More Winter weather, not as nice

Today in the DC region we saw some more winter weather, but more of the sleet and rain mix. Was quite cold and somewhat windy. A good thick cloud deck kept the skies darker than normal, and the overall mood was not as nice as with the small snow storm from a few days ago.

There is a chance I'll be doing some Internet radio shows coming up with the folks at WeatherTalkRadio, so stay tuned for details on that.

First snow for DC region 2007/08 season

While at the hospital in Baltimore recovering from Kidney surgery, The DC and Baltimore region received their first snowfall for the 07/08 winter season.

In the Baltimore area, about 3-4 inches fell. After being discharged and retuning home to Gaithersburg, I measured 4 1/2" in and around my home. Other newscasts reported about 5 inches in the Gaithersburg/Montgomery Village area.

Unfortunately I won't have many, if any photos to share since I'm stuck home recovering and can't drive or walk more than a few feet.

But at least it's early and there hopefully will be plenty of snow after I'm recovered and can venture out.

Finally and update, but I had a good reason

Well, after some time without any updates to the website or blog, I'm finally back in action.

After battling some health issues with my dialysis, I now have good news. I've been transplanted.

On the day before Thankgiving, I was in surgery getting my Kidney transplant. Recovery will take about 5-6 more weeks, but I'll be at home doing updates to the website and blog.

Local Weather

Locally speaking, the weather is damp, rainy and dreary. The Mid-Atlantic was in dire need of the rain, but the past two days have been very hard to get motivated if you are easily affected by the weather. The rest of the week is looking better with higher temperatures and increase sunshine.

Dean Landfall in Mexico, Again

Dean has now made it's second landfall in Mexico, this time as a Catagory 2, much less than Catagory 5 Landfall in the Yucatan on Monday.

Dean will maintain a westward trek for a little while, and weaken significantly with the large land mass, higher terrain of the Mexican interior. Advisorys by the National Hurricane Center will likely stop prior to the system reamerging on the west coast. Many Carribean areas have been affected by this storm, and will likely stay in the news until the next system is born.

At the moment the tropics are not showing any immenient developing storms, but a few waves near Africa bare watching.

Dean Very Strong, but not coming this way.

Hurricane Dean is sustaining Catagory 4 statis at the moment, but is likely to reach Cat. 5 before landfall. Although, looking at some water temperature maps, it seems the temperature drops a tad closer to Mexico. Strengthening is more likely early in a storms life, it takes a lot more energy to sustain high intensity. Since Dean has been maintaining Cat. 4, I am 50/50 on the chances to reach 5. More interesting is what is this storm going to do as it progresses inland. Mexico is going to get hit hard, and most of the models start to show a turn to the north and going right up the center of Mexico and heading toward the Unites States desert southwest. However, and more interesting if it happens, is a few model runs have the storm going nearly straight across Mexico and emerging on the west coast into the Pacific Ocean. If that were to occur, is it possible that it could reintensify into a Pacific Hurricane? It has happened before.

Hurricane Dean

Hurricane Dean has a pretty curtain track forecast at least for the 24 to 48 hour period. Beyond that there is some variation, but is still fairly predictable. I personally favor the track that trend to the right of the NHC forecast. I always felt that as the storms intensify, the forward motion added to the winds on the NE quadrant of the storms tends to push them to the right. Furthermore, as the stronger tropical systems (Cat 3 and up) get ready to make landfall, the land resistance on one portion of the storm adds resistance, and in most cases, because of the approach, means they'll trend to the right (of forward motion).

This storm will be very interesting to watch. At this time I don't anticipate intercept, and I'm not at all preparing for such. So if the track does shift significantly toward the northern US Gulf Coast, I'll be a little off guard (and behind schedule) for a hurricane intercept.

Dallas Sunset in January

In addition to active weather, I always find time to shoot other weather and environmental related shots. For example, sunsets, which are likely to be the general populations most favorite of shots. Whether a beach sunset, an ocean sunset, or city skyline, sunsets produces some of the most brilliant colors and deep contrasts.

This shot is of a sunset taken from the Union Tower in Dallas Texas (looking west of course). Union Tower sits on the edge of downtown Dallas, and not much exists in the foreground to disrupt the view.

On this day in January 1999, it was about 70 degress, which was very warm for January in Dallas. At the time of the picture however, as the sun set, and the temperatures dropped (plus being up 700 feet in an open to the elements tower) to around 55 degrees (f). It was difficult to get these pictures. The cold, the security fencing, etc. inhibited me from getting clear shots, but this one worked out.

The original pictures is much better quality. This was scanned many years ago on my first scanner, which didn't scan very well at all.

Another day of slow moving thunderstorms

There appears to be no significant severe threat with these slow moving storms. I have to wonder, since I didn't watch them overnight, if this is the same cluster, that just finally moved that far south. I did drizzle here this morning, and now the storms seem to be intensifying with the afternoon heat. Not sure if I'll be going out to follow, get lightning shots or not. I will be keeping an eye on the radar however.

Night-time surprise

Was out walking this evening for a little exercise, when I saw a flash or two of lightning. I figure we'd get a small shower here and there. After I came in, and waited for the The Weather Channel to show what was going on, got impatient with their programming, so I ran upstairs, and check the radar on the internet. I was impressed with the radar loop. A growing convective storm with a sizable diameter, especially for this late hour (10pm). A radar capture is show above. Nothing real impressive to get excited about, but the storm seems to generally be stationary, so NWS is calling for 3-5 inches in very, very localized area (around the City of Frederick). Some hail has also been reported with this storm. I'm in the next county down, and not likely to see anything for a little bit, if at all.

New format coming for Blog

After talking with Jeff Gammons (Weathervine.com) I am going to attempt to redo the Blog so that instead of being hosted by blogger.com, it'll be on my site/web server.

I'll have more flexibility and use, plus it gets me better results with the search engines. No point of having a blog if no one is reading it.

It may be a few weeks, because it isn't the easiest task for me. Learning PHP and MySQL is new to me and hence I don't exactly know how long it'll take before it's up and running. Feel free to check the progress however, as the link will be:

http://www.weatherwarrior.net/blog

Bill Proenza Congressional Committee Hearings

I got a chance to watch some of the Committee hearings involving the dismissal of Bill Proenza as director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC, aka Tropical Prediction Center). I personally am not for or against the move (at the moment) since I'm not party to all the facts, or affected directly by it. However, I have been following the events recently and entertain any discussion on the topic.

Here's link on the news story
Sun Sentinel . com

SPC not they key

Friday was the perfect example of why not to chase based on the Storm Prediction Center. Chasers have learned to do their own forecasts many times because simply chasing based on Convective Outlooks (Risk areas) is not productive.

Friday's 5% tornado risk area yielded only a handful of storms within the 5% bubble. There was a tornado up along the New York and Connecticut border (in Hurds Corner, Litchfield County, Connecticut).

In this area, all the action was south of DC and only managed a little bit of wind damage. I don't even know how the storm structure looked, although the radar wasn't too impressive when I did manage to sneak a peek.

I'll be waiting for the next storm, hopefully without and interrupting deadlines.

Of all days!!

Of all days that I have to have a major deadline at work, and will be at work for 12 to 15 hours so that project is ready to go to the county permit office.

There is a slight risk with a 5% tornado risk from the DC area northward. Pennsylvania will likely see most of the action, but most areas in and around the 5% area will see good supercell storms. Northern Maryland is also my favored area to chase storms since it is not as populated as the DC region. I like to drive upto Interstate 70 in Frederick or Howard County and let the storms come to me, and from there follow them westward. Montgomery County is just too crowded, and too difficult to chase in. It's OK, if you go to a spot and watch a storm go by, but not to chase.

I'll likely try to sneek out while in Bethesda at my office to get some lightning shots, but who knows what will happen in the narrow views I have from that location.

Now we're back in the swing

Finally picked-up a new professional camera. A Canon Rebel XT digital SLR. Took the first picture with it today of the wonderful Sunset shown above.

Also, we're getting back into the Media production and weather oriented business. I've been heavily focused on health issues and my architecture work as of late. But with a little over a month till the height of hurricane season, I'm getting more and more excited about severe weather.

(The picture today is a Sunset shot taken from the Montgomery Airpark, in Gaithersburg, Maryland).

It's starting to get hot in here

It's not summer yet, but we're getting there. Temperature are expected to raise to 86 degress today. I nice and hot one. Well maybe warm. 90 to me officially makes it hot. However, dew points are modest to low, around the mid 50s, so not a lot of humidity to worry about.

I'm sure the next day or two will see and increase in humidity as the next front (and thunderstoms) approach the region. Tomorrow's high's aren't expected to reach into the 80s, but late day thunderstorms may still be a possiblity.

The last system that passed did so during the overnight hours and had already lost the daytime heating, which meant little convection to enhance the system. The incoming system, as the forecast graphic shows, will have lots of moisture with it, so event if there isn't a lot of strong thunderstorms, we could be looking at flooding conditions.

Andrea formed, and unpredictable

Well as the post was being published last time, The National Hurricane Center (NHC) did if fact name the subtropical system. The first named storm for the season, which is looking to be another active season.

Originally it was thought the system would move toward the Florida coast, and make landfall, and fall apart. As of this hour, the system center is still off the coast and now looks to meander off toward the east. However, no more advisories will be coming from the NHC on Andrea, since organization is poor, and there is a severe lack of convection in the system.

Locally, we are looking at some possible thunderstorms overnight. If we see any, they'll be small and weak. Nothing to be excited about.

Is it a tropical storm or what??

This is quite an interesting feature, looking very tropical in naturel. However, it if anything is subtropical.

The core is likely a cold core, which is completely different from tropical systems that are warm core. If you've ever been in a hurricane near the center, it's quite an intersting feeling when the rain and wind are coming down so fast, and it's completely white out conditions, and yet your hot as hell. The rain from a hurricane is warm like taking a shower at home.

The hurricane center is sending an investigating plane into the system sometime today. Depending on it's findings, we could possibly have a named system, although not likely. This would not be the first time a system was named before the June 1st official start to the hurricane season. Like 2004 when we had a very, very early April storm form in the Atlantic.

Locally, it looks like the rain will be held off until Thursday, much later than I originally thought. Seems the system out west it take quite a while to reach the eastern shores.

Active pattern out west, quite near home

While High Pressure is in control today around the DC area, bringing us semi-warm temperatures and clear skies, the last few days out in the the Central Plains has been active chase weather.

A possible (most likely) F5 tornado touched down in Greensburg, KS this past weekend. May 4th and 5th saw multiple tornadoes with some being strong F-3 or higher.

Locally, we have been working with High pressure and although out temperatures have been holding to the 60s upto near 70, we've had mostly clear skies. Monday, and Tuesday look to follow this trend. However, the system that brought much of the storms out west will arrive in this area sometime in the short future (Tuesday late evening or Wednesday). It will be significally reduced in intensity when it arrives past the Appalachains.

Spring finally arrives in DC

Today and Yesterday both saw near to or at 80 degrees. I did a lot around the house, painting, yard work, etc.

Hopefully with the increase temperatures will be increased humidity and Thunderstorm activity.

I officially will not be chasing in the plains this year. However, I will be active during the Hurricane season. I will be chasing locally a lot, as long as we have the storms to chase.