You are browsing the archive for severe weather Archives - Page 3 of 13 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
3 July 2016
The Science Behind That Awesome Photo You Saw on Twitter or Facebook
Meteorologist see a whole lot more in this image however, and it even shows the promise of better warnings of severe weather. This is especially true for rural areas/ poor nations that have only a rudimentary severe weather warning system in place. The image was apparently taken from an airliner over the Pacific. You’re looking at a very intense thunderstorm, with an updraft of air that towers into the stratosphere …
27 April 2016
Properly Communicating a Forecast Is Just As Important as Accuracy
The Storm Prediction Center’s outlook for severe weather verified fairly well yesterday. There were not that many tornadoes and the reason for this was likely that the wind shear was not that favorable in spite of an extremely unstable airmass. Still, the graphic above shows where the reports of wind damage, hail, and tornadoes were, and it matches well with the forecast outlook. The storms forecasted for New Jersey developed, …
26 April 2016
GOES 14 One Minute Imagery of Plains Storms
The spare GOES 14 weather satellite can send back an image every minute, and it was turned on today to give forecasters a look at the tornado and severe storms developing in the Plains. We will see this imagery more frequently in the future after the launch of the GOES R weather satellite next fall. You can see the imagery at the link below, but you will need a good …
23 March 2016
Snow and Fire In The Plains
Denver is getting buried by what may turn out to be a historic spring blizzard. Twenty inches, and it’s still falling. The airport has shut down, and travel is nearly impossible on area roads. The winds are gusting to 55 mph in Denver and the snow is pouring down, while the visibility is not much better than 300 meters. It’s a real high Plains blizzard, and it is bringing Denver …
11 March 2016
Attributing Extreme Weather Events to Climate Change
My friend Heidi Cullen at Climate Central in Princeton has an excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times today. It’s about a new study released by the National Academies on attributing extreme weather events to climate change. The study itself is on my reading list for tonight, and you can read it yourself for free. Just click the image below. I know several of the researchers who worked on this …
8 March 2016
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, …
29 February 2016
23|5 Talks at the AMS Annual Meeting
I was honored to be master of ceremonies at the 23-5 session (23.5 degrees is the tilt of Earth respect to the ecliptic) at the AMS Annual Meeting in January, and the video from the session is now online. The talks were all fantastic, and the evening ended with the movie based on Dr. Oreskes’ book Merchants of Doubt. When someone who thinks climate change is a hoax made up by …
23 February 2016
Stunning One Minute Rapid-Scan GOES 14 Images
This is the current image from the GOES-14 satellite that is in storage. It is turned on for high impact weather events because it can send one minute images. The tornado outbreak expected on the Gulf Coast today certainly ranks as a high impact event, and we should have this data through the evening. When GOES R launches we will see even higher resolution images at 30 second intervals along …
4 February 2016
Really NBC?? Really??
Really NBC? Really?? Did you forget about the SPC Enhanced risk outlook from two days before. Did you forget about the Tornado Watch hours before, and the numerous tornado warnings minutes before?? Really?? You owe an apology to the NWS and the broadcast mets in that area who made sure there WAS a warning. Really. You do. The map below was issued by the Storm Prediction Center about 36 HOURS …
17 January 2016
Meteo-Tsunami in Naples Area
A rare event seems to have happened in SW Florida this morning, as a strong squall line moved through. It’s called a meteo-tsunami, and it pushed water levels up by over 5 feet! The squall line also produced at least two tornadoes, with one of them causing significant damage to 14 homes near Cape Coral. A real clue that this was indeed a meteo tsunami, is the pressure couplet recorded by the Naples tide buoy. …
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.