Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

NASA Modis image of tropical disturbance off of Florida. Pressures are dropping and upper level winds are favourable for development.

There are strong signs that the area of disturbed weather in the Gulf is beginning to get organized today. Pressures are dropping and there seems to be a circulation already present. I suspect the the folks at the NHC in Miami will begin advisories on it later today.

Tropical Cyclone heat potential is based on the depth of the warm water, not just the surface sea water temp.

If it makes it to tropical storm strength it will be named Danielle.

While it is a bit early to talk about the track, the GFDL model is indicating that a landfall somewhere around Louisiana or Mississippi is possible late Friday night. Keep in mind, that the steering currents are very weak and this could change dramatically.

HOW STRONG COULD IT GET?

Could this system reach hurricane status? Yes, but it would be tough to get that strong by landfall. The Gulf is very warm but the tropical cyclone heat potential is not overly impressive. Still it is near the Gulf loop current and that may be helpful.

A good tropical storm may actually be quite helpful to farmers in the southeast who are suffering through an intense heatwave and drought. It’s 37.5C here in Huntsville as I type this.

That’s 100°F on the old scale.

More soon…

Dan

Colder than normal water is already appearing in the Equatorial Pacific (NOAA)

One of the reasons for the forecasts of a an active hurricane season is the predictions that La Nina would develop this summer. Remember that La Nina is an ocean circulation phase that brings unusually cold water to the surface of the Tropical Pacific.

These are the temperature probabilities for a normal/above/below normal autumn (September through Novermber). Click for full resolution image.

Well, it has started and most of the ocean atmosphere models are predicting a moderate to strong event.

This has more impact than just the number of hurricanes. NOAA revised their 2010 hurricane prediction down somewhat today but they are still predicting a 70% chance of 4-6 major hurricanes (Earlier typo said 406- that would be exceptionally bad ). La Nina is a big factor in that.

The colder tropical waters cause a shift in the jet stream. This makes it possible to make a decent prediction of the fall and winter ahead. Here in the Southeastern USA we tend to have a dry fall with normal to above normal  temps. The winter tends to be drier than  normal and sometimes a bit on the mild side.

What about where you live?
The chart at the right shows the probabilities for temperatures during a La Nina event. The image is for the period from September through November.

Take a look at the Northeast USA and Eastern Canada. The chart shows that during a La Nina year the odds are VERY low that the autumn will be below normal. The odds are higher that it will be near normal and the odds are higher still that it will be a warm autumn.

This does not mean that it will not be colder than normal. It just means that in the past this happened rarely.

You can see more of these graphics for your part of the world at the IRI website here. Precipitation maps are also available.

From NOAA- NCDC

Click or ful size- From NCDC

NOAA/NCDC released a whole slew of rather grim climate news today. It’s important to remember that besides the sun and increasing greenhouse gases there is a lot of built in variability in the climate system. It’s only been in the last couple of decades that the greenhouse warming has risen out of the noise created by weather.

That said, even with El Nino gone and the sun coming out of one of it’s quietest periods of the century, the temperatures have soared. The last 4 consecutive months have been the hottest on record. The first 6 months of the year are also the hottest on record.

The mid tropospheric temps from UAH and RSS are also running near or above the warmest ever on their much shorter record.

The Arctic sea ice also continues it’s decline. The rate of decline in June was the fastest ever measured.

From NSIDC

The Antarctic is actually gaining ice due to a complex weather pattern induced by ozone depletion and cooling in the stratosphere. This cooling is also caused by increasing greenhouse gases.

A couple of TED talks That should leave you angry.

It does me.
First is the slurry of plastic we now have in our oceans. One thing you can do is to NEVER use plastic at the grocery store.

Next are one of my favourite subjects.
Penguins.
They truly are the warning sign of what we are doing to our oceans. Nearly every species on the planet is in sharp decline and Penguins are no different. Pollution and climate change are the main causes. Listen to Penguin expert Dee Boersma:

The oceans are dying and so is the life that live in them. We mammals cannot survive without the oceans either.

Click the image below to see in high res.

Image taken Saturday afternoon June 19 2010. NASA Aqua satellite at 500 meter resolution.

It sure seems to be getting bigger…

Dan

Update: The pic below was Orange Beach last weekend. Image from Karen Parden.

Click the image above for full resolution.