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

Amazing satellite image from Monday showing smoke covering much of Western Russia. NASA/Modis image. Click for higher resolution. Fires denoted by red dots.

The death toll from the heat and smoke in Moscow is climbing rapidly. BBC Radio reported today that the death rate in Moscow is running 2-5 times normal.

This is not an ordinary heat wave. It’s actually almost unbelievable meteorologically. It’s not unusual to set a record high. It’s very rare to set an all time high temperature, but it happens from time to time in extreme situations.

What IS nearly unheard of is setting a new all time record high, then tying or breaking it 5 times in the same month! Imagine setting a record high and breaking the old record by 19 degrees F.! That’s what Moscow did on Monday 9 August. The old record was 90 in 2001. Monday Moscow hit 99F and that ties the warmest temp. Ever recorded there.

This has been going on since July as well. This kind of heat in a city where almost no one has or needs air conditioning.

CHOKING FOREST FOREST FIRES

The heat and dry weather has caused the swampy land full of peat bogs around Moscow to dry out and they are now burning. The smoke they are producing has reduced the visibility in Red Square to about 1 km. On Saturday, the Carbon Monoxide levels reached 5 times the unhealthful level.

RELIEF IN SIGHT?

There are some strong indications that a cool front will bring at least some temporary relief to NW Russia in about 5-7 days. Unfortunately, several thousand people will not likely live to see it.

Temperature anomalies in July over Eastern Europe. The heat has gotten worse since then...

SOME OTHER OPINIONS

Meteorologist Jeff Masters has a very good writeup about the heat in Russia here. There are some amazing pics from Russia courtesy of the Boston Globe as well.

CLIMATE CHANGE RELATED

You have to be very careful in blaming any one weather event on climate change. That said, the warming over the last 50 years has been much greater in the higher latitudes. Dr. Michael Tobis at the Univ. of Texas in Austin makes a decent case for calling this event at least VERY suspicious as far as climate is concerned.

Dan

Smoke covers the Canadian Prairies Saturday. NASA Aqua Satellite image. Click for super high HD resolution.

Smoke from forest fires in Western Canada has spread across much of the Canadian Prairies and well south into the U.S. British Columbia is tracking over 400 forest fires and other fires are reported in Alberta.

Smoke across the midwest USA. Image from Ray Hoff's U.S. Air Quality blog. Click to see more data.

The smoke is not only visible on satellite images across Canada but it has reached as far south as Kentucky. The smoke has pushed up air quality indexes across much of the Midwest. Those with asthma and other breathing disorders are being urged to avoid outdoor activity.

SOUTHERN HEAT

Across the Southern USA the weather story is the intense heat. Here in Huntsville we have had no rain in August in most areas. Another week of temperatures above 35C (95F) is on the way. Most areas will stay about 10 degrees above normal for August this week.

In Europe it is just the opposite. The heat and the smoke are in the North! Moscow continues to suffer though it’s hottest weather ever recorded along with thick smoke from forest fires. The smoke and smog in Moscow is so bad that it is downright dangerous to breathe!

GET USED TO IT

Something to think about. Here in the southeast USA, this kind of summer is expected to become the normal by the end of the century.

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.

Duck and cover! The new U.S. Record hailstone. Image from the NWS Aberdeen SD/NOAA.

If you are a weather nut there are certain records that you know off the top of your head. No need to look them up. So I knew the record books listed the largest hailstone ever measured as the one from Coffeyville, Kansas that fell in 1970. That stone weighed in at a whopping 757 grams  (That’s 1.67 pounds for you metrically challenged folks).

Nancy Knight (Top expert on hailstones) of the National Centers For Atmospheric Research holds the previous record holder, the Coffeyville KS hailstone. Diameter 14.4 cm.

Then came the severe thunderstorm that hit Vivian, South Dakota on 23 July, 2010. Les Scott saw his yard covered with HUGE hailstones and saved the biggest he could find. A power outage caused it to melt a bit but he thought it might be a good idea to let the local NWS office know about it.

They of course were very interested and came out and measured and weighed it. The Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the Aberdeen, SD  NWS then contacted the NOAA Climate Extremes Committee. They have declared that the long standing Coffeyville Kansas ice chunk from the sky is no longer number one!

The official weight of the Vivian hailstone was recorded at 879 grams or 1.93 pounds! That’s a new record! The stone also broke the record diameter of a hailstone. The previous record was 7 inches from a stone that fell in Aurora, Nebraska in 2003.