Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

I enjoy the stories but the day to day forecast is worthless.

I always enjoy reading the stories in the Farmers Almanac. It’s been around for a LONG time and they have good basic astronomical info in it. Although you can get much more precise info from free programs like Stellarium.

About this time every year they release their forecast for the upcoming winter. TV stations everywhere gobble it up and do news stories on what the coming winter will be like.

Great free publicity!

Just to be clear here, the day to day forecasts are made up. They will not have any accuracy over that of a pure guess.

Some real science: An average of all moderate to strong La Nina's shows a milder than normal winter for much of the U.S. and Eastern Canada.

If you want to know what the winter will be like, the only think I can tell you is that with a moderate to strong La Nina brewing, the Southeast will likely have a drier and slightly milder than  normal winter. The odds of this are about 65%. That means there is a 35% chance it will be colder than normal here!

Other parts of the country will vary. See the graphics.

This kind of long range forecast is only possible because the La Nina pattern of colder than normal water in the Equatorial Pacific will cause a fairly predictable shift in the storm track over North America. The affects will actually be felt world wide.

Temperature anomalies for January during La Nina events. Images from NOAA. Click for full size image.

However, not every La Nina winter is the same. Each one is slightly different. Sometimes the La Nina pattern will hardly show up at all in some areas. Sometimes the expected warm areas are super warm.

The temperature anomalies in January for La Nina years shows that it’s quite warm in the Southeast U.S. most of the time but not always. The La Nina winters of 1971 and 1976 were slightly below normal over the Eastern U.S.

A scientific forecast would be for a good chance of having a mild winter in the Southeast. For those of you in Western Canada, a colder than normal winter seems like a good bet. Sometimes it is a super cold winter as well.

Just what you folks in Edmonton wanted to hear, isn’t it!

Later,
Dan

Hurricane Danielle in the Mid Atlantic and a strong tropical wave near the coast of Africa. Image from Meteosat (Dundee Univrsity ground station).

We are now in the peak of the hurricane season and the Tropical Atlantic is heating up. The second hurricane of the season formed this afternoon in the mid Atlantic.

Hurricane Danielle will likely re-curve though and not affect North America. There is a slight chance of it approaching the NE coast of the U.S. or Canada.

More interesting is the strong tropical wave coming off of Africa behind it. Satellite images this evening show that it is very organized and we will likely see a tropical depression form soon after it gets away from the coast of Africa.

Dan

Click image for full resolution. Image from NASA Aqua satellite.

The amazing and unprecedented Russian heat wave continues. Moscow hit 34C today, which is cooler than the near 38C (100°F) temperatures of the last few days. The fires burning in the drought ravaged peat bogs and forests around Moscow continue to cover Western Russia in a thick pall of smoke.

The intense heat can also be seen from the MODIS sensor on the NASA Terra satellite. This sensor allowed researchers to measure the average ground temperature over Russia from July 20-27th. They then compared that with the normal temperatures you would expect in late July to produce the map below.

Red areas indicate above normal temperatures. Blue is areas where the temp. was below normal from 20-27 July 2010. Image from NASA Terra satellite. Click for higher resolution.

There are some strong indications that the storm track over Russia is about to change and allow some cooler air to reach Moscow. It looks like it will stay quite warm but when you are breaking the record high by 19 degrees day after day, anything cooler is welcome. Keep in mind too that at Moscow’s latitude almost no one has an air conditioner. Until this year they would only be needed a couple of days a year!

Coverage of the heatwave on the BBC is worth reading and do check out the podcast of FOC (From our Own Correspondent) for a first hand account.

As for the climate change connections, see my last post on the Moscow heat. It still holds.

Here in Huntsville, we set a new record today. Today makes 37 days in a row with the morning low at 21C (70F) or higher. We also just had the hottest 10 days ever recorded here. Greenland is looking very nice right now!

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