After 19 days over 90 in DC we get this?

For the beginning of July? Dew points in the 30s with light NEsterly breezes. Fire up the grill!




Latest
10 AM (14) Jun 30 75 (24) 39 (4) 30.19 (1022) N 6
9 AM (13) Jun 30 71 (22) 39 (4) 30.2 (1022) NNE 8
8 AM (12) Jun 30 69 (21) 39 (4) 30.19 (1022) NE 8
7 AM (11) Jun 30 66 (19) 46 (8) 30.18 (1022) NNE 3

First June Hurricane Since 1995?

That can't be good!

1000 PM CDT TUE JUN 29 2010

...ALEX BECOMES THE FIRST HURRICANE OF THE 2010 SEASON AND THE FIRST
JUNE ATLANTIC HURRICANE SINCE 1995...

TD "Darby" Completely Pulled into "Alex" Circulation

"Darby" was a very healthy east Pac tropical storm, merrily heading off to the west. The circulation over "Alex" is so vast it completely turned "Darby" around, and it has been flowing towards "Alex" for several days now, and will end up just being some more heavy rain over Central America. - HLG

TS "ALEX" from TRMM

You can clearly see the heavier bands of precip, which unfortunately lead to flooding in Central America, and numerous deaths. _ HLG

GFS MUCKS THINGS UP

GFS had an interesting solution for Alex today - bringing the storm into the Northern Gulf, right through the oil patch.  All the other model solutions show a Mexico or TexMex landing.  Gentlemen (and ladies) start your engines?


BB

 Image courtesy of:  Florida State University Department of Meteorology

Distinct Split in Model Forecasts on "Alex"

Roughly 1/2 taking it to western Gulf (Joe Bastardi of Accuweather is in this camp, as seen on national news), and the other 1/2 are tightly clustered in the notern Gulf. Which will it be? The NHC has split the difference, as usual. - HLG

CG!!

Cloud To Ground!!!


BB

Oily Mess Track, or Yucatan?

Choose your spaghetti!

When will the Plane Visit "Alex"?

Or should we wait until it forms just off the Haitian Coast and causes massive flooding? - HLG

TW "Alex" Bad New for Haiti?

I have been closely watching the "wave" that will become "Alex". It appear a surface circulation my be forming just south of PR. Even if it hasn't, yet, this is very bad news for the earthquake vicitms living in tent cities in Hati. This very slow moving system seems on a catasrophic flooding course for western Hispaniola. - HLG

Planes and Holes in Clouds

Planes Can Control the Weather, Say Scientists
By Brian Handwerk

Published June 16, 2010
| National Geographic

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Joel Knain/NASA

Planes can accidentally punch holes in clouds, leaving snow or rain in their wake, according to a new paper.

A few years ago scientists were surprised by the sight of two planes carving a hole through a cloud—which then began spewing snow.

A new study spawned by the accidental discovery solves the mystery behind so-called hole-punch clouds and explains how airplanes can change the weather, at least on an extremely local level.

Scientists have studied hole-punch clouds since the 1940s and have long suspected that planes play a role in their formation. (See pictures of a potentially new type of cloud.)

Now, ice microphysicist Andrew Heymsfield and colleagues have found that aircraft really can create the odd clouds. Their research also uncovered something totally new: that aircraft can unleash precipitation by carving the cloud tunnels, which had never before been observed.



How Planes Can Make It Rain

Clouds at a certain the right altitude and temperature—relatively common over western Europe and the U.S. Pacific Northwest, for example—are saturated with water droplets cooled to about 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius).

Because the water in these clouds is so pure—with no particles around which vapor can condense and freeze—the droplets remain liquid down to minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34 degrees C). If the cloud gets much colder, though, they freeze into ice particles that can produce rain or snow.

When a plane's propeller, for example, spins through a cloud, the propeller exerts a rearward force. The force expands air, cooling by as much as 54 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius), said Heymsfield, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.

Jets do the same thing when air is forced over their wings, though jets cool air by only about 36 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius).

As planes push cloud temperatures past the tipping point at which supercooled water freezes, the aircraft "seed" the clouds with ice particles, the study says.

"If you introduce ice particles, water vapor will condense on them—like it does on a bathroom mirror that's just a bit cooler than the room—and then snow out" or rain out, Heymsfield explained.



Hole-Punch Cloud Discovery a Surprise

Heymsfield and colleagues flew smack-dab into the hole-punch discovery after having conducting a cloud study from a heavily instrumented turboprop plane near Denver International Airport in 2007.

A later look at ground-based radar showed an unexplained band of snowfall in the area.

"When we went back to our forward- and downward-looking video camera data, we could see a canal-like hole" in block of clouds, he said.

"And we could look down and see a snow shaft falling out of the hole to the ground."

U.S. Federal Aviation Administration records show that another turboprop followed the same path in short order. The snow squall began five minutes after the second plane had passed. Snow fell for 45 minutes along a band 20 miles (32 kilometers) long and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) wide, dropping some two inches (five centimeters) on the ground under the band.

Because hole punching triggers dynamic events within the clouds, he added, the new research, published this month in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, could improve our understanding of cloud circulation.

And the discovery could someday lead to better efforts at producing rainfall by cloud seeding (pictures of seven emergency climate fixes), he added—meaning that, for a change, the weather could be at the mercy of planes, rather than the other way around.

TD "Alex"??

Looks like the shear environment isn't stopping "Alex" from developing, only slowing it down. The SSTs near the Windwards are all above 30 C.

A) Will "Alex" be named in the next 48 hours?

B) Will the NHC send a plane out there when the center of the disturbance crosses 55 W, sometime before Friday?

C) Will the media hyper-ventilate on speculation about how this will effect the Gulf clean-up?

HLG

Recent Radarsat of the Spill off the Northern GOMEX

Virtually the entire area shown as dark black in the Radarsat image is medium to heavy oil. The most I have seen yet, this close to shore.

The World Needs a New Scatterometer!

But even with the death of Quikscat last year, I am still confident that we have our first TD in the Central Atlantic. A little far south, but a very robust upper level pattern, and more than likly the surface circulation is there already.

GO ALEX!!

A) Will Alex form?
B) Will Alex threaten land?
C) Will Alex end up making and even bigger mess in the Gulf?

Massive Plankton Bloom Off Norway

Beautiful spring bloom off Norway from MODIS. -HLG

DC Dewpoint of 39 in June?

Break out the chapstick!

3 PM (19) Jun 08 78.1 (25.6) 39.9 (4.4) 30.12 (1019) NNW 12

"Phet's" Final Stand

Record One-Day Rainfall in Bowling Green, KY

Not a very big set of storms, but they trained over the weather station for a couple of hours.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=lmk&storyid=53300&source=0

TC "Phet" Over SE Oman

Weakening, but heading back over the waters of the Gulf of Oman. - HLG

Visible Image SE Texas

If someone told you this was an image of a TD that came ashore and was raining itself out, would you doubt it?

TC "Phet" Closes in on Omani Coast

Amazing combination of one of the driest deserts in the world, and a Major Cyclone. - HLG

Tropicalstormrisk.com

Very interesting web-site, I had not seen before, that has very orgaznied, easy to interpret, global tracks for TCs. Looks like very bad news for Oman, and although the populated areas won't take a direct hit, they are at the foot of some of the driest mountains in the world, so the flooding could be very intense. The Gujurat Coast of the Punjab desert in India, and especially Karachi Pakistan will be on the strong side of a land-falling TC, the only real question is how strong it will be after Oman. - HLG

Saltpan Workers have Been Recalled!

Cyclone Phet: State on alert, six dead


Press Trust of India,Express News Service


Ahmedabad Temperature dipped across Gujarat on Wednesday as Cyclone Phet moved northwest in the Arabian Sea.
Alert has been sounded across all ports in Gujarat and fishermen and saltpan workers have been recalled.

Six people died of electrocution and lightning, while the concluding programme of the Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar was cancelled and the Krishi Mahotsav programme was postponed by two days. In Jamnagar, one person drowned, while another was struck by lightning. Two persons in Rajkot and one in Surendranagar died of lightning. One death due to electrocution was reported in Vadu village of Mehsana district after an electricity pole fell on the victim.

According to the Met Department, the cyclone is expected to intensify further in the next 24 hours and move close to Oman and re-curve towards Pakistan and Kutch.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the measures at an emergency meeting, directing the district administration to be on the alert, even as the in-charge secretaries were asked to reach the coastal districts to assess the level of preparedness.

Control rooms from the taluka level onwards have been made operational, with instructions given to the health, state transport and energy departments to stay prepared for any emergency.

Fishermen have been advised not to venture into the sea and 'Distant Ports Warning 2' has been hoisted at all ports. “Eight teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed in the coastal districts along with five companies of the State Reserve Police (SRP),” said Relief Commissioner Poonam Chandra Parmar.

“Of the eight teams deployed by NDRF, two each are stationed at Rajkot, Kutch and Jamnagar and one each at Junagadh and Porbandar,” said Deputy Commandant S K Pradhan.




Lightning, rough sea claim two lives in Jamnagar

Jamnagar: Two persons died along the coastal area near Jamnagar on Wednesday due to lightning and turbulent sea even as the cyclone Phet stood stationary about 1,050 km off Gujarat coast, police said. In the first incident, one Laxman Tarsinhbhai (29) of Amra village was killed when lightning struck him.

While one Shabbir Jusab (35) drowned after being engulfed in the turbulent water of the Arabian sea near Gandhvi village. Meanwhile, the district administration today convened a meeting to discuss the preparedness of the authorities in the wake of Cyclone Phet.

— PTI

JTWC has "Phet" Worse for Oman: Direct Hit Cat5

Karachi not out of the woods, but current forecast (ignore the past 3!) have it much weaker after encountering Oman. - HLG

Bad New Karachi!

Super TC "Phet" is well left of yesterday's track, and that puts Karachi, potentially, on the right-side of a strong, landfalling TC! Youch!

Also, the massive fires in Quebec have DC under a polution alert today, as the smoke tracks down the US east coast. Devious Candian plot!

Finally, since Turkey is in the news, I would like to show the algal blooms in the world's largest open sewer, in Turkey's Sea of Marmara. - HLG

Amazing Dust Storm Off the Nile Delta

This amazing dust-storm has an eye-like feature, with it's own internal weather pattern and clouds in the middle. - HLG

Hundreds Dead/Missing in Central America from "Agatha"

Amazing giant sinkhole opened up in Guatemala City (as prophesized by the Mayans)after the flooding from "Agatha". - HLG

DAY 45: FWSAAB On Top of Oil Spill Since April 26th!

OK, that was Day-6, which is unlike the White House, which in the past week has insisted they were on top of it from DAY-ONE. However, also unlike the White House, the blog here is PROOF we were all over it from Day-6! Amazing how this has gone from "Obama's Katrina to Obama's Iranian Hostage Siege" in a mere 45 days!- HLG

Cancel the Vacation to Karachi!

Unusually strong Arabian Sea TC heading towards the Punjab desert, and very close to Karachi, one of the largest cities in the world, and probably home of UBL, to our geographically challenged followers. - HLG

Large Smoke Plume from Quebec Forest Fires

Adding smokey flavor to Beantown! - HLG