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13 November 2018
The Cloud That Appears on Top of The Most Dangerous Storms
We meteorologists knew that the new GOES satellites would be revolutionary, and a new paper presented at an AMS conference on severe storms is a good example of just that. It’s about a cloud signature visible on high- resolution imagery that can lead to more lead time on severe weather warnings and fewer false alarms. It’s called an AACP: Above Anvil Cirrus Cloud, and when a forecaster sees one on …
23 May 2018
The New Goes-17 Weather Satellite May Have a Serious Problem
Update: May 25,2018 It’s been pointed out that Harris Corp. made the ABI/cooling system, but this isn’t something that requires any blame at this stage. These new GOES satellites are complex machines made of the highest high. I witnessed a GOES satellite fall into the Atlantic just after launch in 1986, and am keenly aware of how difficult it is to get a working satellite into geostationary orbit! I’m hearing …
12 February 2018
The BBC’s New 14 day Weather Forecasts Are Bollocks
I have no problem with the BBC dropping the UK Met office for their forecasting and going with a private company. and their new on-air weather graphics are actually quite good. HOWEVER Their new 14-day deterministic weathercasts are (in terms the average UK bloke will readily understand) bollocks. Make no mistake, forecasts are getting better and better. A report (a few years back) estimated that reliable forecasts are increasing by about a …
5 January 2018
Thoughts and Images of The Great Blizzard of 2018
Working on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, you might imagine I have been rather busy over the last few days and that is beyond an understatement. I was brought to work today in a four-wheel drive jeep and I have 11″ of snow on my sidewalk! This was a memorable storm and perhaps what makes it more so is how fast the pressure in the storm dropped. The pressure in the …
15 December 2017
Take Three Minutes and Study These Two Graphs
One of the biggest science meetings on the planet is underway in New Orleans right now. The AGU meeting is huge and a LOT of newsmaking science comes out of it. This year is no different. The AMS published a special edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) to coincide with this conference and the AMS annual meeting that I’m looking forward to attending in Austin next month. …
24 November 2017
The Ten Mile Time Machine
I flew to the middle of the Chesapeake Bay Tuesday to visit Tangier Island. It’s just a 25-minute ride on the WBOC Chopper, and one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever had in Chopper 16 (Yea, and I get paid to do this!). We made the trip to do a quick story on the new (much needed automated (AWOS3) weather station, and the photos are mine. (I’ve added the video …
29 June 2017
U.S. About to Fall Further Behind in Long Range Weather Forecasting
The Europeans are now testing a new version of their ECMWF model with a resolution of around 9 km, and so far it looks very good. Not that the present model isn’t since we forecasters now depend on it heavily for long range forecasts beyond 2-3 days. The NOAA GFS model is almost always the least accurate and that is not my subjective opinion. Look at the skill scores below …
19 June 2017
Fire & Rain, and Heat as Well.
Intense heat, with low humidity has led to a horrible catastrophe in Portugal. The hot and dry weather in Europe led to a firestorm in Portugal that killed at least 60 people. A strong upper level high pressure system will stay over the area tomorrow and little or no rain is in sight. This high pressure is bringing warm weather all the way into the UK with highs tomorrow in …
29 December 2016
The Smoking Gun of Arctic Warmth Leads To A Stunning Indictment
It normally takes many months to get a paper through peer review and into a journal, but a group of scientists has released their detection and attribution study early, and it’s a stunning indictment. We now know the culprit for the astonishing Arctic warmth of November and December. It seemed very likely that the guilty party was rising greenhouse gasses with Arctic amplification as the accomplice, and that’s JUST what …
28 July 2016
NOAA Makes Decision on New Global Weather Model. Controversy Likely.
NOAA has decided on the nuts and bolts of a new, next generation, weather model that will replace the present Global Forecast System (GFS model), and the choice is sure to spark some controversy. The choice boiled down to a system called MPAS vs FV3. Many meteorologists were rooting for MPAS, which was developed by NCAR, while NOAA was leaning toward the FV3 which was a project of the GFDL …
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.