Tuesday, December 28, 2010

More Than 600 Snow Records Last 7 Days

Image courtesy: hamweather.com

The Best Winter Timelapse EVER!

This was taken by Michael Black. whose videos/timelapse photography has been featured on television many times.  This video was taken over 20 hours with a picture taken every 5 minutes.  ENJOY!

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Super Large Solar Flare - Changing Climate?

A few weeks back, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory scheduled to observe the sun for the next years while in orbit around the earth took this video of a solar flare emanating from the sun.  It takes a second or two to load.



I took a snapshot of one of the frames and drew the earth to scale so that you can the see the incredible size of this flare. Roughly 435,000 miles!



Many scientists believe that we are coming out of a period of low solar activity and trending into a period of more solar flares.  Some also believe that this increase in solar activity has a direct impact on our climate.  Some believe that the solar activity has very little effect on our global climate.  Only time will tell. 

Monday, December 20, 2010

Total Lunar Eclipse/Winter Solstice

A Total Lunar Eclipse on the Winter Solstice.  Doesn't happen very often.

Credit: Space.com

A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth's shadow passes in front of the moon obscuring the sun's light from hitting the moon directly.  Some does get through producing a reddish/rusty color from our perspective on earth.



Add in this event occurring on the winter solstice and it becomes very rare.  The last time it happened was in 1638.  Beyond this date, we really don't know for sure because the earth's rotation changes over time.  The further we go back, the actual lunar eclipse dates become less accurate.  Still, almost 400 years is a really long time.

Most articles list 2094 as the next total lunar eclipse date on a winter solstice.  But this one will only be visible in Europe and Asia.  So I checked the lunar tables on the NASA ECLIPSE SITE and came up with this date for all of us in Cleveland.


DECEMBER 21, 2466, starts at 7:19 PM

Here is the chart if you want to check the date out.  Its at the bottom in red.
 
Indeed a long way off so get ready early!


Monday, December 13, 2010

Round #2: Lake Effect And the Arctic

How the patterns have changed.  November was great.  No winter weather.  Milder temps.  Now another big round of lake effect snow; the second one in a little over a week!
CLICK HERE FOR NE OHIO RADAR
 Why the big change?


Let check out the temps compared to normal for November.  Fairly mild and uneventful.



 Most of us thought we'd make it well into December without getting lake effect.  We thought wrong!

Why the sudden change?

If you remember our winter weather outlook back in early November, we hinted at a HUGE dramatic change in the weather pattern in December and January driven by La Nina and the Arctic.

The pressure systems over the arctic change randomly. In the winter, those changes are more pronounced.

Below is a picture of how the temperatures over the arctic change the movement of the storms over the US and northeastern Ohio.  When the arctic is "NEGATIVE", it steers storms and cold air south just like our weather over the last week.
The arctic has "dipped" negative several times since September but no big weather changed occurred. 


This last "dip" in December is significant. Notice the temperatures so far compared to average.


The arctic has the potential to get more "negative" pushing COLDER AND COLDER AIR SOUTH through Christmas and the New Year.


Looking back at the DECEMBERS (17 Decembers total since 1950) in which the arctic was this strong this early in the season, we find that the temperatures are WELL BELOW NORMAL.


THE BOTTOM LINE:  LOOK FOR THIS COLD AIR AND FREQUENT LAKE EFFECT SNOW TO CONTINUE AT LEAST THROUGH CHRISTMAS AND POSSIBLY INTO EARLY JANUARY

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Sunday Storm Update - Thursday morning, Dec 9th

 Sunday's storm appears to take a northerly track--at the time of this writing, Thursday morning.  If this track is accurate, we get a rain/snow mix and less accumulating snow


I can guarantee super-arctic air Monday and Tuesday with big lake effect snow!

 

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

HUGE East Coast Snowstorm this weekend!

Snow totals as of Tuesday at 10:30AM from the National Weather Service in Cleveland. This covers 2 days of lake effect snow. Click on image below for larger look.


A major east coast snowstorm seems to be developing Sunday into Monday this weekend.  As temperatures warm into the mid 30s Saturday, the snow will be a heavier, wet snow compared to the fluffy, lake effect snow of the last several days. Get ready for ANOTHER ROUND of LAKE EFFECT MONDAY NEXT WEEK!


Monday, December 06, 2010

First of Many Arctic Cold Intrusions...Lake Effect Snow

The first lake effect snow event is here and its staying over Northeastern Ohio until early Wednesday.

Here is a photo my mom took in Hudson early Monday morning.





Winds out of the northwest is pulling moisture from Lake Erie, Lake Huron AND Lake Michigan producing widespread lake effect snow across Cleveland and northern Ohio.


Lake effect snow warnings for MEDINA, CUYAHOGA, SUMMIT, PORTAGE AND THE ENTIRE SNOWBELT until late Tuesday.

As we talked about in a previous post, cold air like this will be very common in December.  Here are the forecast temperatures for Tuesday and next Monday.  Notice it gets COLDER next week. EXPECT THIS COLD AIR TO CONTINUE THROUGH CHRISTMAS.


Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Last Look at Hurricane Season...-40 in Alaska!

A taste of what is coming for the eastern half of the US and northern Ohio later this winter, especially in January and February...

NASA has just found the first -40 degree temperature of the season yesterday over interior Alaska. This satellite (The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) is a radiation-detection imager that can be used for remotely determining cloud cover and surface temperatures by collecting different bands of radiation wavelengths.The coldest regions are shown with the purple/pink areas on this image.  Note: The image is not oriented from north to south.




Just a few random items I recently read about hurricane season courtesy of NOAA and NASA.  Read ahead and check out the images below showing the rainfall from the 2010 season compared to the record setting 2005 season:

The year 2010 was accurately predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to be an active one with 14-23 tropical cyclones and 8-14 hurricanes predicted. NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Fla. subsequently named 19 storms with 12 reaching hurricane strength.

The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active since the record breaking season of 2005. Hal Pierce of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, or TRMM satellite team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created a comparison between the tropical cyclone rainfall occurring in 2005 and 2010. These tropical cyclone rainfall analyses were both made at NASA Goddard using TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation data (TMPA).TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

The rainfall stayed offshore in two areas this year.

 In 2005, the rainfall was centered over the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba and Florida