Hurricane Isaac Surprises With Flooding and Storm Surge

Hurricane Isaac isn't the strongest hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast or near New Orleans, but it's creating havoc because the storm is moving so slowly. The winds aren't the problem with the storm, it's the flooding rains and accompanying storm surge while the storm is progressing at a crawl.

The storm surge is higher than models had predicted yesterday. As Jeff Masters notes:

Isaac is bringing large and dangerous storm surge to the coast from Central Louisiana to the Panhandle of Florida. At 10 pm EDT, here were some of the storm surge values being recorded at NOAA tide gauges:

6.2' Waveland, MS
9.9' Shell Beach, LA
3.0' Pensacola, FL
4.4' Pascagoula, MS
3.4' Mobile, AL

The 9.9' storm surge at Shell Beach, which is in Lake Borgne 20 miles southeast of New Orleans, exceeds the 9.5' surge recorded there during Category 2 Hurricane Gustav of 2008. Research scientists running a Doppler on Wheels radar located on top of the 16' levees in Plaquemines Parish near Port Sulphur, LA, reported at 8:30 pm EDT that a storm surge of 14' moved up the Mississippi River, and was just 2' below the levees. Waves on top of the surge were cresting over the west side of the levee. Needless to say, they were very nervous. Over the past hour, the surge has retreated some, and waves were no longer lapping over the top of the levee. This is probably due to the fact that we're headed towards low tide. A storm surge of 9.5' has moved up the Mississippi River to the Carrrollton gauge in New Orleans. This is not a concern for the levees in New Orleans, since the storm surge has now brought the river up to 2.5' above its normal water level, which was 7' low due to the 2012 U.S. drought. The highest rise of the water above ground level will occur Wednesday morning over much of Southeast Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the western Florida Panhandle, when the tide comes back in. It is clear now that this storm surge event will be as dangerous as that of Category 2 Hurricane Gustav of 2008.

Plaquemines Parish is reporting that levees in the area have been overtopped by the storm surge and caused significant flooding. The levees involved aren't part of the network of levees upgraded or built to protect New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

The parish levees on the east bank are about 8.5 feet high, and some estimates have storm surge at 13 feet. At daylight, the National Guard is expected to launch a larger rescue effort, coming into the east bank through St. Bernard. After the wind subsides, other water and air rescue efforts likely will launch.

While federal levees in the area appear to be holding, problems in Plaquemines Parish are occurring in areas not protected by the federal system, which was revamped after Katrina.

Guy Laigast, director of the parish's emergency preparedness, says that an 18-mile stretch of the parish east bank back levees might be overtopped from Braithwaite to White Ditch and that some points might be seeing 110 miles per hour winds. There are many varying reports of wind speeds, generally ranging between 80 and 110 miles per hour.

"The devastation of my house is worse than Katrina and the flooding in Woodlawn is worse than Katrina, so those things tell me that the damage on the east bank is worse than Katrina," Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said this morning.

So far, the New Orleans flood control systems are doing their job and protecting the city from the Mississippi River, the flooding rains, but this storm is going to take a long time before moving away from the region.

Law enforcement has been working to rescue those caught in the flood waters, but private citizens are also busy helping out their neighbors and others stranded by the flooding. One father-son team has already rescued 23 from the rising waters. Parts of the Gulf Coast could see up to 20 inches of rain with 7 to 14 inches falling over a widespread area.

The storm has left hundreds of thousands without power across the Gulf Coast,

Tropical Storm Isaac Spares Florida, But Track Takes It Towards New Orleans

The storm track was great news for Florida, but the worst of all worlds for the Gulf Coast. While much of southern Florida was drenched with soaking rains and strong winds, the damage was minimal compared to what could have been.

The storm is now over the open water of the Gulf of Mexico and that's going to allow the storm to intensify. The tracks are putting it further and further to the west.

In fact, it appears that the track is shifting towards landfall in and around New Orleans. And it would come ashore as a very strong category 1 storm (max sustained winds of 90mph. They're anticipating strenghtening as it churns into the warm open waters of the Gulf.

Guess that New Orleans will see whether the Corps and the levee boards got their acts together and made sure that the levee system around NOLA will pass the test.

Forecasters are also predicting that the storm could drop up to 15 inches of rain locally. That's a tremendous amount of rain, and while the area inland is suffering from drought conditions, that kind of rain in a short time will mean flooding is expected and that runoff will not recharge aquifers and parched lands sufficient.

As with any storms along the Gulf Coast - the trick will be trying to figure out the storm surge. The storm surge is what did in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and much of the Gulf Coast shore communities from Biloxi to past New Orleans. This storm isn't likely to produce that kind of storm surge, but it's best to be prepared and have an action plan ready just in case local governments call for evacuations from low-lying or flood prone areas. Some localities have already called for evacuations near the Louisiana coast.

Several governors have already declared states of emergency, which allows them to better coordinate activities and emergency responses.

Tropical Storm Isaac On Path Towards Florida and Gulf Coast

An Ominous Offshore Development

This summer has been warmer than usual in the New York Metro area, though that's nothing that the rest of the country hasn't experienced. However, the ocean waters off the New York and New Jersey waters is much warmer than usual.

In fact, the temperatures are running about 10 degrees warmer than they usually are. Warmer waters during the winter moderated temperatures along the coast, but during the summer that means that the shore breeze isn't cooling things down as much.

It's also meant some spectacular fishing opportunities and balmy waters for swimming, but there's a dark side.

Winter's lowest recorded ocean surface water temperature was about 40 degrees, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The surface water temperature reached the mid-70s in June and the low 80s by July. A typical water temperature in June is in the mid-60s and in the mid-70s by July.

The surface isn't the only part of the ocean that is warmer; temperatures at the bottom of the sea also are above average in places. The boundary between colder bottom water and warmer surface water, known as a thermocline, near the New Jersey coast has seemingly blurred and weakened, according to data collected by an autonomous glider that has "flown" underwater for several weeks this summer.

"We're noticing that the thermoclines are much deeper and much weaker," said Bob Schuster, a state Department of Environmental Protection section chief who works with the glider program.

"(The warmth) is much more uniform throughout the water column."

The glider, which is about to be redeployed for another three-week mission, is a part of a joint program with the DEP, Rutgers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study the amount of oxygen in offshore water. However, the glider, which is a $108,000 torpedo-like device, also measures many other physical characteristics, including temperature profiles.

The warm winter also meant that the back bay waters never got very cold and warmed up quickly once the early spring arrived. Flounder have fled the bay shallows for deeper holes near inlets or have gone out into the ocean seeking cooler temperatures. Crabs began crawling out of the mud in the middle of March, weeks ahead of normal.

Bay temperatures have been in the upper 70s to low 80s in most places since early June, but in the grass flats of Barnegat Bay, the water temperature has been just below the threshold that causes heat-sensitive eel grass to die off, said Stockton College professor and sea grass researcher Jessie Jarvis.

Sampling trips so far this summer in Barnegat Bay have shown a typical seasonal decline of the grasses, but "it's too early to tell if water temperatures are resulting in a greater than normal decline," Jarvis said.

Warmer water also affects which species hang around offshore. Fish tales, whether about sharks or large game fish swimming much closer to shore than usual, abound among fishermen this summer.

Reports of large toothy sharks can be heard in bait shops, from fishing enthusiasts and even at shore bars, but Stockton College Marine Field Station manager Steve Evert said it's difficult to believe many of the stories of rarer shark species, such as bull sharks, in the area; none of the sightings has been confirmed.

The dark side? Hurricanes love warm waters. It's what they need to sustain and grow in power.

Last year, Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee hit in the New York metro area causing billions of dollars of damage in New Jersey alone. Hurricane Irene just missed a direct hit on New York City. Now, we've entered the height of hurricane season and a number of storms have already developed across the southern hurricane track into the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico, but as the season wears on, the tracks tend to run up the East Coast.

Storms generally wane in power as they head north away from the warmer waters. However, if a storm were to come up north this year, it would find waters conducive to maintaining strength. That could have dire repercussions should a storm track towards the region.

Last week, the NOAA increased its predictions for named storms in the Atlantic Basin, in part because of the warmer waters:

NOAA now expects 12 to 17 named storms and five to eight hurricanes, two or three of which are likely to be major hurricanes – categories 3, 4 or 5, with winds stronger than 111 mph. A normal hurricane season produces a dozen named storms and six hurricanes, three of which are major.

The change was made in part to reflect this year’s level of storm activity, NOAA said, as well as storm-conducive wind patterns and warmer-than-normal water surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.

Drought Continues Punishing Most of US

Drought across US pushing into the extreme and exceptional. It's getting worse across vast portions of the country, and it's a situation that hasn't been seen in decades.

Grain/corn prices are rising, the Mississippi River is approaching low levels that is already affecting traffic on the river (a major transit corridor for grain, produce, and goods), and there's no sign of a letup.

Oh, and the frackers need water for their natural gas/oil production. It's stressing aquifers and water supplies across the country. Without water, agricultural production will slow, and that will in turn have a ripple effect across the economies of agriculture-dependent states.

Closer to home, the NYC metro area is facing a rain deficit of about 7 inches since the beginning of the year. And last year was wetter than normal only because of the double whammy of Hurricane Irene and TS Lee, which dumped months worth of rain on the region in the span of a few days causing widespread flooding and massive amounts of damage.

More Than Half Of America Suffering From Drought Conditions

The extreme high temperatures we've been experiencing in the Northeast has been baking much of the South and Midwest to the point that 56% of the country is seeing drought conditions. A significant portion of that is extreme and severe drought.

The drought hasn't been long enough to rank up there with the 1930s Dust Bowl or a bad stretch in the 1950s, David Miskus, a meteorologist at the weather service's Climate Prediction Center, told msnbc.com.

"We don't have that here yet," he said. "This has really only started this year."

But for a single year it's still pretty significant, not far behind an extremely dry 1988.

While 1988 saw much drier conditions and an earlier start to the drought than this year, said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2012 has its own interesting qualities.

"This year the high temperatures have certainly played into this drought," he told msnbc.com. "There's a lot more evaporation ... and crop demands for water."

The Drought Monitor noted that the drought is starting to "take a significant toll" on food supplies. "In the primary growing states for corn and soybeans, 22 percent of the crop is in poor or very poor condition, as are 43 percent of the nation’s pastures and rangelands and 24 percent of the sorghum crop."

The lack of significant and consistent rains means that the drought is likely to intensify and will contribute to crop damages. That, in turn, is likely to result in higher food prices.

Of course, the extreme temperatures is also straining power grids, sparking severe storms, and people have to take precautions due to the high temperatures.

Heat-related deaths are being reported across the nation, from Baltimore to California.

The best way to prevent such an outcome is to find someplace cool, and to follow some common-sense measures and to check up on the elderly, infirm, and children.

Death Toll Rises As South Picks Up Pieces From Massive Tornado Outbreak

The death toll from a massive tornado outbreak across the Southern United States is expected to continue climbing above 200 as residents pick up the pieces from 137 tornadoes that were reported around the region, including 66 in Alabama and 38 in Mississippi.

The death toll is quite high despite incessant tornado emergency warnings and that emergency officials called for school and business closures to keep people in relative safety. The problem was that some of the storms were so severe that structures were completely obliterated.

Storms mangled communities from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham to Hunstville Alabama. Emergency personnel will have a difficult time given that power is out to wide swaths of area and that the damage has made it difficult to get into some areas to check for survivors and victims of the storms.

The storms were captured on video and the deadly beauty of these storms are all too apparent:



Power remains out in many parts of the region, and there are concerns over a nuclear power plant that is operating on backup systems. The reactor at Browns Ferry is expected to remain offline for several weeks as transmission lines are restored.

April 2011 is shaping up to be one for the record books. It's setting all kinds of records for severe storms and has set the record for most tornadoes for the month of April (or since 1954 according to the Washington Post).

It's also all too apparent that yesterday's outbreak could go down as one of the deadliest and largest outbreaks in history. That follows the April 16 outbreak that was the largest in North Carolina history.

Today, the storms have shifted to the east, so that Georgia, the Carolinas, and the Middle Atlantic states could be in for a rough time. Already, a handful of tornado warnings have been posted for Tallahassee, FL, Washington DC, and State College, PA areas even as much of the East Coast is under severe storm watches and warnings.

Investigators will comb through the damage paths to determine just how many storms produced tornadoes and the relative strengths of the storms.

UPDATE:
This video shows at least one tornado crossing through the Mississippi countryside tearing up trees and homes and downing power lines. The driver of the car is actually driving directly towards the tornado as the storm crosses within a mile of the car:



More video can be seen here. Video of the tornado slamming into Tuscaloosa can be seen here.

On My Nightstand: Into the Storm

If you've watched Storm Chasers, then you've heard and seen the video shot by Reed Timmer. He's written a book chronicling his storm chasing around Tornado Alley and his experiences trying to study extreme storms.



Into the Storm is a sometimes gripping account of his storm chasing days across America's heartland and attempts to capture extreme storms around the country. It's definitely worth a read.

NWS Confirms Two Tornadoes Touched Down In New York City

Two tornadoes were confirmed to have hit New York City in the supercell of nasty weather that crossed through the region on Thursday afternoon. However, the strongest recorded wind speeds were the result of straight-line winds.

The National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed the tornado hits based on damage patterns from the winds.

A team of investigators from the National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado rated at EF0, or the weakest on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, sliced a two-mile path through Park Slope with 80 mph winds beginning at 5:33 p.m.

About 10 minutes later, a more powerful tornado with 100 mph winds cut a swath of destruction four miles long through parts of Flushing, Bayside and Forest Hills, Queens. That storm felled a massive tree that crushed a Pennsylvania woman on the Grand Central Parkway as she sat in her car on the side of the road in Forest Hills hoping to wait out the worst.

The strongest event was a rare "macroburst" -- intense downdrafts wider than 2½ miles -- that lashed Forest Hills and Middle Village, with 125 mph winds at 5:40 p.m. The howling gusts left a path of devastation five miles wide and eight miles long.

"We were extremely fortunate that there were no more fatalities and extremely fortunate that there were no serious injuries," said Gary Conte, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, which looked at computer data, interviewed witnesses and had investigators fly over the city yesterday to make its tornado determination.

The tornado that tore through Queens was an EF1, but that paled in comparison to the macroburst, which not only brought 125 mph winds, but hit across a much wider and longer area.

The Daily News has a map showing the damage reports, and you can see how the damage spread from Staten Island across Brooklyn and into Queens where the most damage occurred in and around Forest Hills and Middle Village.

State officials aren't sure whether the storm damage will hit the $25 million threshold to obtain FEMA assistance despite the widespread damage and downed trees.

Selective Temp-erament

It is a most curious thing why the Drudge Report is highlighting that several localities in the US have seen record low temperatures so far in July.

If you click on the screen cap at right, you'd see:

Record low temps in LA...

Australia: Coldest day in 100 years...

UN Climate Panel Urges Scientists to 'keep a distance from media'...

The New York metro area just got done with one of the hottest streaks in recent history, matching or breaking record temps. In fact, Central Park saw back-to-back 100 degree days.

So, why cling to cold temperatures in Australia, which is currently in the middle of its winter (Southern hemisphere and all that). And for every record low, record high temperatures can be found to offset them.

The clear intention here is to question climate change and on this the science is well settled. Climate is changing. The question is the degree and speed with which it is changing and the role that mankind has in this change.

There are steps that we can take to reduce our effect on the environment to reduce output of emissions that pollute - including going nuclear, but the politics and NIMBY continue to block serious study and a concerted effort to reduce reliance on petroleum products.

A Close Call and A Makeup Opportunity

That's a satellite image (HT: Gothamist) showing just how close the massive snowstorm that hit the Middle Atlantic states from Virginia to New Jersey came to whacking New York City with 2 feet of snow. Parts of Staten Island got 6 inches though, and Southern Brooklyn got a dusting to an inch, but the significant and historical snowfall totals pretty much stayed well to the South. So, New York City missed out on the storm. The midweek storm will fix that oversight.

Have no fear, since New York City is in the bullseye for a significant snowstorm starting tomorrow night through Wednesday, when perhaps a foot or more is set to come up the coast. The latest predictive tracks put the brunt of the storm directly over NYC and LI - with 9-12+ of snow. The NWS says to expect more than six inches of snow. Other media outlets are running far higher possible totals.

Stirring the Ice Cap Controversy

A MSNBC report cites new observations of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps shows significant degradation and loss of thickness that increased over the past decade:

"Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet ocean margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized," researchers wrote in the paper published online Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Using 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That's where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to the study.

Some of those areas are about a mile thick, so they've still got plenty of ice to burn through. But the drop in thickness is speeding up. In parts of Antarctica, the yearly rate of thinning from 2003 to 2007 is 50 percent higher than it was from 1995 to 2003.

That may be trouble, or not. If you only have a few years worth of data, is it truly possible to extrapolate trends to the future? The new laser data is great at providing a snapshot of information for the past few years, but can we know what kinds of variations in the ice caps were 100 years ago? 200 years ago, particularly when we've only been exploring the polar regions for just over 100 years?

It seems that the models may have issues with another ice cap - the Arctic. As National Geographic reports this month:

This year's cooler-than-expected summer means the Arctic probably won't experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040, scientists say.

Some models had previously predicted that the Arctic could be ice free in summer by as soon as 2013, due to rising temperatures from global warming.

However, that scenario required Arctic sea ice to shrink at the record-setting pace of summer 2007, when sea ice coverage dropped to 1.6 million square miles (4.13 million square kilometers), said Walter Meier, a scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

This summer Arctic sea ice shrank to only 1.97 [ed: NatGeo left out million] square miles (5.1 million square kilometers). The 2009 drop is still the third largest on record, but it's not as big as some scientists had feared. (Explore a vanishing sea-ice interactive.)

The National Geographic report omits some key information. How large were the Arctic cap before they shrank. There is a seasonal variation, and if you provide only the summer data (when it's at its smallest), you can't exactly tell what the winter data is - when the caps are at their largest. That compares with last year's National Geographic report, which predicted that the ice caps might disappear altogether as soon as next year. This year's report shows that scientists are pushing back the complete melting of the cap to as far as 2040, compared with 2030 in the range provided last year. The scientists provide ranges for their models, and while global warming proponents push the earliest dates and the anti-global warming proponents holding to the latter dates, I see a continued lack of data on which to mount a massive overhaul of global enterprises to restrain emissions, particularly when the effects aren't exactly known and that the costs to reduce global temperatures a fraction of a degree are in the trillions of dollars.

March Storm Madness

For those who haven't noticed, I've been light on blogging this past week. I was out in the Caribbean on a 7-day cruise and got back into the NYC metro area last night. The trip was great, but getting back was an absolute mess because of the Nor'easter that we're experiencing in the NYC metro area and throughout the entire Eastern United States as the storm dumped snow from Alabama and Georgia all the way up through to Maine. More than 50 million people are being affected directly by the storm, and many areas will see more than 10 inches of snow before all is said and done.

It's a pretty bad storm no matter how you look at it and yet, it wasn't the weather in NYC that made travel so horrible yesterday. It was the mess in Atlanta, which was hit by the storm before it hit the East Coast. It may have been fun for some, but to the airlines, and Delta Airlines in particular, it was a disaster.

Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed because they couldn't deal with the snow at the airport or to get equipment to the right place.

Normally, I would try to schedule direct flights between New York and our destination and for the return flights, but because I was using Skymiles, I got a connecting flight through Atlanta on our way back to Newark.

When we got to the airport from the cruise ship at 9AM, the airport was already a madhouse because Delta Airlines was having a meltdown. They were canceling flights left and right and people were scrambling to find alternatives. The line at the Delta ticket counter was winding through the airport and there were no representatives to direct people what to do. The situation was also bad at some of the other counters, including Northwest and Southwest, but Delta was having the worst of it. It was like that for hours. We were waiting on line with no guidance and no instructions.

The folks in the line were all well behaved and were quite helpful to each other, giving what little tidbits of information to each other. Phone lines to Delta's reservations line were useless as they were jammed and all you got were busy signals - and that situation remains unresolved even today. It didn't matter if you were a Skymiles member or not - you couldn't get through under any of the phone numbers except the flight information line - and there were significant waits for that too.

After three hours of waiting on line and still no closer to the counter, I made my way over to the jetBlue desk, and attempted to get tickets. I finally managed to get two tickets on a direct flight to JFK (our car was, and still is, at Newark), but it was a steep price to get back to NYC. The two tickets were $640, and we still had to deal with Delta. That was at 1PM. The new flight was scheduled for 6:32PM.

Oh, and there was no guarantee that the jetBlue flight would happen since there were weather delays and cancellations popping up all over the East Coast because of the storm that was now hitting all over the place.

Delta finally sent some people out into the crowd to provide additional phone numbers - all busy of course - but also that they shouldn't bother to stay on line since they wouldn't get any other information than what was being provided at the ticket counter. To say that this was not helpful was an understatement.

Still, it was a highlight of the day when a contingent of US Marines lugging what looked like 200 pounds of gear and bags entered the ticket area and attempted to get through the crowd to secure their own ticketing. Some of the Marines had bags and packs that were bigger than they were. The crowd parted easily and spontaneous clapping erupted as they made their way back and forth through the area. They were on their way to Camp Pendelton, but had to fly through Atlanta.

I would keep checking back with the Delta counter to see if the line slackened any, but that never happened. The line looked like it was a consistent two to three hour wait, and we were hearing that the earliest flights back to the NY metro area would be Tuesday at the earliest. That was completely unacceptable so I figured that I would deal with Delta when I got back to NY.

We kept a wary eye on the arrival/departures status boards, as we saw cancellations and delays mount. A delay on an inbound flight from Boston would mean delays on outbound flights from Tampa, and the domino effect was truly in play. Flights in and out of Newark, LGA, and JFK were being canceled or delayed. Our own flight ended up showing a delay because our plane was coming from Boston, where they got an early taste of the storm and that meant that our flight to NY was not expected to leave Tampa until 7:10PM.

The airport has some shops and a couple of restaurants so we made use of both - having lunch and wandering the airport terminal for amusement and to stretch our legs. Many other folks were in the same boat, although some gave up trying to fly out yesterday and instead looked to find a room for the night either at the Marriott on the airport property or at off airport locations.

Well, the folks at the jetBlue counter couldn't be any nicer and helpful and were able to get us on that flight and keep us informed. The Boston flight did get in late, but the jetBlue staff turned the plane around in literally 20 minutes time. They were deplaning the passengers through both the front and rear of the plane, checking it out, cleaning, and restocking it in minutes. We actually boarded the plane and pulled back from the gate at 7PM. It was still 20 minutes later than the originally scheduled time, but earlier than anticipated.

The plane was absolutely packed to the gills because people were scrambling to get back home. We finally touched down at just about 9PM. That's right - we made the trip in nearly 2 hours flat. Apparently we got a 50mph tailwind and were flying most of the trip at over 630mph. The ride wasn't too bumpy either although we did get a few thunderstorm displays out the window.

Touchdown in NYC was uneventful even though the runways and taxiways were wet and starting to slush up at the margins. We disembarked from the plane without a hitch although it took quite a bit longer to get our bags than we hoped. My brother got us from the airport and drove us home, which meant the world to us given the day we had.

Thousands of other passengers were in a similar situation yesterday and today because of the storm. Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed, and the problems aren't expected to ease for a couple of days. Meanwhile, while I can't say I'm glad to be home to shovel snow and deal with the storm, it is nice to be home.

And I finally managed to get through to a Delta rep today and they credited my account for the unused Skymiles. It's a start.

Weather Hysteria Watch

What's shocking about subzero temperatures in winter? Apparently someone at the AP thinks that subzero temperatures in January in the upper Midwest is something "shocking."

Shocking cold wave drops temps to 40 below zero

Temperatures crashed to Arctic levels Tuesday as a severe cold wave rolled across the upper Midwest on the heels of yet another snowstorm, closing schools and making most people think twice before going outside. Early Wednesday, the cold front swept into New York, sending temperatures falling from the 30s a day before to single digits or below zero. It hit 8 below in Massena, on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York, with the wind chill making it feel like minus 25 degrees.

In Michigan, temperatures Wednesday morning ranged from minus 17 at Ironwood in the western Upper Peninsula to 10 degrees in the southwestern Lower Peninsula and 12 on Beaver Island. Ironwood earlier recorded a temperature of minus 23.

Thermometers read single digits early in the day as far south as Kansas and Missouri, where some areas warmed only into the teens by midday.

The ice and snow that glazed pavement was blamed for numerous traffic accidents from Minnesota to Indiana, where police said a truck overturned and spilled 43,000 pounds of cheese, closing a busy highway ramp during the night in the Gary area.

Really? You mean to tell me that historical temperatures in Minneapolis don't get below 0F for extended periods? It happens pretty much every year. Some years get extended periods, while others get shorter periods. It depends on the Jet Stream and how the Arctic air gets pushed down from Canada into the United States.

Perhaps the only shocking thing about this is that it once again deflates the notion that manmade global warming has ended winters as we know them.

Electrifying

This is a spectacular video showing a lightning strike captured with a high speed camera.



HT: venjaz at LGF

Baked Apple

The New York City metro area is in the midst of its first heat wave of the year, and it is a doozy. Temperatures are in the mid- to upper 90s, and the heat index is pushing well over 100 degrees. It will be a couple of days before the temperatures even come close to being seasonable.

In the meantime, Con Ed and other utilities will have their hands full keeping the power going (they had issues yesterday because of thunderstorms touched off by the unbearable heat).

There are a whole list of weather watches and warnings for the region.

The best advice is to take it easy, find a cool comfortable place to escape the heat, stay hydrated, and check in on the elderly, infirm, and children who are most susceptible to heat-related illnesses including heat exhaustion (heat prostration) and heat stroke.

UPDATE:
PSE&G finally got power restored to 75,000 customers in Essex counties after a power substation went on the fritz.

Service was restored about 5 1/2 hours after the outage began, but about 90 minutes earlier than a previous estimate, PSE&G spokeswoman Bonnie Sheppard wrote in an e-mail.

Affected customers were in parts of Orange, Irvington, Caldwell, Montclair, South Orange, Newark, East Orange and West Orange.

Just under 1,000 PSE&G customers in West Orange remained without power tonight, but that outage was not related to the one that affected the other towns, PSE&G spokeswoman Jennifer Kramer said.

The original outage started around 3 p.m. after a failed breaker caused a fire at a switching station in West Orange today, forcing PSE&G to shut power to thousands during the season's first extended heat wave.

Incredible Weather Photography

These photos show the awesome fury of nature in all their dangerous beauty.

Grading the Storm Predictions

As the 2007 hurricane season comes to a close, just how well did the scientists predict the number of storms and their storm tracks?

Well, here's what I wrote at the top of the 2007 hurricane season.

Tropical Storm Noel is closing in on Haiti, and it is the 14th named storm of the 2007 season.

While that is in the range of those predictions for Atlantic Storms, the overall number of storms for the Northern Hemisphere appears to be headed for one of the lowest totals in the past 30 years.

These charts look at not the number of named storms, but the number of days where there are tropical storm force winds and hurricane force winds. By those measures, the current season is substantially below the 30 year average.

This is the problem with trying to select data points for individual regions - you miss larger patterns or find patterns that aren't there. What was the range for the prior 30 year period and how much data do we have for earlier periods. Those would help round out the amount of information we have about the climate and put these kinds of statistics into context.

Dean's Destructive Path Zoning In On Mexico

The storm models have all been shifting to the South, so it appears that the next target for Hurricane Dean will be the Yucatan Peninsula, followed by a strike on mainland Mexico. Some models push hurricane force winds out into Southern Texas, but it appears that the brunt of the storm will be felt in Mexico. Brendan Loy has more on the storm track. He also noted that because the eye didn't cross Jamaica, it didn't break down, which means that the potential is present for serious intensification to a Category 5 storm, although the central pressure isn't in record territory. Also, even though the storm may intensify to that level, it doesn't mean that it will make landfall as that strong a storm. Eric the SciGuy wonders at the overhyping of Dean's potential landfall.

He also has a good post about the projected track into the Yucatan, and what we can expect for the rest of the hurricane season. We're entering the busy period, so we should expect more storms between now and November, when the season comes to a close.

Oil rigs in the Southern Gulf of Mexico have been evacuated in anticipation of the storm. Meanwhile, the Caymans are bracing for the storm's approach and Jamaica begins the cleanup.

UPDATE:
The NHC has found that Hurricane Dean has intensified to a Category 5 storm with winds of 160 mph.

Closing In

Hurricane Dean continues to bear down on Jamaica and the Grand Caymans as a strong Category 4 storm. Damage from such a storm will be severe.

Hurricane Dean barreled across the eastern Caribbean Saturday and took aim at Hispaniola, Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, with forecasters saying it could turn into a monster Category 5 storm within 72 hours.

With sustained winds near 150 mph, Dean left behind floods, debris and at least three deaths on the islands of St. Lucia, Martinique and Dominica on Friday.

The first hurricane of the Atlantic season, the Category 4 Dean was expected to gain power as it moves across the warm waters of the Caribbean through the weekend. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said its winds could surpass 155 mph as it approaches the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico on Monday.

Scientists rely on a variety of models to predict where tropical storms will hit, and here's background on those models. Those models are all trending towards a hit on Mexico, with one outlier pushing towards the Gulf Coast. However, the physical size of the storm continues to grow, so the wind field of tropical force winds or higher are growing as well. Even if the storm tracks into Mexico, Texas could definitely feel the effects of the storm, including heavy rains, which is the last thing that Texas needs considering the pounding rains and flooding due to Tropical Storm Erin.

As always, check with Brendan Loy for more on the hurricane blogging.