Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

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.

The images from the NASA Terra and Aqua satellites have at times shown the oil slick in the Gulf very dramatically. Today’s is one of the best I have seen. The sun angle was just right. You can also see a smoke plume at the very bottom. This is where they are burning the oil off the top of the ocean. (That seems very strange to have to write.)

How much is leaking? See my previous post.

June 9, 2010 from NASA Terra satellite. True colour image. Click for higher resolution.

The newsroom tells me quite a lot of oil washed up on Orange Beach, Alabama today…

Areas closed to fishing in the Gulf. S.A.R. images from CSTARS at the Univ. of Florida Miami show oil is now in areas still open.

There are several ways of seeing the extent of the oil slick on the water in the Gulf of Mexico. Visible light is just one way. A better way may very well be to use Synthetic Aperture Radar and look at the Gulf in high frequency radio light.

Image from CSTARS. The red line is the approximate border of the area closed to fishing by Federal Government.

The SAR image to the right is courtesy of CSTARS and the European Space Agency.  It shows the oil well.  It also shows the oil has spread to the east of the federal closed to fishing area.

The closed area will likely have to be expanded further eastward and soon. The current closed area is left of a line southward from Pensacola Bay.

There is an SAR on a Canadian Satellite as well and it too shows the oil quite well.

Something to keep in mind, we humans can only see a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

We call it light.

IR, and C band radio waves are light too though and sometimes you can see things much better in that light than the visible light our eyes have evolved to detect.

NOTE Saturday 5 June: NOAA has now expanded the area closed to fishing and the area mentioned in this post is now included.

NASA Modis image of the oil slick. The southern part is approaching the Gulf Loop Current. Click image for much larger version.

The Gulf Loop current may very well be picking up the oil slick in the Gulf. This would bring the oil down through the Florida Keys and into the Gulf Stream. Eventually passing between Florida and the Bahamas.

NOAA ocean current model showing the Gulf Loop Current. (Brighter blue.)

Oil in this area could cause severe damage to ocean reefs in the Keys and near the Bahamas. The ocean current models show the path of the loop current very well.

This image from the Real Time Ocean Forecast System (RTOFS) is a forecast of the current late Wednesday afternoon. It’s for water about 100 meters beneath the surface. The loop current is at the surface of the Ocean as well.

Although some oil is now being captured, at least 80% of the leak and probably much more is still flowing into the Gulf. Large plumes of oil are now being detected beneath the surface.

Wind forecast near the coasts, based on numerical weather prediction models. (NOAA NWS)

There is a large amount of oil now west of the Miss. Delta. The wind forecast will continue to push it toward areas along the coast as well. In general the slick seems to be spreading out in a North/South direction.

Doppler Velocity image of a deadly tornado in Oklahoma this afternoon. The storm was repsonsible for at least three deaths and millions in damage. The triangle is the location of the strongest wind shear. Blue is wind toward the radar and red is wind away from the radar. One of the most incredible velocity images of a tornado I have seen. Click for full res. WSR88D Doppler Radar at Tinker AFB near OKC,OK.

It’s been a busy month for those of us who forecast weather.  Tracking volcanic ash using upper level wind forecast and using ocean current models to track the growing oil slick in the Gulf. Today it was a little of all three.

Oklahoma was hit by a swarm of tornadoes today. At least 4 are dead. Many people have lost there homes. Cars and large trucks were flipped in the air along I-35 and I-40. With modern technology, I could watch the same radar images that forecasters in Oklahoma were looking at. Large tornadoes show up very well on Doppler radar. Today they were very easy to spot.

In the Hollywood movie “TWISTER” the town of Wakita, Oklahoma is hit by a big tornado. Today, Wakita really WAS hit by a large tornado. See the radar image below.

Hook echo approaching the town of Wakita, Oklahoma. Fortunately, it appears there were no deaths. Warnings DO make a difference!

As for the oil in the Gulf…

NASA Modis view of the oil slick in the Gulf. Taken Monday 10 May.

The slick is noticeably bigger on the NASA Terra satellite images today.

Ocean current models continue to indicate the oil will spread toward Louisiana. There is already oil spreading westward of the Mouth of the Mississippi and Northward onto Dauphin Island in Alabama.

The oil is showing up as gray and a dark color surrounding it in the middle right of the image to the left.

You can click the image and see a much larger version.

Now for the Volcano in Iceland…

It’s still erupting and the only reason air traffic is not snarled, is the upper level winds are blowing it south into the mid Atlantic. If the winds change and start blowing the ash toward Europe again…

Here is a pic from the NASA Terra satellite today.

From NASA Modis sensor on the TERRA satellite. Ckick for full res.

There are several towns in Iceland that have been covered in thick ash from the volcano. That is not getting nearly the coverage that the flight delays are. You have to feel for those folks…

The nearby Katla volcano usually erupts within a few months of it’s neighbor. It’s eruptions are much bigger. MUCH BIGGER.

No sign of that happening…yet…

Dan