Severe weather

Update Thursday AM As expected, Nate emerged as a named storm over night. The storm is now interacting withland in Central America and is therefore having trouble getting organized. And, as expected given the uncertainty this causes, the forecasts are unclear on future intensity. The most recent National Hurricane Center projection has Nate Maxing out as a much weaker storm than yesterday's projection suggested. And, the center of the expected path of the storm has shifted west and is now centered roughly on New Orleans. After leaving Central America, Nate is expected to pass just over the…
Two or three thoughts about the current crisis. When there is a major climate disaster in the US, people move. Since the US is big and has large gaps in population, it looks different than when a disaster happens in some other places. Five million (or more) Syrians leaving the Levant left a major mark across the globe. A half million leaving the Katrina hit zone was barely noticed on a global, or even national, scale, not just because it was one tenth the amount, but because of our size and space as well. Something close to half the 400K or so displaced by Katrina (over half of them from…
It isn't. Well, it is a little, but not totally. OK, it is, but actually, it is complicated. First, you are probably asking about the Atlantic hurricane season, not the global issue of hurricanes and typhoons and such. If you are asking world-wide, recent prior years were worse if counted by how many humans killed and how much damage done. With respect to the Atlantic, this was a bad year and there are special features of this year that were bad in a way that is best accounted for by global warming. But looking at the Atlantic hurricanes from a somewhat different but valid perspective,…
As you already know, Hurricane Maria is a Category 5 storm menacing the Leewards, and heading, likely, for Puerto Rico. Please avoid making the mistakes that were made in talking about Irma. There will probably be no Category 5 storm hitting Puerto Rico. The storm will probably be a Category 4 before it hits. So, reporters will sloppily declare that "a category 5 storm is heading for Puerto Rico" then later Rush Limberger will say "Look there was never no such storm, see?" and so on. But, a Category 4 storm is still nothing to sneeze into, and Puerto Rico and the other island in this storm's…
Three statisticians go hunting for rabbit. They see a rabbit. The first statistician fires and misses, her bullet striking the ground below the beast. The second statistician fires and misses, their bullet striking a branch above the lagomorph. The third statistician, a lazy frequentist, says, "We got it!" OK, that joke was not 1/5th as funny as any of XKCD's excellent jabs at the frequentist-bayesian debate, but hopefully this will warm you up for a somewhat technical discussion on how to decide if observations about the weather are at all explainable with reference to climate change. […
UPDATE Sept 9, AM Note that tropical storm force winds may start hitting southern Florida around 1 or 2 PM today, Saturday, and will reach central Florida by about 8AM Sunday. The eye of the storm should be abreast southern Florida at around sunup on Sunday. The storm may remain a major hurricane as it moves all along the west coast, reaching south of Tallahasse, still as a major hurricane, Monday morning. Irma has interacted with Cuba more than previously expected. The storm also seems likely to move farther west than previously expected. Moving over very warm waters over the next…
There are two reasons that it is fortunate that the death toll for Harvey is very low, compared to similar size storms at other times and at other places (zero at the time I first wrote this, a few confirmed, maybe ten or so suspected three days after landfall).. One is that all those people didn't die! (Obviously.) The other is that we can ask honest questions about this event, while the event is still fresh in our minds (and, at the moment, actually happening) with the intent of eventually seeking some clarity, without concern trolls biting at our ankles and telling us that we must wait…
The following information is cribbed (with permission) from a FACTBOX produced by S&P Global Platts. Petroleum companies in the Gulf, especially around Houston, are are responding to likely shutdowns or possible damage due to the strengthening Hurricane, which is expected to have its largest impacts over the next 36 hours or so (longer for some flooding). Before giving you these details, I also saw this: A map being circulated around energy industry folks showing the amount of land in Houston that has been made impermeable (by construction of things and surfaces) since the last big…
Harvey the Hurricane will hit Texas roughly between Corpus Christi and Victoria (but stay tuned for exact details). Harvey is passing over water that is significantly warmer than usual, owing to global warming. This storm was too disorganized to even, under normal conditions, to have a name, just a day or so. But, when this storm hits Texas late this week (maybe by the time you are reading this) it is likely to be a Category III storm. Then, after landfall, the storm will hang around that area for a while dumping huge amounts of rain on the Texas flatness. The target area may have 15 inches…
UPDATE (Aug 30th) Irma is a new named storm in the Eastern Atlantic. See this post for details, eventually. UPDATE (Aug 29th) There is a system currently raining on Cabo Verde, off the West Coast of Africa (nee Cape Verde) that is expected to develop. It is on the verge of becoming a tropical depression. The National Hurricane Center has estimated that there is a high probability of this stormy feature becoming a tropical storm in a couple of days or so. If it gets a name, it will be Irma, unless some other large rotating wet object takes that name first. UPDATE (Aug 29th) How is the…
I want to tell you about what may be the most important research result in the area of climate change in recent years. First, a little background. We know from paleoclimate studies that the Earth's climate system changes from time to time enough to leave a mark. For example, it is widely thought that during the "ice ages" (periods of extensive or moderate glaciation) over the last couple of million years, areas that are currently very dry had a lot more water. Some combination of rain and evaporation (more rain and less evaporation) conspired to fill playas (dried up lakes) or salt lakes (…
The Key for the above graphic: Donald Trump's FEMA is not ready for this storm. The entire federal government is understaffed, and there are funding problems, and this applies to FEMA as well. So, if you are anywhere in the area to be affected by this storm (the weather channel calls it Stella, I call it Trump's Storm One because it is the first big storm on his watch) you need to know that the usual help is not necessarily going to be available. Maybe we should call it the Ides of March Storm. A very large area will probably get a very large amount of snow. Keep up with your local NWS…
It is now verified that the earliest 2017 tornados -- first tornados of the season -- struck several communities in east-central Minnesota (a few miles north and south of me). So what you say? Especially because it was a mere F1 and didn't hurt anyone! This is an important event because the earliest recorded tornado of the year in Minnesota was previously March 18th, and that was in 1968. This tornado, striking on March 6th (confirmed yesterday by the NWS) is way earlier than that! One tornado, near Zimmerman went for nine miles. A second tornado appears to have passed through the…
The year 2016 was messy and expensive and full of climate change enhanced weather disasters. There were, according to Jeff Masters and Bob Henson, over 30 billion dollar disasters last year. This is the fourth-largest number on record going back to 1990, said insurance broker Aon Benfield in their Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report issued January 17 (updated January 23 to include a 31st billion-dollar disaster, the Gatlinburg, Tennessee fire.) The average from 1990 - 2016 was 22 billion-dollar weather disasters; the highest number since 1990 was 41, in 2013. The frequency of flood…
There have been significant wildfires in Chile since November, and they continue. These are the worst fires Chile has seen in known history, and Chile has been keeping track of its history for quite a while. Are these fires climate change caused? Apparently so. Chile has had a rain deficit for well over a decade, though it as been extra dry for about five years. Drought experts call it a "mega-drought." Droughts tend to have climate change links, and this one is no exception. A study from just one year ago links anthropogenic climate change to the drought. Within large uncertainties in…
This is a bit late in the year for an Atlantic Hurricane. The season normally runs from June 1st through November 30th, but that includes a bit of buffer time. Otto is a tropical storm that will turn into a hurricane on Wednesday, probably, and make landfal near the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Expect coastal flooding as well as serious inland flooding. The storm will arrive in the Pacific on Friday as a tropical depression. Then, we'll have to see if it turns into something in the Eastern Pacific basin.
Update, MID PM Thursday Nicole blew up to a category 4 storm by some reports, but I think was Category 3 at as it raked Bermuda. As far as I can tell, Bermuda suffered 115+ mph winds, The center of the storm was about 10 miles east of Bermuda (which is causing people to say, incorrectly, that the storm missed Bermuda by 10 miles, which is not true). Since the storm went to the right of the islands, things were not as bad as they could have been. But, Nicole is a very very powerful storm. It will e a while before we get a bead on the damage there, but I've heard that power outages are…
It turns out that there is an untold story behind the "discovery" of the famous Hockey Stick graph by Mike Mann and his colleagues. It is an excellent example of how science works, worthy of repeating, say, in a science classroom. Anthropogenic Climate Change is very serious business. And, therefore, there has been far too little humor applied to communicating about this problem. Mike Mann and his co-author Tom Toles have started to backfill that gaping hole in the collective effort to bring the most important existential issue of our time to everyone's attention. Hurricane Matthew wasn'…
A collection of tweets showing things #Matthew related Las inundaciones a causa de #Matthew...Video of flooding from 11th Ave S, Jacksonville Beach. Vía: @wjxt4 pic.twitter.com/J5AAzMPXiM — Webcams de México (@webcamsdemexico) October 7, 2016 Video of huge tree getting ripped out of the ground from #HurricaneMatthew in #Jacksonville FL.#Matthew #Hurricane pic.twitter.com/r6Wwd2aRS9 — DeeconX (@DeeconX) October 7, 2016 #Hurricane #Matthew death toll passes 800 in #Haiti, cholera takes lives https://t.co/QRx8HRPyx4 — Skep tickle (@Ellesun) October 8, 2016 Current look along A1A in St.…
This morning I was forced to do the "get off my lawn" thing with the kids at the bus stop. They were systematically destroying the pavement around the common mailbox area down the street from my house, throwing chunks in the street. I lined them up and read them the riot act. They are children, so they can be excused for bering a bit stupid about life, and the guy down the street telling them to get off the lawn is part of the learning process for them. And now it's your turn. The right wing yahoos have already started yelling about conspiracies related to Hurricane Matthew. "They are…