End of July, or Beginning of Tropical Season?

Looks like 4 or 5 candidates for developing out there, as we head into August. Stay tuned tropical weather watchers. - HLG

Take your gas mask with you on trip to Moscow

Enormous peat and forest fires are sending smoke plumes over the vast metropolis, causing lots of breathing problems. - HLG

It really didn't look that bad from space

But what a mess on the ground! Still without power. - HLG

One of the most destructive storms in years struck Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area on July 25, 2010. Strong winds downed trees and power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without power, stopping elevators, and darkening malls and movie theaters. Falling trees killed at least two people. The following morning, crews were working furiously to restore power to homes, traffic lights, and even a water treatment plant.
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)—built and launched by NASA, and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—captured a series of images of the storm activity on July 25, 2010. This image is a composite of clouds from GOES merged with background data of the land surface from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The animation shows a series of thunderstorms coalescing as the fast-moving front travels from the Appalachians toward the Mid-Atlantic. By 4:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time, the strongest thunderstorms were directly over Washington, D.C.
The violent storms followed on the heels of relentless heat for the U.S. East Coast. “The East Coast has been baking for weeks,” explains George Huffman, a research meteorologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “It’s been hot and muggy, with lots of moisture in the air, and that stuff has been trapped under a high-pressure system. Storms had been steering around the edges of that system. In fact, the flight that experienced so much turbulence last week was along the edge of that high pressure.”
Forecasts had raised the possibility of severe weather for the East Coast on July 25, and Huffman watched the storm system as it traveled over Ohio and Pennsylvania, remaining intact as it moved. “You tend not to see well-organized lines of thunderstorms at 9:00 a.m.,” he says. But the storm system coming from the west did not dissipate, even in the mid-morning hours. “The large-scale pattern shifted, allowing the high pressure to our northwest, which is cooler and drier, to push toward the southeast. That push was strong enough to organize the squall lines that fed off of our hot, muggy conditions,” he explains. “As storms come across the mountains toward the coastal plain, they have three options: hang together, get stronger, or get weaker. This storm system got stronger.” - NASA

Large Dust Cloud from the Sahara

One of the densest clouds I have seen from satellite. - HLG

DC In the Dark

He had an amazing sqaull line come through DC metro yesterday, about 15:00-15:30. Trees were snapping and transformers a-blowing. Never a good thing, because when you power goes you now it will be days, not hours before you see it again. Luckily I went to the grocery the day before, so I have hundreds of dollars of food to go bad. Yes, I did think of getting ice, but the stores went bare of that precious commodity in less than an hour. My real question is whether the "Prez" will call us a bunch of non-Chicago pansies when we get upset about swetting, and wrotten food in our homes, like he did during the snow storms of the winter. - HLG

Fast-moving storm batters D.C. area; 2 deaths, mass power outages reported


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By Stephanie Lee and Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 26, 2010

One of the most violent and destructive thunderstorms in years ripped across the Washington region Sunday, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, starting fires, damaging houses, and causing at least two deaths.

This Story
Intense storm batters region
Severe storms kill one and cut power to hundreds of thousands (Photos)
Heat burns up D.C. -- again
A 6-year-old boy was killed when struck by a falling section of a tree in Loudoun County about 3:15 p.m. And a woman was killed when a tree fell on a minivan in College Park about 3:30 p.m.

Power was cut off to a WSSC plant that supplies 70 percent of the water for Montgomery and Prince George's counties. Authorities asked residents to curb consumption and refrain from any outdoor use.

"We're calling for mandatory water restrictions to ensure fire protection and to ensure everyone can have at least a minimum" of water for household use, said a WSSC spokesman.

Amid gusts said to be 60 mph or more, trees and branches across the area toppled onto electrical wires, streets and houses. Roofs were lifted from buildings. Roads were blocked, and dozens of traffic signals went dark.

Late Sunday night, about 400,000 homes and businesses from Northern Virginia to Maryland remained in the dark. More than 290,000 Pepco customers were without electricity, the vast majority in Montgomery County.

Stores, movie theaters and concerts went dark, as did some Metro stations. Montgomery fire department personnel freed residents from stalled elevators. A Metro passenger was trapped in an elevator at the Wheaton Station; after being extricated, she was treated for heat exhaustion.

Some Pepco customers said an automated telephone-line message told them that electricity might not be restored for at least a week, but a spokeswoman for the utility said no estimate for full restoration had been made.

The number of outages in the Pepco service area appeared to be the largest since Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

With power and air conditioning out in thousands of Prince George's homes, county executive Jack Johnson said that six fire stations and all community and recreation centers would be open as cooling stations.

"I ask everyone to check on their neighbors to be sure they are safe," he said.

Bonnie and the Wooly Bear

While anticipating the much hyped arrival of Tropical Storm Bonnie, we observed this Wooly Bear making himself at home on the front porch.   According to the Farmer's Almanac, it is believed that the Wooly Bear predicts the severity of the upcoming winter.    This caterpillar stage of the Isabella Tiger Moth, is normally seen with a varying number of brown segments.  The larger the number of brown segments, the milder the upcoming winter.  Mr. Wooly Bear here has ZERO brown segments and since we don't normally see the Wooly Bears in these parts until around September, it seems to be a harbinger of doom.   Wooly Bear says Bonnie will dump two feet of snow and cripple the south with an early winter which will extend into May. 

All hail the great wooly bear!
:-)
gg

BONNIE???

Have anyone see the storm lately? Does anyone know where it went?





BB