This is going to be a quicker post than usual.  I am trying to work on a new graphic that I have been itching to do for quite a while!

Discovering the earth is fairly easy nowadays, we have planes, we have vehicles that can get us to almost every inch on earth.  It is a different story when we try and explore two other areas- space and the ocean.  There is something that gets me any night I look up in the sky.  It is the same feeling I get when I lay on the beach and stare at the vast ocean in front of me.  I have always been a huge fan of space, studying the stars and planets.  The ocean intrigues me but is kind of scary! There are tons of crazy and different creatures out there and lots of unknowns.

I really enjoyed reading this article and especially like the two add on they have. One is going through different creatures they have discovered.  The other is 10 secrets.  I guarantee you will learn something and be fascinated! What was neat to know- the Gulf of Mexico, right next to the US, has some of the most diverse sea life.  It is now in the top 5 regions for variety of species. Thats pretty sweet.  

I also saw this show when I was home on the Smithsonian channel.  If you want to learn the Smithsonian channel is awesome! This series is about discovering the life under the seas.    

Have a great Monday! Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Environment, Science, Travel, Tropics

This morning when I got in I searched the Milwaukee flooding after reading peoples tweets.  I can not believe that they received 7 inches in 2 hours! Here is a map that the Milwaukee NWS office put up on totals around the Madison and Milwaukee area:

 Madison broke their record receiving 3.61″. 

Mitchell airport received 5.61″ crashing the previous record of 1.26″ .  The greatest one day precip record is 6.81″ set on August 6th 1986 so they didn’t break that but they came in second!  Just think about that…. yesterday they saw the second greatest one day precip ever recorded!

The 5.50″+ at the airport was enough to shutdown the airport, right now they have not  yet released when it may reopen although people think it should be sometime late tomorrow.  I can only imagine how many people are going to be affected by the cancelled flights. 

For a complete list of totals you can click here.

In our area the highest was 1.98″ in Stevens Point. 

Also check out the picture of the sinkhole Brian posted. Unbelievable!

While we are dealing with flooding, Florida and the Gulf Coast are dealing with Bonnie.  Our second named storm is making a direct path towards the Gulf oil spill.  It will make two landfalls on the US, the first tonight on the  southern Florida Peninsula and the second likely on Sunday somewhere along the Louisiana coast.  The path of this storm is very usual for this time of year.  This is only the 5th storm to track into the Gulf this early in the season in the last century.   

Bonnie is already causing power outages near Miami.  Right now it is 80 miles Southeast of Miami.  It is moving WNW at 18 mph, so fairly fast moving.  Squalls from the storm are already pushing into the southern part of the sunshine state.

This is a neat hurricane trackerthat you can zoom in on and see the path and places affected.  You can turn on the radar over the track and see the “spaghetti” tracks ( what different models are indicating for the track).  Last night I mentioned to my mom how soggy it was yesterday.  I said it rained all day.  She then replied, “Do you know what we are going to deal with all weekend?”  Good thing I was there last weekend and not this one! 

Although this storm is going to impact the US twice and the oil spill the good news is that it shouldn’t increase to more than a tropical storm. 

I think the oil spill impact has been the biggest news with this storm.  Here is a nice site breaking it all down with videos you can look at.  They have had to declare a full evacuation of the Oil Spill site and move the boats according the their ability to handle the storm. But the evacuation could mean 10 to 12 days of lost time at the site.    Bonnie could possibly push the oil that has already spilt into the fragile marshlands of Louisiana.  To take precaution Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, has declared a state of emergency.   

Have a nice Friday! Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Flooding, Hurricanes, Severe Weather, Tropics, Weather History, Weather NEws

Justin asked me a good question- if I saw any oil while I was home. The answer is no.  I am from the gulf side of the peninsula about an hour south of Tampa.  I wrote a response on my article yesterday explaining why I didn’t and the main reason is related to ocean currents.  In fact if the oil gets in the Loop Current it would take it parallel to the peninsula and up and around on the Atlantic side.  Here is a picture of the Loop Current which then joins the Gulf  Stream which travels up the eastern coast of the US. 

Benjamin Franklin's First Map of the Gulf Stream

The other factor that helps the Florida peninsula steer clear from the oil are the eddys( the circles on the first map).  They are closest to the spill  but when the oil encounters them it spins the oil in a clockwise rotation.  So while the Panhandle is now showing forecasts of tar balls ( check out that article on meteorologists having to forecast for oil!) the rest of Florida is so far in the clear and should remain that way. 

What could affect everyone is hurricanes.  However if you watch how hurricanes move they come from the Caribbean or the Atlantic and normally move north and west.  I am doing research to see if a hurricane has ever started in the northern part of the gulf and went south.  The only way I could see this happening is if there was a strong enough front that could some how push the hurricane southward.  During the summer months though fronts will not make it as far south as Florida, they will wash out with limited upper air support.  Cold fronts are almost never seen in Florida during July and August.  The first cold front of the season usually occurs in September in the Panhandle and October for the Peninsula.  With that being said we could have seen a late season hurricane that may have traveled south or an early season one.  I’ll do some research and let you know!

So the main point:

I did not see any oil, and it is highly unlikely the peninsula will unless a very abnormal hurricane forms. 

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Here are a few pictures from my trip:

Sarasota Bay

Spanish Point

My niece!

Ghost hunting TV divers at the end of my street!

Posted under Hurricanes, Natural Disasters, Pollution, Science, Summer, Travel, Uncategorized

Alex made landfall a week ago tonight and it looks like we could be talking about our next storm Bonnie within the next day.  The National Hurricane Center has was would be Bonnie in a 80% chance of formation with in the next 48 hours.  It is currently spinning near where we saw Alex last week, right off the Texas, Mexico coast. 

The exact location is 290 miles southeast of the Texas/Mexico border.  It is moving west northwest at around 10 to 15 mph.  It became better organized just today and even with in the last 6 hours.  At the 2pm outlook they had the disturbance in a 50% chance of becoming a tropical storm but the latest advisory which came out at 7pm bumped that up to 80%. Right now they have two reconnaissance planes conducting research on the wave and so far it seems like a disturbance could be forming.  The environment is also conductive for further development.   So it is quite likely we will see our next storm and advisories by late tonight or early on Thursday. 

 Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Hurricanes, Summer, Tropics

The environmental news has been dominated by the recent big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Many people have been trying to gauge, estimate, or describe how big the oil spill is, but I have not been able to grasp what it looks like, until now. NASA has released a high resolution satellite image of the oil spill. From space, it does not look all that big, but it does cover a lot of area. It is probably the biggest oil spill in U.S. history and it does not take to much raw oil to make thousands of gallons of water toxic. It will be a long clean-up effort. If you are like me, you have been itching for a more in depth explanation of the problems involved in shutting down the well. Here is a more thorough article about the challenges.

The oil spill has of course brought more calls from environmental-minded people to stop off-shore drilling altogether. Seeing the cost of clean-up, many people will be tempted to make an economic case for stopping all drilling and all fossil fuel use. Although the disaster might cost tens of billions of dollars, the US spends 1.7 billion on oil everyday ($85 per barrel, 20 million barrels per day). It would be nearly impossible to immediately reduce our dependency on oil, off-shore drilling, or even deep water drilling alone. Most new sources of oil over the oceans is in “deep water”. Of course, if you don’t mind paying $10 per gallon of gas, we could reduce our dependency real quick-like, but I doubt there is a shred of political will to institute that type of economic sacrifice. What can be done? We can continue incrementally improving our clean energy technology. New inventions and manufacturing processes continue to pay increasing dividends each month and each year. What often happens with information-based technology (of which solar technology is becoming more and more) is that it seems to crawl along slowly and then explode upon the scene. We might be poised for such a revolution in a few years if solar power production keeps growing and costs keep coming down. As long as there is no major societal disaster, the trends for solar power are looking good. Even using biofuels or natural gas would help to bridge the gap from traditional fossil fuels toward the next energy source.

For whatever reasons – a mix of science and gut feeling – I have never jumped on the wind power bandwagon. Perhaps it is because I have seen the dilapidated old wind farms of the 1970s and 1980s. They were still there in California in 2000 but mostly broken down and not producing electricity – taking up hundreds of acres of land. I always wondered why they didn’t clean them up. Probably because it costs money. Someone needs cut these things up, maybe use a crane, ship it away, etc… Then there is a big cement block in the ground that serves as a base. The newest large wind turbines have even bigger bases. These are not easy to move, but I digress.

Besides off-shore drilling, the news cycle has also brought some other off-shore energy back into focus: The Cape Cod off-shore wind farm has finally gotten approval (kind-of, there is also more red-tape, but the fattest red tape has been taken care of). I made a little hay in the past about this wind farm project, pointing out some hypocrisy. When it was first proposed, the very environmentalist politicians who thought wind power was great (Edward Kennedy in particular), all of a sudden didn’t like it going up in their “backyard”. Besides wind power being an eyesore (according to many), it is still relatively expensive (including the life cycle costs) and unlikely to get cheaper. Off-shore wind farms are twice as expensive as on-shore according to this article. I wonder if off-shore wind farms will remain as popular once people start getting the electric bills. Large wind farms might also have unexpected negative impacts on the climate.

In the end, although I enjoy seeing people experimenting with wind power (like at Wausau East) and it is cleaner energy, I just don’t see a big future in it. It is an old form of mechanical power getting a new lease on life. Wind power is not going to “take us to the stars”. For continued progress we will likely require some form of energy that is cheap and abundant.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Environment