Picking up from yesterday’s blog post about La Nina and the probability of colder than normal weather and above normal snowfall persisting into the spring, it is interesting to note that parts of California had unusually heavy precipitation earlier this winter (not much lately though). Heavy winter precipitation is more common in southern California when there is an El Nino pattern in the Pacific Ocean. In fact, at one point, some climatologists sounded alarm that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) could lead to more devastating storms for California because the El Nino pattern was expected to occur more often and become stronger. This expectation followed the record strong El Nino of 1998. Since then, El Nino’s have not been too strong. More climatologists are now worried about drought conditions instead of excessive storminess.

Still, the heavy storms from earlier this winter, prove that troublesome weather can occur whether El Nino, La Nina, or niether is occurring. In an effort to prepare as effectively as possible a team of researchers have created a computer model to predict the worst possible stormthat could hit California. They have dubbed it the “ARKStorm scenario”. This type of long-lived super storm could produce up to 10 feet of rain in higher elevations and would likely occur once every 100 to 200 years. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that 10 feet of rain would be devastating to urbanized areas of California. Seeing that the state is bankrupt, I am a little worried that they will not be able to adequately prepare for the next “ARKStorm”.

Global Hawk

In order to more accurately forecast such an impending storm, NASA is employing the robotic global hawk airplane to study “rivers in the sky” that transport water vapor from the tropical Pacific toward the west coast. These “rivers” of moist air have had other names in the past such as the “Pineapple Express” – a term referring to the moisture’s origin around Hawaii.

Reading about these studies got me to wondering how big storms could could become in Wisconsin (in regards to rain and snow). We can find some answers in the record books. Here you can find historical precipitation extremes for Wisconsin. I am surprised that the greatest snowfall for one storm is 31 inches and the greatest 24 hour snowfall is only 26 inches. These are certainly huge amounts of snow, however, the way my grandparents talked about winters from last century, you would think that the records would be measured in feet not inches. Based on my knowledge of weather systems and noting the increase in atmospheric moisture in recent years, I think we could reach 40 inches in a single storm. The key would be thundersnow. If a band of thundersnow formed within the larger storm system and remained stationary for 2 or 3 hours, the snow would really pile up. Rates of snowfall in thundersnow can reach 4 inches or more per hour.

No thundersnow in our forecast for the next few days. Instead, it looks like mild weather for the weekend and much of next week. High temps should top 30 on Saturday and remain in the 30s through at least Thursday. Enjoy the warm-up.

Have a pleasant weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, ENSO Update, Flooding, Storms, Winter Weather

The best news in the weather today is that the US Drought Monitor continues to show no areas of severe drought in the state of Wisconsin. This week’s update has not changed since last week, which means there is still a moderate drought listed for the far northeastern corner of the state, but we did get some rain earlier in the week and there is more rain falling today. Rain amounts might end up over an inch, even in the areas still listed under official drought. Here is Wasuau we received nearly 0.79 inches with the first wave of rain that moved through and another wave is likely this afternoon through early evening. The second best news is that this rainfall will keep our yearly precipitation total above normal. During the dry spell in late August, our precipitation total for the year dipped a couple tenths below normal, then we received almost three quarters of an inch on Tuesday and we could get over and inch today. I am rooting for our first above normal year since 2002!

Earlier this week I linked to an article about how NASA/NOAA are using a UAV (the global hawk) to study hurricanes this year and Earl is presenting a very good opportunity to test its abilities. Not only is the robotic aircraft studying Earl, up to 7 other planes are circling the storm and gathering data. Sometimes I muse about how much interest there is in hurricane research in conjunction with how good the forecasts are. The 1 to 2 day forecasts of hurricane track and intensity are already superb (even the 3 to 4 day forecasts are usually very good). More research would probably extend the confidence in the longer range track forecast, but mostly what I think will be gained is more subtle. Hurricane researchers want to understand better how and why hurricanes intensify and weaken. These changes sometimes happen abruptly and unexpectedly. For the latest on Earl check out the NHC website.

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Drought, Tropics

I was so busy ranting about AGW lawsuits yesterday that I forgot to mention the U.S. Drought Monitor. The great news is that the drought in Wisconsin has improved since last week. This is the first time this year (I am fairly sure) that we do not have any severe drought in the state. The severe drought category that was present in the far northeast part of the state last week has now diminished to moderate status. I would expect that this improving trend would continue except for the fact that this week has been dry and no rain is expected until the middle of next week. Therefore the drought situation should remain stable.

Alternative Energy:

Perhaps you came across this news perusing science and weather news over the last couple of days: Brazilian scientist proposes to generate electricity from air. This is not a proposal to capture the electricity from lightning strikes – something I have thought of before – it is a method to extract minute amounts of electricity from water droplets. Humid air would be the best target. While this sounds interesting in theory and probably works as described, I have my doubts that this method could ever generate any substantial amount of electricity at a competitive cost. The amount of of charge collected from each water droplet is very minuscule. It might take a massive installation in order to generate a usable current. So how does nature create such dramatic and large displays of electricity (lightning)? Through thunderstorms. Thunderstorms move truly massive amounts of air and separate positive and negative charges in the process. So how does lightning begin? Some researchers are looking at terrestrial gamma ray flashes as the “spark” of lightning.

Lightning is also an interesting subject in hurricane research. Lightning intensity and frequency change as a hurricane changes in strength. Researchers want to know how direct is the relationship in order to help with forecasting. To study lightning in hurricanes NASA is using autonomous drones - specifically the Global Hawk. For the latest on Danielle, Earl, and other tropical disturbances be sure to check the National Hurricane Center website.

Finishing up on the hurricane topic, there was an article recently that suggested major cities can attract hurricanes. Now this is not some magical force that cities exert from hundreds of miles away, it is only something that has shown up in computer simulations of hurricane movement when they get close to landfall. It turns out (according to the models) that “rougher” land surfaces make hurricanes change course a bit. The hurricanes move toward the land surfaces with more friction or roughness. In some coastal areas, large cities with big buildings produce more roughness than the surrounding landscape and thus could cause a hurricane path to shift a bit toward the city.

Have a good Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Technology, Tropics

Talk about interesting timing, just yesterday I shared an article about using UAVs for assisting weather data collection and today a new article has been published at Technology Review highlighting this same effort. Take a look at the article here. NASA will be using the 3 Global Hawks outfitted with 11 different instruments to collect data from the atmosphere – including the upper atmosphere. Given that the UAV can fly for 30 hours, it can examine far flung locations over the oceans and over the arctic.

NASA is also spending money on new rocket and jet engine technology. They recently awarded 50 million in contracts to various rocket companies around the U.S. in order to develop more efficient methods of launching payloads into space and to develop “greener” rocket and jet engines. One of the companies that received grant money was Orbital Technologies of Madison, WI. I have lived in Madison and visit a couple times a year, yet I was unaware that there was a rocket company based there. Looking it up on Google Maps I see that I have driven by the building many times in the past. Doh! They do development and testing of rockets. I wonder if they perform the tests in Madison, or if they have a test facility in another part of the country.

Sadly, I did not see any money being allocated to Ad Astra Rocket Company – the one developing the plasma rocket engine. Seems this round of grant money is for earth orbit and atmospheric travel. Ad Astra is more focused on deep space travel. Which brings me back to my favorite rant – shouldn’t NASA be focusing on other planets rather than earth?

Present Weather

It still looks like we will break the record for the least amount of snow during the month of March. The old record was 0.10 inches in March of 1973. March of 2010 will go down in the record books with no snowfall officially in Wausau. No snow in March is an amazing record for our part of the country. Slightly less interesting but on the horizon is the potential for a record high temperature on April 1st. No foolin’. The old record on Thursday is a very vulnerable 71 set back in 1945. Right now I am forecasting 72.

The best part of the forecast is that rain is looking more likely on Friday night and Saturday. I am upping the chance to 50%. I know that rain might not be welcome for many people  on Easter weekend – but it should be. We are suffering from a rainfall deficit right now.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under forecast, Records, Space