A little follow-up now on the Australian flooding. It has been the biggest weather story of the year so far, with many people using the terms biblical, historic, and record-breaking. The pictures and videos seem to bear this out, so you might be surprised that some locations have had worse flooding in the past. In Brisbane, Australia it is only the third highest flood level in their recorded history. The Brisbane river crested higher in 1974 and in 1893. In fact, the 1893 flood crested almost twice as high as this year’s flood. I suspect the effects of the flood are worse this year due to the higher population in and around the flood plain. Check out this article to see maps of the current and past floods.

Some people are worried about the effects of the flood water on the Great Barrier Reef. Satellite images show a lot of silty muddy water heading  into the ocean off the east coast of Australia. No doubt the “dirty” water will temporarily disrupt the ecosystem, but if the Great Barrier Reef survived and thrived after massive floods in the past, it should be able to in 2011 as well.

Of greater danger to the reef is ocean acidification. I suspect that coral will eventually be able to adapt and tolerate warmer ocean water and more acidity, but if non-tolerant species die-out rapidly, it could make for some tough times on the reefs of the world oceans. The ocean acidification is mainly tied to the use of fossil fuels. Even if you think the whole AGW situation is a scam and a hoax, it would be good to use less fossil fuels in order to prevent acidification of the oceans. 2011 is the year when you could get a good start because a handful of electric vehicles are set to be rolled out into showrooms.

Have a good Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Environment, Flooding

Have you evered wondered if the moon can impact weather here on the Earth?  We certainly know that the moon impacts tides through its gravitational force.  Some people believe a frost is more likely during the start or end of the growing season if a full moon is present.  How about rainfall; can the moon alter that?

Recent research by Arizona State University Professor Randy Cerveny, Ph.D. student Bohumil Svom, and Russel Vose of NOAA suggests that yes, the moon can affect rainfall.  In a recent report published in Geophysical Research Letters, the team has found a slight increase in stream flow around the quarter moon.  That’s the halfway between the full and new moon phases.  They reviewed 100 years of data from about 11,000 U.S. Geological Survey stations across the U.S. to come to this conclusion.

To verify that this stream flow increase came from rainfall and not tides, they examined over 1200 station’s daily precipitation records from as early as 1895.  The data showed that precipiation tended to increase a few days before the quarter moon.  Now keep in mind, it is a rather small change, only accounting for 1 to 2% of the stream flow.  However they claim it is indeed a real effect. 

This is new to me.  I can honestly say in my 18 years of forecasting weather, I have never included moon phase as one of the ingredients of my forecast!  What you don’t learn, right!

Posted under Environment, forecast, Science, Space, Weather NEws

If the blog entry tonight doesn’t flow as well as usual, if it verges off into a tangent or two, it is because the Packers are playing a big playoff game in Atlanta and you know I will be checking out the game in between the 6 and 10 pm show.

An interesting thing has occurred in the weather so far this winter, that is besides the strong La Nina pattern, and besides the big blizzard in December. It is that we haven’t experienced a true arctic outbreak. What!? – you say. True, we did have a low of -18 back on December 15th, but that was mainly due to the fresh deep snowcover after the blizzard. If you have been following the forecast and the blog over the last week to 10 days, you know we have been hinting at an arctic outbreak “on the horizon”. We have been tickled by little bits of arctic air at times but haven’t felt the full brunt. Our medium range computer models continue to indicate a blast of bitter cold about 4 or 5 days ahead – but they have been showing it for about a week now. At this point, I am forecasting the “true” arctic blast moving through the area on Thursday the 20th and lingering through Saturday the 22nd. We will wait and see. If it does develop then low temps could be -10 to -20 and high temps will struggle to get above zero on Friday (the 21st).

One other factor that has prevented our temps from dropping as much as expected is that Lake Superior does not have much ice yet this winter. This affects things in two ways. First of all, the cold air moving down from the north picks up “warmth” from the open waters. This moderates the arctic air. The air also picks up moisture which leads to more cloud cover. When we have clouds at night, the temperatures do not fall as far. There have been many occasions this winter when we have forecast low temps near zero or a bit below zero only to have temps hang up around 10 to 15. Check out the current great lakes ice analysis here. Select “composite west” for Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, select the last color jpg in the list and then click on ”Submit Query”.

If by chance you are bummed about the fact that it hasn’t been cold enough this winter (hey, there are a few people who like enjoy all the seasons in Wisconsin, even the cold of Winter), then you might consider traveling to the scientifically proven coldest, calmest, and driest place on earth. Care to guess where that is? If you said Antarctica, go to the head of the class. The place is called Ridge A on the Antarctic Plateau and it is unlikely that anyone has ever been there. So if you wanted to enjoy temps as low as -94 Fahrenheit, and get your name in the history books as a modern day explorer, that is the place for you. Why would scientists want to find such an extreme place? Astronomy. If you want to get a good view of the heavens from and earth-based telescope, then you don’t want much moisture in the air or much turbulence. Ridge A fits the bill, however, the cost of setting up a world class telescope in such a location makes it unlikely it will be built anytime soon.

Have a nice evening! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Environment, forecast, Freeze, Space, Winter Weather

Once I pick up a subject, I have a tough time putting it down, especially when it is an evolving and interesting development (such as private space travel, which I decided to stop blogging about a few months back, but I wanted to mention because SpaceShipTwo made another succesful test glide yesterday). As you know, I am excited for the great potential for a cleaner energy future. Because of this, I have followed the progress of LED lighting for a few years now. I was quite “jazzed” a couple years back when a company announced they would be making reasonably priced LED light bulbs for the home – you can read about it it here: A True Revolution in Lighting. In the end, the company (Polybrite) could not bring down the cost for mass consumption. They sell their bulb for $50 online. It turned out to be a dud, however, the whole field of LED lighting continues to advance. Prices continue to come down and major companies are finding more and more uses for LED lights. Chili’s restaurants plan to replace all of their current lighting with LEDs over the next couple of years! The advantages of LEDs are obvious but the cost is still a problem for mass adoption. Many experts expect LED to be close to 50% of the residential lighting market by 2020. My house is already partially lit by LEDs.

While reading about lighting and LEDs, I came across this interesting article about another change we (society) could implement in order save energy and pollute less – putting LEDs in street lights and powering them with alternative energy. Sounds great doesn’t it? I figured that many cities and utilities would have already done so if they had the opportunity. Stunningly, according to this TechCrunch article, utilities are not necessarily gung-ho about the possibility. I was unaware that in many communities the utility companies are the ones who are solely responsible for the operation and maintenance of street lights. So even if communities wanted to switch over to LED lights running on wind or solar power, they might not be able. I suspect that the vast majority of utilities would favor more energy efficiency, but there was at least one recent allegation in Kansas that a utility was purposely using inefficient bulbs in order earn a few more bucks (charging the city for electricity).

Discussing the predictions and progress of LED lighting brought me back to the subject of technology and AGW once again. If LED lighting (much of it run by alternative energy) is eventually going to win out (by 2020), then predictions of fossil fuel usage in the future (and resultant climate projections) are almost certainly too high. What brought this point home to me even more was perusing the most recent outlook for nanotechnology. Some of the visionaries expect big progress in energy production – meaning more efficiency and more alternatives.

So when I read about what the climate might be like in the year 3000 (more global warming), I admit, I have to roll my eyes. It is an interesting study, but I doubt it has much relevance to what is actually happening on earth right now. Set aside the fact that no computer model can hope to predict that far into the future, the fact is, humans and the present pollution we generate will not be around for much more than a couple decades hence. Here is yet another study warning about the potential of the earth warming to levels that were seen during the distant past - ASSUMING carbon emissions continue at their current rate. Thanks for the warning, but I find fault with the premise.

This is not to say that technological progress is fait acompli, just that the odds are increasing that we will find ways to move away from fossil fuels and clean up the environment rather quickly (in geologic time). No one should wantonly pollute, betting that ”future” technology will make things clean and safe once again. Everyone should try to understand how our actions affect the weather and climate in order to help make decisions about the future. However, I give you permission to disregard forecasts about the climate in the year 3000.

Have a fun weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Technology

One of my winter jobs at the Schumacher ranch is to keep our ice skating rink free of snow.   We have a small creek that runs through our yard and it can be a sweet place to skate sometimes.  Normally I don’t mind the job too much, but this winter has been a real challenge, because it seems to snow nearly every day or pretty close.  Granted most of the snowfalls have been minor, but even a half inch of snow on the ice makes for less than ideal skating.  It gets packed down tight eventually and slows you way down or might even cause you to trip.  So with all this in mind, I did a little investigating to see if the snow frequency this winter so far is beating past winters. 

I looked back to when this relatively snowy streak started, back around November 22nd until today, January 13th.  We have had at least a trace of snow on 35 of those 53 days in the Wausau area.  That is about two-thirds of the days.  So my mind did exxagerate some, thinking it was almost every day.  How do the same periods compare to recent winters?  The results are listed below.

% of Days From Nov. 22nd- Jan. 13th of Winter Season with A Snowfall

• 2010-11      66%
• 2009-10     43%
• 2008-09     66%
• 2007-08     62%
• 2006-07     36%
• 2005-06     57%

So as you can see, the recent stretch of snowfall days this winter, is tied with 2008-09 for the highest frequency of the past 6 winters for that period.  So if you are feeling a bit frustrated at trying to keep your driveways and sidewalks clear, I understand.  It’s not easy.  I suspect this frequent light snow pattern will probably linger for about another 10 days and then the pattern may shift a bit.

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE: 

I noticed in a press release from NOAA, that 2010 was the wettest year on record in terms of average global precipitation.  Also it was the 34th consecutive year that the global temperatures were above the century average.

Posted under Climate Change, Monthly Recap, Seasonal Items, Snow Totals, Storms, Weather History, Winter Weather

Over the last couple of days Tony and I both blogged about the discovery that thunderstorms (lightning) produce gamma rays and “beam” antimatter out into space. Pretty amazing. Just when you thought there wasn’t much new stuff to learn about the weather and atmosphere here comes antimatter! If you enjoyed learning a little bit more about the high energy physics of lightning, then I have some other new and interesting things about the weather and atmosphere that you might find interesting:

Somewhat similar to the anti-matter story, a Swiss company (Meteo Systems) claims to have increased rainfall in the desert using ionization. They claim that 52 unanticipatedrain storms occurred because of their rain-making process. Most meteorologists remain quite skeptical. How does it work. Meteo systems erects tall metal poles with wire mesh on the ends. These poles are electrified and emit ions. Ions are charged particles. Most molecules in the air are essentially neutral (like oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide). An “ion” would be a negatively or positively charged molecule of oxygen or nitrogen, for example. The ions are supposed to work by attaching to cloud droplets. These ions then extend the life of the cloud droplets, allowing more time for them to grow into raindrops. It sounds like a success, however, it will need to be proven over the course of several seasons, before more people believe it is a true rain-making (or rain-enhancing) process.

How about this: Weather could trigger earthquakes. Scientists studying last year’s devastating earthquake in Haiti suggest that a prior flooding rain event and landslide might have been the “trigger”. It is important to note that it is not claimed that the weather creates or is the source of earthquakes, only that it might be the trigger in some cases. When you think about it in detail, this revelation is not too earth-shattering. Large earthquakes happen because of the shifting crust of the earth. Pressure builds up along fault zones in the crust and once in a while they move, creating an earthquake. Just think of holding two bricks against each other with your hands. If you wanted to rub them back and forth against each other, it requires a certain amount of force. If you only pushed lightly, the bricks would not move. Within the earth along a fault zone there is a little pressure that builds up over time and then all of a sudden the two pieces of crust move or slip by each other (like the bricks). As the pressure is building up, if a flood and landslide change the amount of mass above or around the fault zone, or changes the consistency of the soil and bedrock (making it more wet), that could change the pressure within the fault just enough to trigger an earthquake that had been building up for a while. Thus, the weather can trigger earthquakes.

How about another reason to complain about “light pollution”. Night lights can make air pollution up to 7 percent worse. How does this happen? Lights emit energy in the form of, well, light – or electromagnetic radiation. This light interacts with molecules in the air to create certain types of volatile organic pollutants. This effect is much less that what happens with the sun during the day (a lot more energy comes from the sun, of course), but I am still surprised that it is measurable.

Speaking of pollution, computer simulations have shown that polluted air (with a lot of soot/aerosols) can change the structure of thunderstorms. Cumulonimbus/thunderclouds that form in polluted air have much bigger anvils than those that form in cleaner air. The pollution leads to the formation of more ice crystals which then spread out into bigger anvils at the top storm cloud. How this might affect the weather and climate is yet to be determined.

Finally, from the realm of speculative physics (and off the subject of weather – but its cool) is a proposal to create matter from nothing – or more technically speaking from the “vaccuum“. The experiment rests on the interpretation of the vacuum (an area of space-time with no “matter” in it) as being a combination of matter and anti-matter. When the two are combined, their effects cancel each other out and we cannot observe them. The scientists propose to use an electron beam and a laser to tease the matter and anti-matter out of its unobservable vaccuum state and thus bring mass into our observable universe. It is theorized that this happens in nature around neutron stars.

Have a good Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Natural Disasters, Pollution, Science, Storms

I see Tony brought up the “Thunderstorms and Antimatter” story that has peaked much interest over the last couple of days. It is a very interesting discovery but what interests me more is the attention it has garnered. I would expect a geek/nerd like myself to be piqued by news about anti-matter and thunderstorms, but not so much the general public. Even my wife mentioned this story yesterday while I was relaxing around the house!

I think the attraction lies with the sci-fi aspect of the word “anti-matter”. Physicists (Paul Dirac in particular) first theorized the existence of antimatter in 1929 and the first anti-particle was observed in 1932, so it is not a very new concept. However, it remains out of the realm of our everyday lives and has found a home in quite a few popular science-fiction books, movies, and other media. So, when a new study indicates that anti-matter is created in thunderstorms and “beamed” out into space, it no doubt conjures of images of science-fiction.

The reality is not all that “sexy”. I have been following this story for a couple of years now. Recent studies of thunderstorms and lightning indicated that lightning produces gamma rays and it has been known for a while that it also produces x-rays. I haven’t done an exhaustive search, but I wouldn’t doubt that a lightning strike produces radiation in nearly all wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. We are most familiar with the visible light produced by lightning and besides the higher energy radiation mention above there are probably longer wavelengths involved as well. Since lightning heats up the air, there is likely infrared to be observed.

Similar to when physicists use “atom-smashers” to conduct high energy physics experiments, lightning involves a lot of energy. The voltage potential of a lightning strike can reach 100,000,000. One stroke can deliver trillion watts of peak power and 300,000 amps of electricity. When so much energy is concentrated in such a small area, atoms and molecules end up being torn apart, and it is this process that produces all the different types of radiation. A lot of this can sound scary. Just remember that lightning has been occurring for as long as the earth has been around. This radiation is nothing that we have to worry about as far as human health is concerned. It is interesting none-the-less and I will be interested to see if the monitoring of the different wavelengths of radiation will bear fruit for forecasting in the near future.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Science, Storms

In the deep of winter, I thought you might want to daydream about a warm, summertime occurrence, thunderstorms.  I ran across a fascinating bit of information on NASA’s website today dealing with their recent discovery that thunderstorms may be producing antimatter in the upper atmosphere.  This is very interesting with some nice video and graphics to go along.    Check it out.  It’s amazing how everything in the atmosphere and even space is connected in some sort of way.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/fermi-thunderstorms.html

Posted under Science, Severe Weather, Space, Storms, Summer

Quick blog this morning because I have to head to a promo shoot for BBBS Bowl for Kids’ Sake 2011!  This years theme is Totally 80′s, so I am plastered in 80′s gettup.  It is funny thinking that I grew up during that time period, but I was young back then.  My shirt that I am wearing actually reminds me of a New Kids on the Block shirt I had way back in the day!  Should be a great time and fun event.  For more information you can check out this link.  It will be held Feb 11th and 12th at Dales Weston Lanes.   Hope to see you there. 

Adding more misery to a water logged country…..

Tony talked about this yesterday but I wanted to direct you to another article I read about the Biblical like floods they are seeing in the Down Under.  It is absolutely astonishing how much rain they have seen in the past few weeks and yesterday.  Today a violent surge near Toowoomba caused evacuations of the community.  Until the surge they said the flooding had rose slowly as rives overflowed their banks.  In this tsunami like rush of water 9 people died and up to 72 are missing.  For the whole article in which they explain why releasing the water was better than waiting for it to burst itself click here.  Here is a picture of the flowing “river”.

The cost of the flooding in Australia right now is estimated at 5 billion dollars. 

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Community, Flooding, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather NEws

Parts of Australia are dealing with record rainfalls over the past several months.  In fact 2010 turned out to be the 3rd wettest year on record in Australia, primarily because of the last 6 months of 2010.  The wettest portion has been Queensland in the northeast of the country and a smaller portion of western Australia.  As the map below from the Australia Bureau of Meteorology shows, parts of Queensland have been drenched with at least 400 mm above normal rainfall in the past 30 days.  That’s about 17 inches above normal.

Here’s another image which shows the actual rainfall amounts for December.

The map below shows how the rainfall for December ranks as a percentage of normal.  Parts of Queensland and western Australia were about 400% of normal.

It is believed the extreme rainfall pattern is mostly because of the moderate to strong La Nina pattern which has dominated the scene for the second part of 2010.  The Southern Oscillation Index, which is a measure of the strength of El Nino and La Nina cycles, reached its highest value in November of 2010 since 1973.  It also set a record high for the month of December.  In a La Nina the waters of the tropical Pacific are cooler than normal between South America and Hawaii, and warmer than normal typically in the western areas.  This warmth in the western areas often leads to increased tropical cyclones and rainfall in parts of Australia from November through April.

People holding onto railings and metal fences on a flooded street in Toowoomba, Australia, during a flash flood Monday, Jan. 10, 2011. Flash floods swept through the northeastern Australian community killing one woman, trapping others in cars and leaving some clinging to trees as relentless rain brought more misery to a region battling its worst flooding in decades. (AP Photo/ABC)

It’s interesting to note that the south-southwest part of Australia which grows most of the nation’s wheat has been drier than normal.  It certainly has been an increasing trend across the globe in the past few years of extreme droughts and extreme flood spells in various parts.  Some climate scientists have been predicting for a number of years that precipitation patterns may continue to grow more extreme as global warming continues.

Posted under Climate Change, ENSO Update, Environment, Flooding, Natural Disasters, Records, Severe Weather, Storms, Travel