To being today, I would like to take a trip back to last Friday when I mentioned the new monthly outlooks released by the CPC. The outlook maps indicate EC for our area or “equal chances”. I normally explain this as the monthly forecast having an equal chance of being above normal or below normal with regards to temperature (and precipitation). This gives you a good idea of what we are looking at in the maps, but there is a different, subtle, and yet important statistical meaning to the EC on those maps. A climate expert from the NWS in La Crosse pointed out the difference in the comment section of the blog.

What the CPC does is look at the last 3 decades and divides the years up into the 10 warmest, the 10 coolest, and the 10 that lie in between. After the long range forecast is complete, they compare the result to those 3 categories. The EC means that there is an equal chance that the month in question (or 3-month period) could fall into on of those three categories (warmest, coolest, or in between). Thanks to Mr. Boyne for pointing that out. I am looking for a CPC link that explains the statistical formulation of the long range outlooks, as I know I have read it before, but I haven’t come up with anything yet. I’ll share it when I find it – for all you climate buffs.

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Another topic that needs repeating is the odd frequency of fireballs falling from space during the Spring. We had one streak through the sky a couple of weeks ago. One has also been seen in New Zealand and Texas in the past month, and now one of the more dramatic events might have occurred this past weekend in Nevada and California. I say might because as of now, there is no video or picture of the event even though hundreds of thousands of people claimed to have heard the booming noise throughout the Sierra Nevada mountain range on both the California and Nevada side. There are so many security cameras, cell phone cameras, wildlife cameras, etc., that one would think there would be some evidence that turns up sooner or later, but none so far. For all the conspiracy theorists out there, no doubt this brings up thoughts of military ”tests” out in the Nevada Desert. Has anyone read or seen any of the more “wilder” speculation? Nothing has crossed my “radar screen”.

On the topic of things coming from and going to space, one topic I follow quite closely is private space exploration.

Asteroid Mine, Artists Depiction

The biggest news coming out of this arena in recent days is that several corporate and entertainment moguls are planning a joint economic venture in space. The early buzz is that they are proposing to mine and build outposts on asteroids. Some say it is a quixotic (foolish) quest. I wish them all the luck and success in the world. I am thrilled that a private venture is taking this risk (and they should reap the rewards). It is better than the government spending billions of dollars of taxpayer money per year on such an effort.

Besides the possibility of fame and riches, these space entrepreneurs are performing another function for the human species as a whole. They are providing a method of survival. I have mentioned before a few times that anthropogenic global warming might turn out to be a significant problem in a few decades, there are much greater existential risks that could engulf this planet tomorrow or within a matter of years. In order to avoid extinction, it would be best if we were not a one planet species. That is the reason another entrepreneur – Elon Musk – founded SpaceX, to make sure we have the possibility of surviving a planet-wide catastrophe.

Have a good Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under CPC Outlook, Space

First I want to thank everyone who responded to the “Fireball” blog post yesterday. It is interesting that many people saw it. Many said it had a green hue which makes me wonder if it might have been a piece of space junk. Copper burns green and old satellites and parts of rockets might contain significant amounts of copper. Meteors have been known to burn green as well. As far as the old video I have been searching for, the 1972 video from the Grand Tetons is probably it. Thanks a bunch to those of you who were able to do a successful online search for that video. The video I remember was a bit more clear (and close up), but perhaps the transition to low quality digital form, for posting on youtube, makes it look not quite as spectacular.

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The other big news of the day is that the SNOWMELT CONTEST has begun! I could tell people were getting anxious about the contest over the last couple of weeks because we have received quite a few inquiries in the news and weather department. Perhaps people were seeing how little snow there is left on Rib Mountain and worried it might melt before the contest begins! Well, that will not happen, because the contest begins today. The entry period will run from today through the end of the day – midnight – on Friday April 27th, so you have a while to formulate your prediction. If you can’t wait, you can go ahead and enter your prediction here today: http://www.waow.com/story/17396215/2012-snow-melt-contest-is-here The snow melts in June most years but it has melted in May on two occasions. Will it be the earliest ever melt-off this year due to the mild Winter and record warm March? Only time will tell.

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The lack of snowfall this past Winter and during March has led to less snowpack up on Rib Mountain for this year’s snowmelt contest and it is also leading to drought conditions across many areas of the Midwest. I can report from the “front lines” that we have below normal precipitation here in Wausau because I kicked up a lot of dust while digging in my garden over the last couple of days. The most recent U.S. Drought Monitor indicates that conditions have worsened slightly over the last couple of weeks. The percentage of the state that is reporting abnormally dry or worse conditions has increased to almost 60%. About 5% of the state (in the far west) is considered to be in moderate drought conditions.

Thankfully, there is a chance of rain over the weekend and off-and-on chances next week as well. The first chance of rain will come this afternoon but will be quite light – maybe a tenth of an inch or two. A higher chance of heavy rain and thunderstorms will develop Saturday night and continue on Sunday. There is even a slight risk of severe thunderstorms by Sunday afternoon, as indicated by the SPC. The severe threat will depend on how far north a warm front will move into the state on Sunday. If the front moves as far north as central or northern Wisconsin, we will have an increased threat of high winds and hail and even isolated tornadoes. Right now, it looks like the front will most likely linger in the southern part of the viewing area, south of Marathon county. The front’s position as well as cloud trends (at this time) seem to support  the highest chance for severe weather including tornadoes would be in the far south, mainly south of Wood and Portage counties on Sunday afternoon. Rain amounts between Saturday night and Sunday could be in the 1 to 2 inch range.

Have a pleasant Weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Snowmelt 2012, Space, Storms

I was wondering if anyone else saw a meteor burning up in the southern sky last night. At least a couple of people did see it. One person left a comment in the blog and another left a voicemail. Anyone else see the meteor? If anyone has pictures or video send it our way at weather@waow.com

Oddly, Spring appears to be the time of year when many fireballs are seen in the skies, especially daytime fireballs. Just this past week a bright fireball was seen streaking through the skies in New Zealand and in Texas. The Texas fireball was first mistakenly identified as a jet contrail after a local TV station used contrail video in order to show something similar to what was seen. It was later determined to be a real meteor.

Every time meteors or fireballs make the news, I always look for the old footage of one of the biggest fireballs ever caught on tape. It was in Oregon (I think), in the 1970s (I think), taped by people who were at one of the national parks (I think). The footage was used in some past news/science programs but I cannot find it online. One would think that it would be converted to digital form by now. The fireball was very bright and the meteor was estimated to be the size of a bus. If anyone is familiar with the video or knows where to view it online, please let me know.

Have a good Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Space

I ran out of time for a full blog post today, so it is a short one. I spent a bit of time researching whether or not a “warm” March means that there will be a “hot” Summer ahead. The results are interesting and I will blog about it tomorrow.

For today how about a little update on some space news:

The Virgin Galactic effort to build a successful private space tourism business might be progressing at a snail’s pace but at least they are still able to drum up publicity, this time from one of their paying customers. Ashton Kutcher has ponied up the money for a flight to the edge of space that might occur sometime in 2014.

Galactic Atlas

For those of you who cannot afford a trip to space (the vast majority of us), you can still see the galaxy with the most up-to-date atlas of the stars released by NASA.

Also released recently, the most comprehensive (and beautiful) image of the Messier 9 star cluster.

Not satisfied with only one star cluster, how about 200,000 galaxies. You can see them in the most detailed deep sky images taken to date. Have a nice Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Messier 9 Star Cluster

Posted under Space

While we didn’t have the best view of the Northern Lights around here last week when the big geomagnetic storm was hitting the Earth, some in the southern hemisphere certainly enjoyed the aurora.  In fact an astronaut on the International Space Station took photos of the Southern Lights between Australia and Antarctica.  The green hues and expansive vista are out of this world. 

Courtesy: NASA, taken by Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers

Posted under astronomy, Space

I was rather disappointed by the northern lights non-appearance last week. I was up on Thursday night but the full moon was out and made them difficult to see. I woke up twice on Friday night to try and catch a glimpse, but the there were clouds in Wausau. Thankfully, a couple of viewers did happen to capture the recent aurora show and Rob Duns put together a little video displaying the pictures which you can check out here. The northern lights are always cool to see. Brian Niznansky, a former StormTrack9 meteorologist tweeted that it was one of the most spectacular things he has seen in a while.

Unfortunately, I am spoiled. Living in the country while I was growing up, during a time when the solar cycle was a little stronger, I used to see the northern light about once or twice a year. I was even out and about the night of the huge solar storm that knocked out power to the Canadian province of Quebec back in 1989. Myself, my sister Wendy and another friend brought sleeping bags out onto the driveway to watch the northern lights. They were so dramatic that we didn’t even need to look to the north. They filled almost the entire sky. There were a lot of different colors and they were all very bright. Since the 1989 solar flare was one of the strongest in recorded history, I am doubtful I will ever be as wowed by the northern lights. I am glad to hear that a couple people did see them last week.

Second on the blog agenda is all the warm weather. We had many record high temperatures over the weekend including 61 in Wausau on Saturday and 63 in Wausau on Sunday, and we probably are not done with the records. Temps could climb up to 70 or a little above on Wednesday and that type of warmth would break a few more record highs across the area. Later this week we will be close to record highs with temps reaching the mid to upper 60s, but we might remain just a couple of degrees shy. Not only does it look warm for the rest of this week, it looks like the jet stream pattern will continue to bring warmer than normal temps next week and perhaps through the end of the month. Right now, there really isn’t that much cold air in sight. If the trend holds then we could have our 4th month in a row of average temps being 6 degrees above normal or warmer, something that I don’t think I have seen occur before in the last couple decades.

Sub-surface heat content - central Pacific

If La Nina was supposed to have an effect on our weather this past Winter and now into Spring, something obviously blunted the effect. I was reading some climate discussions this past weekend and it appears that an arctic jet stream circulation and another large ocean-atmosphere pattern in the Atlantic, conspired to block many of the normal effects of La Nina.

So there wasn’t much going on with La Nina and now it looks like it is ending rather rapidly this Spring. According the the latest ENSO discussion, the Pacific ocean temps should be closer to neutral by the end of April. What happens after that? The computer forecasts indicate a general trend toward slightly warmer than normal central Pacific sea surface temps by this Fall.

Computer models of La Nina/El Nino trend

I have heard many people talking about the possibility of a weak El Nino next Winter. If so, we could be in for two mild Winters in a row. Mind you, notice the words “could be”. Mother nature does not always side with the computer forecasts. There is no guarantee that an El Nino will form.

Have a good Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under ENSO Update, Records, Space

Well, the much talked about solar flare turned out to be a bust. We were lucky enough to have clearing skies after midnight last night but I did not see any northern lights. I even turned our skycam to the north and recorded the sky but to no avail. It there were some faint northern lights, I probably would not have been able to see them anyway because the full moon was out. I mentioned a couple of different times for people to not get their hopes up too high and I am glad I did. The space weather forecasting biz is in its infancy. The energy from a solar eruption/flare streaming toward the earth morphs and changes before it reaches us so even some of the biggest flares that seem to be pointed right at the earth end up fizzling out or only delivering a glancing blow.

Something that I would really like to see fizzle out is the clock change this weekend. Yes, you guessed it, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is this weekend, although it doesn’t “save” anything. In fact, every year, we find out more bad things about this dumb archaic practice. Check some of my past blog posts about the subject here and here. This year, research shows that heart attacks increase by 10% after the clock change and it leads to less productivity at work. So now, other than being a pain in the you-know-what, causing us to waste a lot more energy, creating more traffic accidents, and increasing depression, it ruins productivity and kills people (heart attacks). What more do we need to know before ending the madness. About the only remaining reason to move the clocks forward in the Spring is so that more people can enjoy more daylight after a typical work-day during the Summer. I get up in the morning to enjoy the outdoors in the Summer so I would rather not change the clocks. Other countries around the world are dropping DST because it is dumb. When will the U.S. drop it? I don’t know. 

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When discussing alternative energy and a more efficient energy future, most people focus on the big things like transportation and manufacturing, but where energy usage is growing the fastest is in computing. Data centers that hold all of our online information are huge energy “hogs”, and growth in the industry is likely to continue. It is good to know, then, that even in the smallest of places, energy efficiency is increasing.

The electronic chips that power our computers and gadgets are not only getting more efficient but are starting to use light instead of electrons for many of the computational and data transmission tasks. Light signals use a lot less energy and create a lot less heat. The key invention that will help continue this trend is miniature lasers. APIC corporation recently announced a germanium based laser that could fit well into the conventional silicon computer chip manufacturing process, Altera is using fiber optics instead of copper interconnects to transmit information between chips, and IBM has recently created the most efficient terabit per second optical transceiver. The computer servers sitting in huge data centers are getting smaller and more efficient as well. Just think of how much more efficient the computing centers will be once they are running on light instead of electricity.

The New Apple Data Center

Producing energy for the data centers has been a big concern but we have seen some progress in this arena as well. Many big computer and Internet companies are turning toward alternative energy and even locating their data centers near alternative sources like hydroelectric dams. In Apple’s case, they are planning to build a big solar array at their new North Carolina data center. I am not a big fan of Apple products (even though I know they are good) because I can’t tinker with them, but I will give the company kudos for planning some solar power for their data center. Now we just need to convince them to spend more than a little spec of their $100 billion cash hoard on alternative energy.

So if you hear depressing news stories about how we are wasting energy and burning fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow and that we are destroying that “tomorrow”, just remember that progress continues.

Have a pleasant weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Space, Technology

In my little round-up of northern lights and space news yesterday I forgot to mention that it seems Virgin Galactic it taking its time testing its launch and flight capabilities. This article indicates that they will try their first rocket powered flight sometime later this year and that commercial operations could be as far as two years away. I wonder what is slowing things down. I was expecting private tourist flights already late this year. SpaceShipTwo doesn’t seem too much different from SpaceShipOne. Then again, I am not an aerospace engineer, so I probably underestimate the difficulty of flying a ship to the edge of space or beyond. I am sure safety is of paramount concern. One accident early in the operation of private spaceships could derail the whole industry. The private space industry requires paying happy customers. It is different than NASA where accidents are tragic but the funding keeps flowing.

Also, today is the day when the biggest solar flare in the last 5 years is supposed to strike the earth, although, I will remind everyone that space weather forecasting is quite tricky, so if nothing happens and there are no northern lights, I wouldn’t be surprised. If the flare hits as expected, then keep you eyes to the northern horizon late tonight. There is a chance the clouds could clear up enough after midnight to allow us to view the potential auroras.

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 In the world of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) there is never a shortage of news and research and I try to bring a few different themes to the blog. Just yesterday I came across some opinions from a climate scientist that has a similar viewpoint to my own. That is Judith Curry from Georgia Tech (mentioned previously in the blog). Some people would probably like to pigeon-hole her as a hard core skeptic, “denier”, “flat-earther”, “environmental terrorist”, or what-not, because she withdrew her support for the IPCC, but in this recent article I think you will find a balanced and nuanced view of the science and politics. It is worth the read if you follow the AGW story. In contrast to my focus on technological progress and alternative energy, Professor Curry worries a bit more about bias. I also think it is something the IPCC might take too lightly. When most alternative theories and conflicting data is shoved to the sideline, there is a high danger of group think (within the IPCC). Errors can be compounded.

Have a good Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Space

I just want to start out by reminding people to keep an eye on the sky over the next couple of nights because we might have a northern lights show to view. It is no guarantee, as these things seem much harder to predict than the weather, but an active region on the sun has been emitting some X-class flares recently. I first mentioned this in yesterday’s blog post and now it appears a couple more X-class flares have erupted. Now if mother nature will cooperate with some clear skies, maybe we will have a chance to see a night-time show this week. The best chance of relatively clear skies will be Thursday night and again Friday night. If anyone would happen to see the northern lights, please let me know in the comment section here in the blog.

Picture of the recent solar flare

You can also send pictures to weather@waow.com.

On the subject of space, there a quite a few people upset about more cutting of the NASA budget, but no one should be surprised. Of all discretionary spending (a very small part of the federal budget, actually), space exploration is probably pretty low on the priority scale of voters. I am surprised the NASA budget was not slashed further considering the terrible fiscal shape of the U.S. In dealing with a smaller budget, it appears there is momentum for finishing the overbudget James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)at the expense of robotic missions to other planets. I agree with this move. The JWST is too far along, has too much investment, and too much promise (replacing the Hubble) to drop it now. For future robotic or human exploration of space we will have to increasingly turn to private industry, which is fine by me.

On the subject of those private space companies, here is a recent summary of what some of them are doing and accomplishing.

Not to be over-looked, it appears we will have Hayabusa: The Sequel coming from JAXA (in Japan). I covered the original “show” of this mishap filled asteroid mission. I was amazed that the spacecraft made it back to earth. The idea was to collect samples from an asteroid and bring them back to earth. This time around Hayabusa(2) will actually land on the asteroid and mechanically scrape up a sample.

And while your mind is mulling over the mysteries of space take a look at this fantastic time lapse video of the night sky and the Milky Way.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Space