat wave of 1980. I was in Oklahoma City that summer and remember everyone running outside of the TV station …
28 July 2011
Tropical Storm Don Fights Wind Shear
Tropical Storm Don will likely come ashore near Corpus Christi, TX on Friday evening as a tropical storm and not a hurricane. This is really good news, because it means Texas will get some much-needed rain without significant damage. There are several reasons why it is unlikely that Don will become a hurricane, the chief being the wind shear over the storm. Tropical systems like low wind speeds with …
27 July 2011
Will Tropical Storm Don Bust Texas Drought?
Tropical storm Don formed late this afternoon in the southeast Gulf and it looks likely that it will bring some much-needed rain to Texas in about 3 days. While the waters are very warm in the Gulf, the risk of Don becoming a major hurricane do not look high, and it will likely do more good than harm. This is especially true if it stays below hurricane strength. Wind shear …
22 July 2011
Friday Science Digest
My daughter suggested I start doing a once a week digest of interesting science news/blog posts from the previous week. So welcome to the first edition! The Guardian has a great piece today about a study the BBC commissioned on its science coverage, and the results come as no surprise to the science community. That said, I still rate the Beeb as one of the more reliable sources of science …
12 July 2011
Folks in The Windy City Learn What A Derecho Is
The official definition of a derecho from the AMS Gloassary: derecho—A widespread convectively induced straight-line windstorm. Specifically, the term is defined as any family of downburst clusters produced by an extratropical mesoscale convective system. Derechos may or may not be accompanied by tornadoes. Such events were first recognized in the Corn Belt region of the United States, but have since been observed in many other areas of the midlatitudes. Johns, …
9 July 2011
A Very Hot Wind Is Sweeping Down The Plain
Oklahoma is baking this afternoon! Temps last hour were above 110 at several locations and according to Gene Tyner at the NWS forecast office in Norman: “June was one of the hottest months in recent memory for Oklahoma and the hottest June on record in the west central and southwest part of the state where the average daily maximum temperature was above 100 degrees for the month. The average daily …
7 July 2011
It’s Called A Haboob
In case you have not seen the great haboob that hit Phoenix Tuesday night. It was caused by strong winds (over 55 knots) flowing out of thunderstorms . The video is pretty incredible. Scott Lindstrom has a great post showing the view from GOES of the Arizona storms as well with a nice MCV as a result. What’s an MCV? Read Scott’s post! Physicist Joe Romm has an interesting post …
18 June 2011
An MCC Is The Farmers Friend
We just ended a pretty serious drought here in the Tennessee Valley, with no rain from late May until Friday June 17. Normally, we would have had about 2.5 inches in this period, and this long without rain in the unusually high heat was especially hard on crops. Twenty days with no rain is not a big deal in winter (when it is cold and evaporation rates are very low), …
17 June 2011
Alabama Tornado Upgraded to EF 5
The Tennessee Valley was hit by two EF 5 tornadoes on April 27th. Today, the NWS in Huntsville upgraded the EF 4 tornado in Dekalb County from an EF 4 to an EF 5, in part of the path near Rainsville, AL. This means winds in excess of 200 mph were indicated. The area where the path was upgraded was between Geraldine and Rainsville. The release from NOAA is below: …
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.