Cold front in the Midwest is the harbinger of winter

Today was a particularly active weather day, with low pressure in the Upper Midwest extending a cold front through the Great Lakes and on towards the Mississippi. The front itself has been the origin of severe weather from the Quad Cities south through Missouri and eventually across Big Muddy and through Illinois.

More indicative of what’s coming is the snow that fell in the Upper Midwest. 2-5″ fell in Minnesota as precipitation wrapped into the cold air diving into the country behind this system, merely a couple of hundred miles away from tornado warnings in northern Illinois.

More tangibly, I think these two images spell out the change coming for the end of the week. First, the radar imagery.

And now, take a look at tonight’s lows. There should be some significantly colder air northwest of those bands of thunderstorms.

And there is that sharp drop I promised. High pressure will move in at the surface over the Plains, and prevent much of a warm up for a couple of days. Eta will slow the cold front so all those places that will get copious rain from the tropics will remain warm few days longer.

If you didn’t believe it yet, winter looks like it is here, and will hang on.

October Forecaster of the Month

We are only a week into November, which means that we are awarding the forecaster of the month sooner than usual lately, and also, with as long as this week took, it’s clear time has no meaning anymore. The forecasting was pretty ok this month, though it leaned heavily on model guidance because of a west coast bias. It was Accuweather who did the best work for the month.

OutletMonth wins
The Weather Channel1
Victoria-Weather1
WeatherNation1
Accuweather1
Weatherbug
National Weather Service
Forecast.io
Outletyear wins
The Weather Channel10.5
Victoria-Weather10.41
Weatherbug6.49
WeatherNation6.08
National Weather Service4.91
Accuweather4.75
Forecast.io3.83

Tropical Storm Eta is moving through all parts of the Caribbean

Hurricane Eta plowed into Central America after exploding from a depression to a Category 5 storm in an alarmingly short time frame. It hit Guatemala, Honduras and particularly Nicaragua with vicious winds, but the particularly brutal part of the storm were torrential rains that killed hundreds thanks to flash floods and mudslides in mountainous terrain. The topography of Central America makes the region a death trap during strong tropical storms.

Now, Eta, instead of expiring in the mountains, turned back to the east and is forecast to wind through the Caribbean, hitting a lot of highlights along the way. Part of the reason it is expected to be able to continue on this path, despite a pending bisection of Cuba tonight, and a graze of the Florida Keys in the early part of the week, is how good it continues to look on satellite.

It’s generated quite a bit of convection to it’s north, and because it isn’t as strong as it looked, it will probably continue to feature broad swaths of directionless convection over places like south Florida as it wiggles along the Gulf Coast.

It’s not going to be a major storm in Florida, but it will last a while and be quite a soaker.

September forecaster of the month

Wow. What a wild month September was. Then again, September is the wildest of them all, almost every year. There are hurricanes, wild fires. every thing that can go wrong thanks to the stored heat of summer. No wonder, then, that it was Forecast.io, the robot army, that could keep the level head needed to secure this honor.

Outletyear wins
The Weather Channel9.5
Victoria-Weather9.41
Weatherbug6.49
WeatherNation5.08
National Weather Service4.91
Forecast.io3.83
Accuweather3.75

A video of the extensive, long lasting Iowa Derecho

Youtube user Tyler Spiedel had a Go Pro camera set up as the now infamous Iowa derecho blew through Cedar Rapids. For those that weren’t in it, it is a good demonstration of the sustained intensity of this particular storm, and the destruction it caused. Derechos look in many ways like hurricanes more than they do tornadoes.

Fortunately for Midwesterners, human and otherwise (see: The deer at about 40 seconds) storms of this intensity are extremely rare. When they do arise, though, the devastation is widespread.

The Atlantic grinds to a halt

The main topic of conversation in the weather community over the last couple of weeks has been twofold. Either we were talking about the wildfires in the west, or the hyperactive Atlantic, which at one point had 5 active named storms in the Atlantic.

The fires are temporarily tamed, but check out the NHC’s forecast page right now.

Not only are there no active tropical features, but there isn’t even anything on the horizon. The United States and the rest of North America should have a quiet tropical week or two. Thank goodness.

Of course, this should be paired with the standard notice that we are still in late September, and while we are on the other side of the tropical season peak, we are still in a point in the year that is typically fraught with cyclonic peril. Just because it is quiet now doesn’t mean we are out of the woods for the rest of the year. Check back in by the end of the week, and I’m sure there will be something out there to monitor.

Clearing the air

Some of the most vibrant and horrible images of the last few weeks have been from the west coast, where smoke from fires had polluted the skies, turning cities from Seattle to the Bay Area an eerie, haunted shade of red.

After the conflagrations had exploded across he region, under a high pressure regime that trapped the ash and haze near the surface, reducing air quality, visibility and sense of reality. Setting aside the summer long conditions, and climatological deterioration that helped set the ground work for the fires, the high pressure was a short term weather pattern that made things worse over a broader area.

The attendant jet also spilled into the middle of the country, and brought all that smoke with it, rendering most of the country hazy. Fortunately, one feature was going to come through and help with both situations. A trough of low pressure.

Well hallelujah. Early this weekend, a weak, but still strong enough area of low pressure came through the area and scoured the atmosphere of smoke and ash and made life and the air a bit more livable. This is a recent capture from the Space Needle’s skycam.

Not only does this removed the smoke from Seattle, but also removes it from the jet stream, clearing skies through the Midwest as well.

Hopefully, the worst is over, even as fires rage in the Cascades. At least, the impact is no longer felt as severely for as far away as it was earlier this month.

There’s not enough satellite space

Above is this evening’s satellite picture of the Atlantic. Usually, when we discuss the tropics, we can focus on one storm, or if it’s particularly busy, we can look at the western Atlantic and appreciate the activity bubbling up in September.

We need an entire corner of the Earth to fully capture what’s going on, and even then, we can count our blessings that Tropical Storm Alpha has already expired over the Iberian Peninsula, otherwise we wouldn’t be looking far enough to the east to fully encompass all the activity.

Right now, the biggest and most intense storm, right in the middle of the Atlantic, is Teddy. Teddy will only be what we call a “nautical concern” for the next few days as he drifts through the Sargasso Sea. Still, he is a strong enough storm that a hurricane landfall will be possible in Nova Scotia, of all places.

Wilfried is still far enough to the east that she is not a terrible threat, and will continue to be a fish storm, like Teddy but significantly weaker. That leaves Beta.

Tropical Storm Beta stands to become the third Greek Letter hurricane in history, after Beta and Epsilon in 2005. It’s curly path may result in an extended stay off shore. A trip further inland by the middle of next week would surely accelerate deterioration of the storm. Wind and surge don’t look like the primary threats with Beta, but rather rain, like Sally in the Southeast.

There is a lot made out of the prolificity of the 2020 season, but one bit of good news is how infrequently these storms have developed into hurricanes. While there have been a bunch of named storms, and we we will surely surpass 2005 in the number of such storms, we aren’t nearly to the pace of hurricanes as that horrible year. We are on the downslope of the hurricane season now, and hopefully the back side of this peak decelerates much more quickly than it ramped up.

Forecaster (s) of the month(s)

OK, I get it. We’re in the middle of September, and I simply haven’t had a chance to circle back and name our forecaster of the month for either July or August. I’m not sure why, especially since Victoria-Weather was the forecaster of the month for July!

It was a tighter contest in August, which isn’t a bad thing, because there were more forecasts. I like to believe the convergence of forecasting values suggests a higher quality of forecasts across the board. That means WeatherNation, the forecaster of the month for August should really embrace their title.

OutletMonth winsyear wins
The Weather Channel9.5
Victoria-Weather7.91
Weatherbug6.49
WeatherNation5.08
National Weather Service4.91
Accuweather3.75
Forecast.io 3.33
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is trophy.jpg

Isaias looking for trouble

We continue with our extremely busy early season in the tropics, already reaching the I storm for the year. That means there have been 9 named storms, with the typically most active part of the season looming. Hanna, the storm before Isaias was the first hurricane of the year, landfalling in south Texas last week, causing some flood damage to the Brownsville, McAllen and Harlingen areas. Isaias also threatens US interests this weekend.

Isaias only congealed into a hurricane after making his first landfalls over Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Shortly after reemerging over the sea north of the Dominican Republic, he strengthened into a hurricane for the first time. He still doesn’t look like your classic, well organized hurricane as he passes over the central Bahamas, but hurricane hunters have verified his status.

There are warnings out for most of the Bahamas, as well as across the east coast of Florida as well.

Calling for a hurricane warning where the hurricane presently is is just solid operational meteorology, but the warning along the Florida Coast should tell you a little something about where this storm is expected to end up. Let’s see the first spaghetti plot on Victoria-Weather of 2020!

There are two things to note about this particular track. First, the majority of the input guidance keeps the storm off the coast of Florida, save for a brief incursion around Jupiter, before strafing the coast. Second, there is a startling level of cohesion to the tracks even a few days into the forecast. I feel like now I should note that Isaias is pronounced “Eesa-eeyus” because you are going to hear about the storm for a while.

The bad news is that this storm is going to affect the US for quite awhile, but after that initial “there is a hurricane affecting the country, and it is part of an extremely active tropical season to date” news, the situation breaks towards the positive for the East Coast. First, Isaias is likely close to, if not at, it’s maximum intensity already.

This is primarily because Isaias is moving swiftly, and won’t loiter over the warm waters that will give it strength. Additionally, his proximity to the coast will deter sustained development. That swift moving factor should limit the flooding potential, though there is always that chance with a tropical feature. I would expect the flooding threat to be greatest from North Carolina to New York, where Isaias will dabble inland the most.

Winds and storm surge won’t ever really bear down on the US as powerfully as they could. The left side of a hurricane, relative to storm motion, is generally the tamest side of the storm. IF the eye remains off shore in Florida, when the storm is its strongest, then the most intense part of the storm will follow suit. Also, storm surge is greatest ahead of the storm, and since it will be moving parallel to the coast for the most part, surge will never be as big a concern as Katrina or Michael, for example.

All tropical features bring their dangers and should be met with concern. Fortunately, Isaias will deliver only a glancing blow. Hopefully, it will give enough practice to coastal residents, as the 2020 hurricane season (and 2020 year in general) don’t show any signs of becoming less relentless.