Jimmy

First, a couple of disclaimers:

1. this is purely fun intellectual speculation. I highly respect the tireless work the amazing folks down at the National Hurricane Center do all year long.

2. The NHC has had this to say about the topic of this post discussion:

SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS ASSOCIATED WITH A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE LOCATED ABOUT 850 MILES EAST OF THE WINDWARD ISLANDS HAVE DECREASED DURING THE LAST FEW HOURS. HOWEVER…ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS STILL APPEAR FAVORABLE FOR DEVELOPMENT…AND THIS SYSTEM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BECOME A TROPICAL DEPRESSION DURING THE NEXT DAY OR SO AS IT MOVES WEST-NORTHWESTWARD AT AROUND 15 MPH. THERE IS A HIGH CHANCE…GREATER THAN 50 PERCENT…OF TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IN THIS AREA DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS. INTERESTS IN THE LESSER ANTILLES SHOULD MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF THIS SYSTEM.

So it’s certainly on the Center’s “radar,” so to speak.

However, my informal analysis of the system, dubbed Invest 94L, tells a different story: one of a tropical depression about to become a tropical storm (Erika, soon?).

Let’s back up for a second and look at the definition of a “tropical cyclone” according to the NHC’s “Glossary of NHC Terms” a tropical cyclone is defined as follows: “A warm-core non-frontal synoptic-scale cyclone, originating over tropical or subtropical waters, with organized deep convection and a closed surface wind circulation about a well-defined center.”

If we ignore the rather technical terminology in the first half of the sentence and just focus on the second half we can emerge with our two important pieces of information: organized thunderstorms and a closed surface circulation.

Here’s an infrared satellite image of “Invest 94L” about an hour ago:

We can see what the NHC means about minimal thunderstorm activity, but it is looking more organized than a few hours ago (here’s a loop, but it’s live so if it’s much past 1am Monday August 31 you won’t get much out of it) and since the official Center definition of tropical cyclone doesn’t declare how much “deep convection” (read: strong thunderstorms) have to be present we’ll just say that this qualifies.

Now for “closed circulation,” which is usually much harder to find and less likely to be present in “tropical disturbances” (read: areas of thunderstorms in the tropics) we can turn to NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite for data about ocean surface winds to begin our investigation of this issue: the satellite passes over any one spot about every 11 hours and so the data is sometimes dated (it also takes a few hours to post online) but there’s some data covering Invest 94L from 21:13 UTC yesterday (roughly 7.5 hours ago). (Again, that map will be updated with new data sometime on Monday so it might not be what I was looking at. Sorry.)

The QuikSCAT data tells us an interesting story: not only does Invest 94L have a closed circulation, winds at 5:13pm EDT were generally weak, but there was one measurement of 30 knot winds, just 4 knots below the definition for tropical storm force winds (a buoy located near that measurement reported winds of 23 knots and a gust of 29 knots at 2am last night). And as I noted earlier, this system was looking much less organized several hours ago, when that measurement was taken. By now the storm not only has “organized deep convection” but also has a “closed surface wind circulation” with winds of very near tropical storm force. I feel certain that what’s out in the Atlantic, only 48-72 hours away from affecting the easternmost islands of the Caribbean according to some forecasting models (click on “Storm 94″ and again, the data is live, results may vary, blah, blah, blah), is already Tropical Depression Six and should be defined as such. I understand that the thunderstorms are not all packed close around the center of the storm, but the system’s organization over the past few hours has really improved to where it looks just like any other tropical depression: somewhat disorganized, but with the potential (under a favorable atmospheric environment, which the NHC says it has) to turn into a better organized storm, and probably Tropical Storm Erika.

I hope the NHC will do one of the following at the 5am advisory time:
1. start advisories on Tropical Depression Six, or
2. send an Air Force or NOAA Hurricane Hunter airplane to take a closer look at the system;

I should head to bed, fall semester classes start tomorrow….

Cheers,
-jimmy

Well, it’s been a big day in the Atlantic, and it doesn’t look like it will end any time soon.

You may have read my history of Tropical Depression Two (now Tropical Storm Ana) yesterday morning, and you may have further seen my tweet about the formation of Tropical Storm Bill (only 6 hours after being declared a Tropical Depression) on Saturday evening.

Coming on the heels of a completely quiet June, July and first half of August, this is all pretty intense. But it’s not over yet. Not only are both Ana and Bill heading toward land (Ana has prompted a Tropical Storm Watch for parts of the Leeward Islands and Bill is currently forecast to pass near the same area as a hurricane next week), but now there’s a new system brewing much closer to home: the Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Tampa, FL.

Dubbed Invest 91L*, here’s the latest from the Hurricane Center on this new system:

SATELLITE AND RADAR DATA INDICATE THAT A SMALL AREA OF LOW PRESSURE IN THE EASTERN GULF OF MEXICO…CENTERED ABOUT 80 MILES SOUTHWEST OF TAMPA…IS BECOMING BETTER ORGANIZED AND MAY BE DEVELOPING A CLOSED SURFACE CIRCULATION. ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE FOR ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THERE IS A HIGH CHANCE…GREATER THAN 50 PERCENT…OF THIS SYSTEM BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE SOMETIME TODAY.

[*systems that aren't quite organized enough to be called Tropical Depressions but that bare watching are called invests and numbered from 90-99 (when they hit 99 they just go back to 90).]

(live IR satellite image of invest 91L)

Invest 91L is already looking like it’s spinning on radar imagery out of Tampa (and on infrared satellite, for that matter) and the radar presentation is overall fairly impressive (see image below). As the NHC noted above, the one thing holding this system back from being declared T.D. 4 (or even T.S. Claudette?) is the surface circulation. Not closed, not a storm. Closed, and the NHC declares it. It’s that simple.

(Click to visit UCAR for latest images.)

If the system does get a closed circulation (which I’m 90% sure it will by 5am EDT, when the NHC issues advisories and would likely start advisories on this system if deemed necessary) it doesn’t have a lot of time to mature before it makes landfall. The NHC has it moving to the NNW at 15mph, and most models bring it inland near the Florida/Alabama state line within the day.

Given the presentation of the system on radar and satellite my money is on T.S. Claudette by the end of Sunday, but we’ll see.

Gotta say, this weekend isn’t boring in the Atlantic!

Stay tuned and stay safe.

Cheers,
-j

OK, maybe it’s not THAT crazy, but I find it amusing, mostly how the National Hurricane Center is handling the whole thing.

Some history:

It’s August and we’ve yet to see a Tropical Storm in the Atlantic. Last year at this time T.S. Fay (the 6th storm of the season) was just forming. All in all, it’s been REALLY BORING in the Atlantic, and I’m guessing (being a weather/hurricane nut just as I’m assuming most of the NHC forecasters are) that the good folks down at the National Hurricane Center might be getting a wee bit bored?

So when T.D. 2 formed last Tuesday morning I imagine it was a bit of a celebration in the office (sometime I need to take a post and explain the fine balance between concerned for the safety of those in harms way and oh finally something is gonna happen I was about to explode this is so exciting I love storms even though I’m not a sadist that I think most severe weather nuts experience).

Almost 24 hours later (on Wednesday morning) the storm was looking so good that I tweeted my belief that at Advisory 4 (24 hours after the initial advisory) the system would become Tropical Storm Ana (with winds of at least 40mph).

Alas, all was not well with our newest Tropical Depression. By Wednesday evening, barely 36 hours after it formed, the NHC was reporting that it was basically dead but they kept issuing advisories on the system. This turn of events prompted me to create a twitvid on Thursday morning noting my amusement that the NHC was still issuing advisories on a system that they themselves were saying was basically dead.

Finally on Thursday evening, 24 hours after the storm died according to the NHC, they stopped advisories.

Later that evening I logged on and looked at satellite images of the storm only to be amused to see that T.D. 2 was playing cat-and-mouse with the NHC by visibly increasing in organization after the Center had stopped officially issuing advisories on the storm. By Friday afternoon it seemed obvious to me that T.D. 2 was determined to makes fools of the NHC forecasters who had (rightfully) pulled the plug on the storm the day before.

It took until 12:30am tonight for the NHC to decide that T.D. 2 was back and re-start advisories on the system. To the Center’s credit, according to the forecast discussion they waited for data from no less than four different sources (satellite images, surface wind data recorded via satellite, buoy data and data from a special NOAA jet equipped to fly over hurricanes and tropical weather) before reinstating advisories on the storm. Fool me once, shame on you, feel me twice, shame on the overeager NHC forecasters, right?

The current forecast calls for the storm to become a Tropical Storm on Saturday evening and to pass over or near the northeastern Caribbean islands on Monday.

I know weather forecasting is supposed to be all about science and hard facts, but I’ve seen enough crazy weather (including tropical storms that just screw with the forecasters trying to keep one step ahead of them) that I’m a firm believer in individual storms sometimes just having a mind of their own, and if the story of T.D. 2 so far tells me anything, it’s that this system might just be one of those storms.

Buckle up, it’s gonna be a fun ride.

-j

You know it’s bad when the 12th most searched for term on Google right now is “frozen pipes what to do“.

It hit -15.8°F at 6:25am at my house last night with the windchill bottoming out near -28°F (that, of course, does not take into account how it feels when the wind gusts, which would be quite a bit colder), now it has rebounded to the balmy temperature of 10° above zero and tonight is supposed to be a good deal warmer than last night, so I think the worst is over, at least in Indiana.

Classes were, in fact, canceled today at HU. Power wasn’t restored until just minutes before 9am, when the first classes of the day normally start, so I was able to sleep in and get another 7 hours of sleep (on top of the 4 I had gotten through 8am) which was very, very nice. But this means that all my friends on campus had to spend the coldest night the area as seen in many years (edit: NWS says it hasn’t been this cold in 24 years) in unheated dorm rooms and/or crowded warming locations, neither of which had to be really fun. I hope they’re all OK.

Anyway. I should go see about some breakfast of something.

Cheers.

-j

Today’s Schlock Mercenary is a good analogy for how I feel on more days than I would like to admit. Kinda like today.

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So there’s this power outage. Some power poles snapped (Duke Energy says they don’t know way, but it seems to me that given the extremely cold temperatures the likes of which we haven’t seen in years, the power poles probably got very brittle and any moisture inside them froze in the -14° and snapped [at least that's probably what happened to one, the other three were probably pulled down by it], but who knows, maybe somebody hit them with a car) and plunged 2600 people in Huntington into the dark and cold, including the campus of my University (I live half a mile from campus and am literally 2 blocks from the power outage zone, words can not describe how glad I am that I still have power). Now, originally there was a rumor that it would be fixed by 1am, but it’s now 2am and Duke is still reporting 2,652 people in the dark, including Huntington University. So the big million dollar question of the night is: how soon will the power get back on, and will classes be canceled in the morning (it’s January-Term where we have only two class times every day: 9am-11am and 1pm-3pm, I’m in a 9am class…meeting in 6.7 hours)? Duke says they don’t know how long it’ll take to fix the power poles, and even if that’s the only issue causing the blackout since there are some outages nearby, as well, so it could be hours…or it could be in 10 minutes and the classrooms will have time to rewarm and nobody will ever know that we had no power (except those poor students in the dorms who are probably freezing too death right now).

Personally speaking, I think that since a lot of students probably didn’t have time to do their homework, sleep or really think about their morning (or afternoon) classes at all this evening/night (power’s been out since before 8pm), that classes should be canceled, but then, if they were, who would know? The e-mail server went down with everything else and we have no way of being told if classes are on or not (different Q: why does an organization of hundreds of people that hosts all it’s own web and e-mail servers not have a back-up generator for said servers?). At least we commuters don’t have any way of knowing…the on-campus students will know from their RAs and RDs. Of course, I’m willing to bet that with no power for 6+ hours and a temperature cold enough to melt brain tissue (I guess it just feels that way, but anyway…) some of the students in the dorms have gone to a local church that has opened their (much warmer) doors to any HU students who want to actually be warm tonight, and are therefore out of the loop in terms of being told about the morning class status.

In short: it’s all a big mess and I want to know if I should do my homework for the morning or just not, plus if I can sleep in in the morning.

Alas, I don’t think I’ll be getting answers to any of those questions within the next few hours. What a shame.

And they were just talking about installing an emergency student contact system using txting…seems like this is a good endorsement of that idea, plus the idea of having a back-up power supply on the networking equipment.

Hmm.

-j

Today is officially the coldest day since I got my weather station nearly 7 years ago. Currently it’s -13°F and dropping. When the novelty of the whole thing wears off this is really starting to annoy me. I enjoyed walking home in -1°F and sun this morning, but that is very different from -13° and no sun right now…not to mention the wind which produces a wind chill of less than -27°.

I really, really, really do not want to go to class tomorrow morning when it’s going to be even colder than this.

I love the Midwest’s thunderstorms. They’re next to none, but I’m really starting to hate winter here. I’ve lived here my entire life and only the last couple of years have I begun to really dislike a third (sometimes half) of the entire year’s weather. It may be time to leave this place.

Hmm.

-j

Right now it’s -4*F outside. That’s the coldest it’s been since February 2007.

But the real story is tonight, when it’s supposed to plummet to -16F. If that happens it will be the coldest temperature I’ve ever recorded since I got my weather station in March 2002. Brrr.

Cheers.

-j

Hey, look, it’s 11 degrees outside.

I can’t say I’m totally happy about this.

-j

There’s a hurricane in the Caribbean. I kid you not:

Hurricane Paloma is predicted to impact the Cayman Islands, where there are hurricane warnings currently in effect, on Friday night and to cross central Cuba on Saturday night on its way toward the Bahamas on Monday.

Didn’t expect that this week, although I had noticed the area of disturbed weather near central America for the last several days so maybe I should’ve realized it could turn into something more. Hmm.

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Maybe I’m reading way too much into things, but can someone please explain to me why the stock market was climbing for over a week through Election Day (gaining over 15%) but in the last 2 days it’s lost nearly 10%? Even though Obama’s election was supposedly going to save us all from all of life’s ills, especially the ones the government has control over? I know Obama’s not in office yet, but given that the stock market is based on investor PERCEPTIONS and not any one policy and the fact that the market was RISING until Tuesday…I don’t know. I just think it’s kinda odd and telling.

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As a result of gaining half a dozen (or so) seats in the Senate, Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid has started the process of kicking turncoat Joe Lieberman out of the dem caucus, seeing as Lieberman turned independent in 2006 when he lost a primary battle with a real democrat, vocally supported John McCain during this election season and spoke at the Republican National Convention this summer.

I am incredibly happy to see Lieberman finally being removed from the dem caucus, and more importantly being stripped of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. I know we needed him on our side the last 2 years to have a majority in the senate, but it was always annoying having a more and more vocally republican member of the democratic caucus.

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I heard a rumor somewhere that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might be tapped to head the EPA under Obama’s administration. I think that would be the best thing to happen since Al Gore realized that the world was warming.

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That’s all for now, folks.

Cheers.

-j

I’m pretty sure that it’s not supposed to be 65-75 degrees for 6 days straight in late October/early November in northern Indiana. And yet, yesterday was 73 degrees, today was 70 and the next 4 days are supposed to be similar:

I’m not really complaining, this week is absolute hell for me schoolwork-wise (probably the worst of the semester, even counting finals week) and I’m happy to catch a break in the weather (it’s not so fun walking home from campus everyday when it’s raining and/or 40 degrees), but I am pretty sure that these types of temperatures, especially for quite a few days like this, is pretty abnormal this time of year.

Hmm.

Cheers.

-jimmy