Amazing Hail Storm Video

Credit:  National Weather Service, Norman, Oklahoma for analysis and photo

What is this Loop Current in the Gulf?

image credit: "uscgd8" at flickr

The Loop Current has been making the news since the Gulf Oil Spill occurred a few weeks ago. 
Now that the Oil Spill is drifting east, the Loop Current is now playing a pivotal role in where the oil spill travels.

What is this The Loop Current? is an ocean current that resides between the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba.  It originates in the Caribbean Sea, flows out into the Gulf of Mexico and loops around southeastward into the Florida Keys and into the Bahamas.  Its a few hundred miles wide and runs more than a 1000 feet deep.

According to the Cooperative Institute for Marine and atmospheric studies, the Loop Current draws its waters from the Yucatan Current, which is ultimately fed by the Caribbean Current, Guiana Current and North Equatorial Current. This provides a vital link between North Atlantic and South Atlantic waters.  Here is a graphic showing the ocean currents around the planet from the 1940s. The animation below shows the currents in action.

Althought this might be the first time you've heard about the Loop Current, you don't have to go far back in
history to find that the Loop Current was involved in another natural disaster.  Remember Hurricane
Katrina?  The Loop Current was directly responsible for its rapid intensification into the historic Category 5
hurricane we all remember. Notice how the track of Katrina and Rita coincides with the Loop Current.

Katrina wasn't the first hurricane to feed off of this moisture/heat rich Loop Current.  Hurricane Rita in 2004 intensified over the loop current as indicated above  Hurricane Camille in 1969, the last hurricane to directly hit New Orleans prior to Katrina interacted with "The Loop". Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and Hurricane Allen in 1981 among others have greatly intensified due to the loop current.


Back to the oil spill.  This same Loop Current that played a direct role in Hurricane Katrina's development
is directly involved with the track of the oil in the next severe weeks.

How can we accurately forecast the movement of the oil spill?  For years, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration has been doing research on the ocean and its movement. NOAA launches surface buoys to gain valuable data on the oceans and their behavior.  Here is the track of ALL of the buoys from 1978 to 2003.

You can see how the current behave near the loop current and how the current ntersects with the Gulf Stream around Florida and up the eastcoast.  Expect the Loop Current to strengthen hurricanes this season.  More on that later this summer.

Rainy Next 48 Hours

The grass is much greener now that we've had a few weeks of above normal rainfall. The trees are almost at  their peak and the late spring flowers are about ready to bloom.  Although the weekend was more or less dry and comfortable, the next southern system is now over the area and promises to produce yet another round of rainy weather over the next 36 hours.

Where is all of this moisture coming from?

To answer this, we have to go to the tropics and a term called:  PRECIPITABLE WATER

If you were to squeeze out ALL of the water vapor in the clouds in the form of rain, that is called PRECIPITABLE WATER.  The higher the PW, the more moisture in the atmosphere.  Higher moisture values are represented with warmer colors on the image here from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

The band of red and yellow shows the higher pool of moisture over the tropics.  Every once in a while, a tongue of moisture will stream north through the central US.  Often in the spring, this tongue of tropical moisture will make it all of the way into northern Ohio. Its this moisture source that is responsible for the frequent rains over the last two weeks.  Expect more this week.

Do We Need More Rain After Last Week?

One quick update first from the National Weather Service in Cleveland.

...The short answer to that question is NO. The long answer to it is YES.

Here is a graph showing our actual rainfall versus the normal rainfall for all of Ohio over the last 2 weeks.

No wonder why the grass is so much greener recently.  90% Northeastern Ohio is above normal since May 1st.

Now, look at the map showing actual rainfall versus the normal rainfall over the last month.

A totally different picture.  Aside from some select areas where severe storms developed last week, more than 50% of Northeastern Ohio is still slightly below normal over the long haul.

Coming up Monday and Tuesday, we'll talk about the MUCKELHEADS!

Stormchaser Video from Monday, May 10, 2010

Credit:  www.twisterchaser.net, Northeastern Ohio storm chaser for the video and commentary

More information on this storm chase  HERE at TWISTERCHASER.NET

"Today we chased a mesocyclone from the Western panhandle of Oklahoma into Texas, got some great footage of initial rotation and lightning, this storm did produce 1 tornado but it was on our southwest side and it was rain-wrapped so we couldn’t see it. It eventually weakened but left us with some great photo opportunities and footage, will post those pictures tomorrow, however I did want to post my first official footage clip, this was one of the first tornadoes that touched down on Monday just south of Wakita before all the chaos ensued"

Odds of Getting Struck by Lightning and other Weather

After a rough weather week and a much quieter weekend ahead, let's have some fun looking at weather odds.

Many people are deathly afraid of severe weather.  Are the chances of getting killed by severe storms as high as what most people believe?  According to the bookofodds.com, the chances of being killed by a tornado are:

1 in 4, 513,000

For comparison, the chances of dying from a fall off a cliff is:

1 in 4,101,000

The bookofodds.com correctly points out these facts about the deadliest tornado on record:

"The tornado with the highest death count was the 1925 Tri-State Tornado, which ravaged a path a mile wide and 219 miles across through Missouri, Illinois,and Indiana. The speed was 60 miles per hour—twice the forward speed of the average tornado. Although the Tri-State Tornado lacked the classic funnel cloud, and was therefore virtually invisible, the damage was catastrophic: nearly 2,000 people were injured, property losses totaled more than $16 million, and 689 people died."

The Deadliest Weather of the Decade; Top ten states/chances of getting killed by weather. (1999 to 2008). A word of caution: A distaster like Hurricane Katrina will significantly skew these chances higher for the state effected.

1. Louisiana 1 in 49,330
2 Mississippi 1 in 112,700
3 Alaska 1 in 116,900
4 Wyoming 1 in 173,800
5 Missouri 1 in 182,900
6 Oklahoma 1 in 240,500
7 Arkansas 1 in 287,800
8 Kansas 1 in 290,300
9 Illinois 1 in 303,900
10 Utah 1 in 337,700

The odds of getting by lightning: 1 in 835,500

The odds of getting killed by hail: 1 in 734,400,000

The odds of a meteor landing on your house: 1 in 182,138,880,000,000

A few odds and ends comparing severe weather odds to other odds.

A 10-character password yields 59,873,693,923,837,890,625 combinations.

80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000 The number of way to order a 52 card deck

More Severe Possible Today

A few storms earlier today along the warm front.   They moved away very fast.

I rarely go into the science into weather forecasting mainly because it bores most people.  People want an accurate forecast and could care less where you get it or how you come up with it.

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Since we've had several severe weather events over the last week, I figure that this is good time to go over some of the parameters that are analyzed in determining whether or not severe weather is possible.

Today, another two pronged system is developing in the middle of the US early Thursday morning.  The first wave is along the warm front which pushes through Ohio later on this morning/early afternoon.  Temperatures surge into the 70s after the warm front goes north.

After that, the cold front approaches with plenty of energy with it.

The components for today's severe weather are these:

* Humid air
* Warm temperatures & sunshine
* Strong cold front/lots of lift
* Changing wind direction from the ground up to 18,000 feet

How Massive is the Oil Spill? Tornado Video

A new image from NASA's recent earth imagery section shows the massive extent of the Oil Spill.  The legend at the top shows a 25 kilometer length (15 miles).  That is roughly 120 miles long!

Oklahoma City Tornadoes - May 10th

Monday evening just outside of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a tornado outbreak began killing 5 and injuring dozens of others.

Here is a photo that my sister's neighbor took as one of these approached the area.  

A brandnew photo of my sister and her kids in the neighbor's storm shelter.  The shelter is approximitely 4 feet by 10 feet.

The National Weather Service office in Norman, Oklahoma created this preliminary map of the tornadoes after the event.  More information about each tornado will be released once severe weather surveyers inspect the damage to determine the intensity of each tornado.

Friday's Severe Weather Recap

Friday marked the first time Cleveland, Akron and Canton (The NE Ohio metro area) was under a TORNADO WATCH in roughly 4 years.  The setup for severe weather was tremendous yet no TORNADOES. 

(ALL GRAPHICS COURTESY OF THE STORM PREDICTION CENTER AND THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE IN CLEVELAND, OHIO)

The Storm Prediction Center put northern Ohio under a MODERATE RISK early in the morning.  Northern Ohio is rarely under a MODERATE RISK--maybe once every two years--so the experts believed that this could have been deadly.

The Tornado Watch was issued at 3:50PM then the extension through 11PM

The radar at the peak of the event

Storm reports of wind and hail damage

The winds after the severe event was over and the cold front moved through