'tis the quiet season

and still there's weather to talk about. as i type this, tropical storm beta is taking aim at nicaragua. this is the first time since they started naming tropical storms and hurricanes that they've had to go this far into the names list.

but here's a thought.

the last time the names list was used up (but they didn't have to go into the greek alphabet) was before satellites were up in orbit. (i couldn't find out exactly what year, though.) so that means that the named storms had to be observed by coastal stations or ships. no storms were remotely sensed. this record-setting year, quite a few of the storms wouldn't have been named had they not been observed by satellite imagery (and then the hurricane hunters).

so that leads me to wonder: if there had been satellites back then, how many names would have been gone through?

i'm willing to wager it would be more than there were this year.

seriously, folks

okay this is a little bit ridiculous. another category 5?

and this one, wilma, underwent very rapid intensification. it went from 60 knots to 150 knots in 24 hours. the pressure bombed (and then some!) fron 984 mb to 884 mb in 27 hours. that's a 100 mb drop, folks.

now, the 884 mb measurement is unofficial as of when i'm writing this, because if it were real it would be a record for the atlantic basin. naturally, because of this, they're going to wait for instrument calibration before they make it official.

whatever it is, this is one nasty storm.

sitting at college of dupage

i'm sitting here in the nexlab at cod and paul is in his office. but he has shown me some of the radar software available to the americans. this is really cool stuff, the visualizations they can do with their radar.

and once i can get my hands on the proper dataset, i'm going to hopefully get together with someone from cod and write a paper about time density weighting for when and where tornadoes happen, so that we can better tailor storm chasing trips. and determine higher-risk areas, updated for the year 2005. if it's possible. ;)

about the first snowstorm of the season

i should have visible satellite animations up and running by tomorrow (wednesday) afternoon, if not sooner. look for it.

as well, i'm going to fix a lot of links that have gone awol or changed their theme or whatever over the summer, and add some new ones, too.

geez, you'd think i've been busy with other things, like chasing, until now. ;)

spc unleashes new products

the storm prediction center has been releasing internal versions of a 4-8 day severe weather outlook.

now they're releasing them to the public with the caveat that these forecasts are merely experimental.

it's neat to see new products online from time to time.

the first ... "winter" ... storm

this storm was interesting, to say the least. pilot mound gave us reports of 45 cm of snow, and there were apparently whiteout conditions around southern manitoba.

here in the city, we got off lucky. the temperature was just enough above freezing that the snow didn't much stick to the ground.

but this evening i saw something interesting and, i suspect, rare.

i looked out my window and saw that all the exposed northeast-facing surfaces (trees, mainly) had a growth, abour 5 cm deep, of snow--the snow had been blown against the surfaces by the 50 to 70 km/h winds, and stuck.

it's almost like frosting on the side of trees.

this is silly

on friday, the last day of september, it was 27.7 degrees.

even on sunday morning, october 2, we were getting some serious warm and moist advection, causing what looked, in the morning, like storm chasers' gold.

currently it's 0.7 degrees. the wind is out of the north-northeast at 54 gusting 69 km/h, and it's snowing.

what happened to fall?

not a weather post, but...

peter, i lost your email.

please shoot me a message....

winter? already?

the new run of the gem regional model is in and it looks pretty ugly for southern manitoba.

a strong surface low is forecast to develop in northeastern colorado with a warm front/surface trough extending northeastward through central minnesota. actually, most of that has already happened. a quasistationary front near minneapolis is giving near-severe thunderstorms to the area.

but then.

the whole complex is forecast, by the gem regional, to move northward. and all the while a high pressure complex in saskatchewan, stretching up to eastern nunavut is forecast to pour in cold air.

where shall the twain meet? well, according to the canadian model, they shall meet over southern manitoba on wednesday.

what kind of weather would happen? the forecast is for rain changing to freezing rain changing to snow for winnipeg. farther west, it's to be more snow and less rain. the snow/freezing rain/rain line is progged to be right over winnipeg.

the american nam model, by contrast, has all the precipitation happening in north dakota and minnesota.

so which one will win? i don't know, but wherever it is, the first major storm of the winter is just on the horizon.

i'm glad i have good tires on my car.