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30 October 2013
Sandy A Year Later- A Lot of Lessons Learned and Knowledge Gained
My friend Bob Henson at the National Center for Atmospheric Research has a great piece on Atmos News about Sandy today. NCAR has published some amazing high-resolution model runs of Sandy, and in some ways Sandy actually behaved like a tornadic super-cell. The model runs show that as Sandy approached a cold front, it tilted tubes of rotation air from the horizontal to the vertical. This same thing happens in …
6 June 2013
Tropical Storm Andrea Threatens East Coast With Flooding Rains
Andrea is stronger this afternoon and late-model runs continue to track it NE across the Carolinas, and right over my home here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Winds are going to be gusty (perhaps over 40 knots in gusts), but rainfall is far and away the bigger threat. June tropical storms happen in the Atlantic Basin every other year or so, but Andrea may be a storm that is …
23 May 2013
NOAA: 70% Chance of Unusually Active Atlantic Hurricane Season
The NOAA outlook for this hurricane season is out. Theses forecasts have some skill but it is well to remember that SOME is the operative word here. That said there are growing indications that this will be an active year. Perhaps very active… Here is the public release from NOAA: NOAA predicts active 2013 Atlantic hurricane season Era of high activity for Atlantic hurricanes continues May 23, 2013 Hurricane Sandy as seen …
5 April 2013
Hurricane Forecasts and The Shrinking Cone of Uncertainty
Two events of note to mention regarding hurricanes and tropical meteorology this week. That familiar cone you see during hurricane season actually has some science to it. The width of the cone is based on the past accuracy of tropical cyclone predictions made by the National Hurricane Center. As the track predictions have improved the cone gets more narrow. Brian McNoldy at the uni. of Miami RSMAS put together a great image showing the difference in the cone from 2008 compared to …
30 October 2012
Delmarva After The Storm
It was night to remember with the winds howling for hours here on Delmarva. While I was doing the weather updates I could hear the wind rattling the doors of the studio here in Salisbury. While the damage is worse in Jersey and New York, it is bad here as well and the Delmarva Peninsula had more rain from Sandy than anywhere else. The rain gauge in my front yard (a cocorahs …
29 October 2012
East Coast Waits For the Hammer To Drop
This statement from the Mount Holly, New Jersey NWS Office speaks for itself. I would heed it if you are in Delaware NJ or NYC. Ocean City MD is already getting gusts to 47 mph, and the surge there may reach 4-5 feet as well. I am seeing some model forecasts of 10-13 foot storm surge levels around the NYC area. This would be a Billion dollar disaster if this verifies, and …
28 October 2012
Halloween Superstorm Heads for Mid-Atlantic
The winds are already increasing along the Eastern Seaboard tonight as Sandy heads northward. I was at Cape Henlopen in Delaware before dark, and the ocean was already roaring with 5-6 foot swells. There is still some disagreement int he model guidance but I’d put the chances of landfall between Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and Sandy Hook NJ at 70%. As Sandy turns into an extratropical storm the winds will no …
25 October 2012
Northeast Spooked By Potential Franken-Storm (and they should be!)
Hurricane Sandy is feeding off the warm water of the Bahamas tonight, but as it moves northward over the weekend, it will begin to transition to a more nor’easter like storm that takes its energy from temperature differences in the atmosphere. We may even see Sandy weaken for an extended period before becoming perhaps even more powerful as it curves into the NE coast. Tropical systems almost always have a fairly tight wind field. The …
29 August 2012
Hurricane Isaac Strengthens Noticeably At Landfall. Risk to New Orleans Increasing.
Winds are gusting to over 100 mph just offshore now and winds are already gusting to near 80 mph around the New Orleans area tonight. The radar data shows a shrinking eye wall and that also indicates the Isaac has gotten stronger. The track now seems likely to put New Orleans in the wettest and windiest part of the storm. The storm surge and the rainfall remain the biggest worries. If you are in …
27 August 2012
The Big Weekend Weather News You Never Heard About
While the Weather Channel and the TV networks breathlessly reported on a rather puny tropical storm this weekend, there was actually some fascinating real weather to talk about. Yes, Isaac may become a hurricane and hit the Gulf Coast, but it will likely be a category one storm. It will also miss Tampa almost completely (A fact that has been obvious to any decent forecaster with a fair degree of certainty since Friday morning). …
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.