1ST MODERATE RISK/SEVERE WEATHER - CLEVELAND TORNADO WATCH HISTORY

Friday, May 7th marks the first MODERATE RISK issued by the Storm Prediction Center for Northeastern Ohio.  Maybe once a year at best is Northern Ohio under a MODERATE RISK.  What usually follows is a TORNADO WATCH which also doesn't happen in the Cleveland/Akron metro area very often.  How infrequent does it happen?

I scanned the Storm Prediction Center archives for all of the Tornado Watches over the last several years to see if any were issued over the core of Northeastern Ohio.  Surprisingly, I had to go all of the way back to 2006 to find one.

There have been a few tornado watches affecting fringe counties but not many in the center of the area.

Here are the Tornado Watches in reverse order since the last CLEVELAND/AKRON METRO TORNADO WATCH back in 2006:  These maps are created by the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.  Each map has the "WATCH BOX:, counties in watch box with radar.
 

2009 NO Tornado Watches for Northern Ohio

2008 Tornado Watches

2007 Tornado Watches

2006 Tornado Watches

HERE IT IS.  THE LAST CLEVELAND/AKRON METRO TORNADO WATCH

Turmoil in Greece? Greek Satellite and Weather

Greece is in the midst of a government shutdown, abankrupt government and rioting in the streets. Will the weather affect the instability in Greece?

The forecast for Greece from the HELLENIC NATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE is here

Remember that all temperatures and rainfall amounts are metric.  So temperatures are in Celsius and the rain amounts are in millimeters!

Click HERE for the most recent Greek satellite image and loop.

The New Tornado Alley and Ohio Tornado History

Michael Frates, grad-student at the University of Akron mapped out all F3, F4 and F5 tornadoes (the strongest tornadoes) from 1950 through 2006 which stayed on the ground for at least 20 miles. What he came up with is several regions or "alleys" where the strongest tornadoes occurred. First two images courtesy:  Michael Frates

The traditional "tornado alley" through Oklahoma and Kansas still remains and is very accurate.

However, two additional zones of higher frequency of F3-F5 tornadoes he found to exist in the south (Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama), and also in Indiana, central Kentucky and western Ohio.

This also corresponds to the average number of overall tornadoes here.

As we focus on each of the 88 counties in Ohio, the largest number of tornadoes since 1950 is Lorain and Richland counties.

The largest outbreak of tornadoes occurred in April of 1974.   Over a 24 hour period, 147 tornadoes were confirmed from southern Michigan to southern Alabama totalling 2600 miles of tornado path length.  Notice how the strongest tornadoes that day developed in the "new" tornado alley (Indiana and the south).

Back in 1985, eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania and New York was devestated by a series of incredible tornadoes.  Newton Falls and Niles, Ohio near Youngstown were hit by an F5 tornado.11 people were killed marking this tornado outbreak as the most deadly since the 1974 outbreak. 

In more recent times (since 1989), northeastern Ohio has had some strong tornadoes as well.  Each triangle denotes the location and the strength of each tornado on a scale of 0 to 5.  Notice the two F3 tornadoes; one in the Akron area and the other NW of Medina.

So far, this year has been quiet.  Let's hope it stays that way.

Gulf Oil Spill Makes Landfall. Where Next?

The University of Wisconsin has a great site that features sectorized MODIS (  ) imagery.  See that blob off of the coast of Louisiana?  That is the oil spill.  A closeup showing the massive area the oil spill is encompassing.

The forecast model from the Environmental Modeling Center at the National Weather Service show how the Loop Current will play a substantial role in the movement of the oil spill this week taking the oil spill into the Florida Keys.

Oil location map since April 25th

Dr. Jeff Master at wunderground has a great post on the spill, its impacts and the forecast for where the spill is heading.  http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html

Weekend Severe Weather - Tornado Stats

Another active weekend of severe weather in the south.  Not as bad as the weekend before but powerful nonetheless.

Tornado deaths are not as high as in years past yet heavily concentrated in the south.

Here is a snapshot of the accumulation of tornado watches per county.  The darker the red, the higher the concentration of tornado watches in that area.  Notice northern Ohio was spared of any tornado watches last season.

Now that El Nino is weakening and summer warmth and higher dewpoints become more widespread, expect severe/tornadic weather to be more common in the months ahead.

Big Picture Economic Overview

A great post from The Big Picture blog by Barry Ritholtz on the economy as a whole.

I highlighted some sections that are worth noting as the year continues.

1. The Economy is recovering; The recession is over: Of that, we have no doubt, as the data is clear. The free fall of 2008-09 is over, and a gradual improvement is seen across the board. Industrial manufacturing, exports, autos, retail sales, durable goods, travel all confirm that the economy is “healing.”

2. But, the recovery is “Lumpy”: — Part of the reason some people doubt the recovery story is how unevenly distributed the improvements are. Geographically, much of the country is still soft. In retail, it is pent up demand plus luxury goods. In technology, it is mobile devices and consumer products. Financial firms are taking advantage of the steep yield curve and ZIRP to arbitrage profits, as opposed to actually lending. Profits are not evenly distributed either.

3. Government spending is only part of the story: In the midst of the crisis,  Credit froze, the consumer panicked, and business spending looked to be going extinct. Uncle Sam temporarily bridged the gap.

But the argument that government spending is the only game in town overstates the case. Private sector CapEx spending and hiring is improving (albeit slowly); Consumers have come out of their bunkers and are dining out, going to the movies, hitting the malls, and traveling.

We have not returned to the Home ATM days of 2004-07 — and probably won’t in our lifetimes — but the present environment is a massive improvement from the 2008-09 contraction.

4. Weak Improvement in Employment: The massive labor under-utilization is one of the two biggest drags on the economy (RE being the other). Near record low hours worked suggest that employers can simply increase hours rather than make new hires. Thus, I do not look for a V-shaped employment recovery — forget about 400-500k NFP data — anytime soon.

There are 15 million unemployed, and 8 million underemployed — it will take a long time for them to be re-absorbed into the economy. The 2001 recession took 47 months to return employment to pre-recession levels. This recession will likely take 65-75 months to achieve that goal — if not longer.

5. Real Estate (Commercial and Residential): We do not believe that residential real estate has found its natural price level yet. It remains over-valued. This is due to artificially low mortgage rates, foreclosure abatements and mortgage mod programs. We are probably 10-15% over valued, when measured by Median Sales price to median Income, Rent vs Ownership Costs, and Home Value as a Percentage of GDP.

Commercial real estate tends to lag residential by 18-24 months. It is still adapting to the downsizing of America, particularly retail. The over-investment in commercial real estate of the past decade will take at least another 5 years to resolve, if not longer.

6. Deflation? Inflation?:  Well, as my pal Jeff Saut notes, we definitely have “flation.” Just not the type that everyone fears.

As of today, Deflation is a fact, inflation is an opinion. We are still living in a period of falling prices, heavy discounts, wage deflation, asset depreciation and lack of pricing power.  The S&P500 is below levels seen in the 1990s; Wages are flat for a decade.

The risk going forward is that the Fed fails to remove the accommodations in time. But they have Japan as an example of ZIRP with no inflation.  So long as labor under-utilization is near record levels, they can take their time in tightening.

7. The rest of the world: Europe is a disaster, and is likely to remain that way for a while. Asian economies are doing very well, helping to pull the rest of the world along — but China’s market is at 6 month lows, something few people are discussing. The risk in China’s real estate and stock markets has been mostly ignored,. Commodity regions and emerging markets still have strength.

Canadian Water Consumption During Olympics

EPCOR, the water utility company that runs the fountains up in Edmonton, Canada released this graph yesterday. It's water consumption during the Olympic gold medal hockey game, overlaying consumption of the previous day. How much do Canadians love their hockey? A lot.

The first period ends. Time to pee. The second period ends. Time to pee. The third period ends. Time to pee. Consumption goes way down when Canada wins and during the medal ceremony.

Finally, when it's all said and done, the rest of the country can relieve itself, figuratively and literally.

Article/graph  courtesy:  flowingdata.com

Major League Baseball: No Rainouts through April 22nd

Hard to believe considering the volitile weather of early spring but so far, no rainouts in Major League Baseball. At least until last Friday.

A mixture of rain, sleet and snow in Denver forced the postponement of the Colorado Rockies’ game against the Florida Marlins.

 Photo: Courtesy:  Gazette.com

In the last two decades, at least half the time there was at least one postponement in the first week of the season, STATS LLC found. In 1995, the first rainout came on April 30, but that year started late after the players' strike was settled.



The longest MLB has gone into a season without a rainout was May 20, 1985, when Milwaukee and the Indians were called off at old Cleveland Stadium on the 43rd day of the season.

Medical Graduate Numbers

Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the  University of Michigan.  His blog "Carpe Diem" had a great article a few weeks back on the supply of medical graduates over the last few decades.  According to his research, the number hasn't increased as the demand increased in recent years.

This isn't an indictment on the new health care reform legislation but rather a look at the demand for services exceeding the health care system's inability to provide an adequate number of doctors to meet this increased demand.

"The supply of medical school graduates has remained basically flat for the last 30 years (data here). At the same time, the demand for physicians' services has increased over time because of a population that is both increasing and aging. So we've now got more people with more serious end-of-life medical problems demanding more medical care from a limited supply of physicians - and that's a sure prescription for rising MD salaries.

"The marketplace doesn't determine how many doctors the nation has, as it does for engineers, pilots and other professions. The number of doctors is a political decision, heavily influenced by doctors themselves. Congress controls the supply of physicians by how much federal funding it provides for medical residencies — the graduate training required of all doctors."

And we're now going to provide health care to an additional 20-30 million Americans under health care reform when the number of new physicians this year is about the same as the graduating class of 1980?"

Hurricane Season and Global Lightning

l Nino is weakening fast in the central Pacific.  As the sea surface temperatures slowly drop into the Summer, the trade winds will relax enough to allow tropical systems to develop much easier than last year.  Neutral conditions will stay steady through Hurricane Season.  Expect this season to be very active.

Back in 2005, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita ballooned into monster storms in the Gulf of Mexico due to increased water temperatures driven by a current of warm water that travels between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula.  This is called The Loop Current.

If a tropical storm develops over this current, it can build and strengthen extremely fast. The loop current could play a pivotal role in hurricane development this season in the gulf and subsequent landfalls.

A snapshot of the Global Lightning over the last 5 days shows activity along the equator heating up.  Notice the widespread lightning over the US during the recent severe weather outbreak last weekend.