Severe weather
gregladen | October 4, 2016The 14th named storm has just appeared in the Atlantic.
The average number of named storms in the Atlantic, based on a fairly long climatology, is about 10.1. An average of 5.9 become hurricanes.
So, this year are more than average named storms. But is it more than predicted?
On average, the expert forecasts suggested anywhere from 12 to 18 named storms. We are well past the midpoint of the 2016 season, and are just about to reach the midpoint of these forecasted ranged, and there is still plenty of time left for a few more storms. The largest number predicted, as the upper end of the…
gregladen | September 27, 2016LATEST UPDATE IS HERE. CLICK HERE FOR LATEST UPDATE.
Update: Wed Mid Day
Matthew weakened, strengthened, strengthening
Matthew has interacted with land masses in Hispaniola and Cuba to the extent that the storm weakened quite a bit, losing its temporary Category 5 status.
But, now Matthew is already showing signs of strengthening, and is likely to grow back to Category 3 or 4 status as it moves over the Bahamas. How bad a hurricane is when it makes contact with land depends in large part on the angle of the attack, and Matthew will likely be affecting several spots in the Bahamas at a…
gregladen | September 14, 2016Update (Mid day Wed):
The disturbance in the eastern Atlantic is now a depression, and it is reasonably likely that it will be a named storm by mid day tomorrow, Thursday.
The predictions for the next several days do not have this storm turning into a hurricane any time soon; it should remain a storm or a depression, possibly going back and forth between the two, for four or five days, but after that, perhaps it will turn into something. Or not. Keep an eye on Karl, if this becomes Karl.
Meanwhile Julia is annoying people in the Southeast, but not doing much. However, keep an eye out for…
gregladen | September 12, 2016Wed AM Update:
Meranti passed near the southern tip of Taiwan, and apparently it was pretty windy and nasty there. But, Taiwan has invested heavily in infrastructure with the idea of being hit with giant typhoons now and then, so things were not as bad as they could have been.
apparently Meranti is now a category 5 equivalent heading for China. The storm is expected to weaken only a bit as it makes landfall (see this post on what landfall means) so this is going to be a direct hit by a major hurricane. There are some pretty densely populated areas in the storm's path. There are also many…
gregladen | September 10, 2016Update: Mid Day Monday:
Ian is no longer a glimmer in the eyes of NWS forecasters. Ian is now a tropical storm. However, Ian is about to head north over unfavorable waters, will likely never develop hurricane strength, and is not expected to hit anything big. (See map above.)
Nothing else is really happening in the Atlantic at this time, wrt storms. There is a disturbance in the Lesser Antilles, which is not likely to do anything more any time soon, if at all.
Update: Monday AM:
Yes, the chances that a tropical storm that has been tracked for a few days now as a disturbance will form today…
gregladen | September 3, 2016Hurricanes are well defined systems with characteristics that quite literally set them apart from other storms. Large storms such as Nor'Easters are sometimes less well defined and interact more with major troughs, the jet streams, etc. We have come to understand Hurricanes as the worst case scenario, while other storms are less dangerous.
But sometimes, and I suspect more recently lately, these non-tropical storms become quite dangerous. The Great Storm of '78 killed hundreds in New England and made us suddenly realize that coastal property was a temporary thing. But we sense the danger…
gregladen | September 2, 2016Update (Sunday PM):
Hermine is still a big storm and will affect eastern regions to some degree, but the storm never reformed as a hurricane, and is not not expected to do so. Also, the storm has jinked out to the east more than expected and will likely move farther east. So, there will be some coastal effects, but not much out of the ordinary.
POST-TROPICAL CYCLONE HERMINE FORECAST/ADVISORY NUMBER 30
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL092016
2100 UTC SUN SEP 04 2016
CHANGES IN WATCHES AND WARNINGS WITH THIS ADVISORY...
A TROPICAL STORM WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED FROM WATCH HILL…
gregladen | September 1, 2016For the latest post on Hermine GO HERE.
Update Thursday PM
Hermine has grown in strength, and may even make landfall as a Category 2 storm. At least a strong Category 1.
The right front quadrant of the storm is where the main "punch" (of winds) is located. If the storm winds come into an embayment, they can really build up the storm surge. Look at this image:
You can see the right front quadrant of the storm heading right into Apalachee Bay. Barrier islands to the west of the bay's head, and the communities right in the bay, are very much at risk for severe flooding.
Here is a blowup…
gregladen | August 31, 2016Update (Noonish Friday):
Lester is going to skim along to the north of the Hawaiian Islands. This is an estimate of the probability of the distribution of 50mph winds:
Surf's up, it will be stormy, but the significant threat is moderate.
Update (Noonish Thursday):
Madeline sort of hit Hawaii, but it also did a funny little shrug as the medial to outer bands got close to the big island, and the rematerialized on the other side, keeping with the mysterious tradition (see below) of hurricanes magical avoiding the island state. But, the storm surge did in fact swamp a lot of places along the…
gregladen | August 30, 2016Original Post:
The Atlantic storms are getting interesting.
Two different systems are poised to become named storms, but it is not clear which one will be awarded the name Hermine, and which one Ian. If the storm recently near Cuba develops as expected, it could become a weak hurricane before making landfall along Florida's Gulf coast. This will not likely be a very impressive hurricane, but it will be big and wet, and the area is already experiencing too much water. Flooding will ensue.
A third system is moving off of Africa, with 40% chance of forming into a storm over the next several…
gregladen | August 26, 2016A quick note about the current Atlantic hurricane season. With resect to just the US, we've had a fairly low level season, and it is easy to become complacent about this time, but in fact, the risks from Atlantic hurricanes rise about this time of year, so pay attention. Watch for Hermine. More on that below.
We are approximately in the middle of the 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season, by calendar time. The number of named storms (tropical storms plus hurricanes) predicted for this year is about 14, taking the average of all the predictions made so far, and there have been 7 storms including…
gregladen | July 7, 2016This is a huge hurricane/typhoon heading quickly, and imminently, towards taiwan.
The storm itself is roughly as wide as the island nation is long, so very little will be left unaffected.
The storm is at the very high end of the range of storms in size, strength, etc. It is currently equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane. It may weaken a bit before landfall over the next few hours, but it may remain a Category 5.
Winds, huge waves and coastal flooding from storm surges will be a big problem with this storm, but the largest problem may be the incredibly high rainfall, with about one meter of…
gregladen | June 16, 2016Weather is climate here and now, and climate is weather over the long term. Climate is the large scale process of movement of air and water, and changes in the properties of air and water, on and near the surface of the Earth, the atmosphere, oceans, and ice fields respond to the imbalance of heat -- with more of it near the equator and less of it at the poles -- as the world literally turns. Weather is the local, temporal, and personally observable sign of that climate system. Climate is meaning and weather is the semiotic process by which we understand that meaning.
OK, perhaps I've gone…
gregladen | June 7, 2016The human release of greenhouse gasses has ultimately caused changes in weather patterns so that major storm systems in the Northern Hemisphere get wetter and move along more slowly, causing significant rainfall events to occur at a much higher rate than previously. This has become a nearly ongoing phenomenon, with major floods in Canada, Colorado, Texas, Western Europe, Texas again, various places in Azia, more in Europe, Texas again, and so on.
The short version of the story: The jet stream is often fairly linear, traveling around the planet at a high speed, but it can also get all wavy…
gregladen | June 6, 2016Monday, June 6, 9:00 PM CT
Nope. For the second time in a row, what might have been a named Eastern Pacific tropical storm will probably never amount to more than a depression and a big wet spot in Mexico.
Monday, June 6, 2:00 PM CT
The first named tropical storm in the Eastern Pacific would be called "Agatha." Rather suddenly, a disturbance in the region near Mexico has gotten itself organized, and the National Weather Service is saying that there is a 100% chance of this blob of weather turning into a named storm by the end of the day Wednesday.
We were all a bit shell shocked by…
gregladen | June 3, 2016... may or may not form over the next several days.
There is a disturbance that has a 60% chance of forming into a tropical storm some time between now and the middle of next week. This will head out to the wet and not menace the US mainland, as is typical (but not inevitable) for Eastern Pacific storms.
The main reason we watch Eastern Pacific storms is not that they are going to hit us (usually) but because they often do something interesting. And, they occasionally do hit something (remember Patricia?).
Here is the list of names for Eastern Pacific storm names for 2016:
Agatha
Blas…
gregladen | June 3, 2016Update Monday June 6 AM: TropicalStorm Colin is heading for Florida.
The disturbance first noted a few days ago east of the Yucatan has moved across the mainland, into the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and with the relatively warm sea surfaces there as a source of inspiration, turned into Colin, a tropical storm.
Colin is not expected to become a hurricane, but it will make landfall somewhere on the Florida coast between, roughly, between Tallahassee and Tampa, tonight (Monday). The center of the current forecast is somewhere near Fish Creek and Steinhatchee, but that may change and this will be…
gregladen | May 27, 2016Trending wetter with time: weather never moves in a straight line, but data from NOAA NCDC shows a steady increase in the percentage of the USA experiencing extreme 1-day rainfall amounts since the first half of the 20th century. Photograph: NOAA NCDC
My Apology to Paul Douglas
I admit that I do a lot of Republican bashing. I'm a Democrat, and more than that, I'm a partisan. I understand that a political party is a tool for grass roots influence on policy, if you care to use it. The Democratic party platform, at the state and national level, reflects my policy-related values reasonably…
gregladen | May 26, 2016Friday, May 27, 11 AM cst
The probability of this disturbance turning into a tropical storm has been upgraded to 90%, and this transformation is expected to happen some time this evening or on Saturday.
Once that happens, the NWS will probably start issuing maps and probability information for where the storm will go and how strong it will be. For now, the NWS is indicating that "all interests along the southeast coast from Georgia through North Carolina should monitor the progress of this low."
There is not much to look at yet, but here is a moving GIF of the area. The low pressure system is…
gregladen | May 26, 2016With Hurricane Season starting in a few days, I thought I'd post a list of the names that will be used this year.
Alex
Bonnie
Colin
Danielle
Earl
Fiona
Gaston
Hermine
Ian
Julia
Karl
Lisa
Matthew
Nicole
Otto
Paula
Richard
Shary
Tobias
Virginie
Walter
Alex, of course, was already used as a name, since a hurricane formed after they had put the books away during the 2015 season. (See this.)
Also, even though Hurricane Season starts on June 1st, there is a storm brewing in the Atlantic now, that could be Bonnie. But not in a good way.