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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 …
31 August 2011
Swamp Fire Chokes The Big Easy
The image above is from the NASA Terra satellite. Click it to see the higher resolution. The smoke is from a marsh fire near New Orleans and the state doesn’t have enough money to charter planes to drop water on it and the reason is explained by the graph below. Most of Louisiana has only received about 25% of normal rainfall, in the last 30 days. This is called …
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 …
25 August 2011
Is This Tropical Storm Jose??
The tropical wave off Africa has intensified and is looking very healthy this evening. It even looks like an anticyclone has developed aloft over the wave, and we may have tropical storm Jose soon (if not already). Water vapor imagery from the European weather satellite also shows little dry air in the region, although there is some dry air to the north of the system (not enough to seriously …
24 August 2011
Category Three Irene Plows Through Bahamas
It’s been said that if weather satellites could only see hurricanes, they would still be worth ten times the cost. The image below is from GOES (courtesy NASA Goddard) and is remapped on the “NASA blue marble” background. Beware that it’s a huge image! The latest NWP models are all in close agreement for the next three days and indicate that Irene will pass very near the Outer Banks …
15 August 2011
NOAA- July 7th Warmest on Record Globally;NASA Ranks It 3rd.
The NCDC has the July data out today and it was the 7th warmest on record,while NASA GISS (using slightly different methods) data has July at the 3rd hottest on record. From NCDC (NOAA): The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for July 2011 was the seventh warmest on record, at 16.37°C (61.43°F), which is 0.57°C (1.03°F) above the 20th century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F). The July worldwide …
11 August 2011
Tropics Are Heating Up- Planet Already Is
A strong tropical wave off of Africa is looking as if it may develop into the seasons first Cape Verde type tropical system. The storms that develop near the Cape Verde Islands do not usually start until late in Summer and can become hurricanes that last for many days. A close up view of the system farthest east shows what may be some circulation and the NHC forecaster is …
8 August 2011
Amazing Lightning Video From The Air
Mark Spencer (one of my fellow board members at Sc-Quest science museum) was flying back from Jackson, MS on August 3rd when he captured this amazing video. The flash rate in this storm is incredible, and it’s likely a severe storm. These cells produced 70 mph winds across North Alabama later on that produced extensive damage and power outages. The video was taken with night vision cameras and it’s good …
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 …