Kurt is a great lightning photographer. Look for his photos of last night’s storm on his blog.
As for me, I’m a neophyte when it comes to lightning. Shooting at night, the problem I encounter is focus. Unfortunately, most of my shots were too blurred to crop, and since I was shooting wide angle, cropping is essential. However, a couple shots didn’t turn out too badly. The one shown here is the best of the lot. Click on it to enlarge it.
The problem with the surface dewpoints map on my Storm Chasing page is fixed. Everything is now running the way it should be.
Storm chasers, check out the new RUC maps on my Storm Chasing page. They’re still under development, and they’re not comprehensive, but they do offer you something different. I haven’t seen F5 Data weather maps on other sites. If you’re a fan of tornado indices such as the EHI and STP, you’ll like the proprietary APRWX Tornado Index, which includes Great Lakes waterspouts.
For some strange reason, the surface dewpoint map keeps displaying surface temperatures instead. Not sure why, but obiously it needs fixin’. Everything else works as it should. I’ll welcome your comments/suggestions.
Yesterday’s trough passed through pretty much as expected, without a whole lot of fanfare and certainly not with anything tornadic. So the question is, what lies ahead? Anything?
Maybe.
At least we’re not locking in under another ridge. Today is the first day of autumn, the weather patterns are changing, and the GFS and ECMWF seem to agree on a 500 mb trough affecting the Midwest over the next several days. And yeah, yeah, I know it’s just reading tea leaves, but here are a couple 132-hour GFS maps for next Sunday at 00Z. At the risk of stating the obvious, click on the images to enlarge them. The first shows sea level pressure (shaded), surface wind barbs, and 500 mb height contours.
The second map shows 500 mb winds (shaded) with wind barbs, and 300 mb wind contours.
The big question mark may be moisture. But this far out, it’ll be nice if that even matters by the time Sunday arrives. This time of year, living in the Great Lakes, the best one can do is hope. But there’s nothing wrong with hoping.
I’m prepared to get my hopes up a bit. The ECMWF and GFS both now appear to agree on a trough working its way through the country’s mid-section. Here’s the current GFS for 21Z Sunday afternoon:
GFS Sea Level Pressure for 21Z Sunday.
Granted, there’s a lot more that needs to happen, such as mid-level winds and moisture connecting, but this will do for starters. It’s a better picture than yesterday.
The GFS wants to move this system through faster than the ECMWF, but at the moment I’m not going to worry my head about it. All I care about right now is, both forecast models are pointing to a bit of troughiness taking shape. It’s something to keep an eye on. Fingers remain crossed, and while I’m still not holding my breath, I’m hoping that the next few days will offer some reasons to do so.
I love this balmy, blue fall weather. But down inside me, not too far from the surface, convective starvation is gnawing away. Does 2009 have a “second season” in store? Judging by this year’s insipid, ridge-robbed primary storm season, there’s reason to wonder, but I sure hope so.
There may be a flicker of hope for a week from now, at least if you go by the ECMWF.
ECMWF 500 mb winds for Sunday night.
As for the GFS…mmmph. More zonal flow, though the sea level pressure map suggests a hint of troughing for the northern CONUS. Not anything to pique one’s interest, though. And here’s the SPC’s 4-8 day outlook:
VALID 171200Z - 221200Z ...DISCUSSION... GENERALLY BENIGN CONDITIONS -- WITH RESPECT TO THE POTENTIAL FOR A SUBSTANTIAL SEVERE EVENT -- ARE FORECAST THROUGH DAY 5-6 /I.E. FRI. AND SAT. SEPT. 18-19/...AFTER WHICH SOME FAIRLY SUBSTANTIAL MODEL DIFFERENCES BECOME APPARENT BETWEEN THE GFS AND ECMWF. THOUGH SOME HINTS THAT SEVERE POTENTIAL COULD INCREASE FROM DAY 6 ONWARD...CONFIDENCE REMAINS QUITE LOW ATTM. UNTIL THEN...SEVERE POTENTIAL APPEARS LIMITED AT BEST...AS SLOWLY PROGRESSIVE PATTERN ALOFT KEEPS THE MUCH OF THE U.S. UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF LONGWAVE MEAN RIDGING. GIVEN THE LACK OF APPRECIABLE SEVERE POTENTIAL DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE PERIOD...AND LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN MODEL GUIDANCE BEYOND...NO SEVERE THREAT AREAS WILL BE HIGHLIGHTED THIS FORECAST.
I’m rooting for the Euro. It sure would be nice to see some storms. Any kind of storms. Just some decent lightning would be much appreciated right about now.
As I’ve said more than once this year, I’m crossing my fingers but I’m sure not holding my breath.
While doing a bit of Googling on waterspouts, I came across an article in eHow that made me do a double-take, titled “How to Break a Waterspout with a Gunshot.”
My first response was to wonder whether the writer was referring to an old marine practice that I dimly remember reading about of trying to dissolve waterspouts with cannon fire. But no, the writer doesn’t require that you use a cannon. All you need is a gun, he assures you, preferably one with “the blast strength of a shotgun or better.”
Here’s a link to the article. And since it’s a short piece and I’m leery of broken links, I’m going to also quote it here for you in its entirety.
Instructions
Hmmm…sounds reasonable. Anyone care to give it a try? Let me know–I’ll lend you my 12 gauge. On second thought, no I won’t. Chances are that’s the last I’d see of it.
I wonder where this person has gotten his or her information, and what actual research–versus anecdotal evidence and pure speculation–is available to back it up? Even the weakest waterspout involves vast scales of motion that extend upward for thousands of feet and aren’t likely to be be impressed by twinky little shotgun pellets passing through them. I’ve seen a video of an airplane flying through a fair-weather waterspout, and the spout didn’t so much as hiccup.
I’m ready to be proved wrong, but I have a hunch that any purported waterspout thwartings by gunshot stem from encounters where the spouts were already at the point of dissolution. Waterspouts aren’t known for their longevity; still, a spout is going to break up when it’s darned good and ready to. Until then, peppering away at it with “a gun with the blast strength of a shotgun or better” (precisely what “or better” means is unclear to me, but I doubt it matters) isn’t going to make much difference.
I’m no expert on waterspouts, but I do have an opinion on them, namely, that waterspouts are something to enjoy from a distance, avoid when boating, and respect as a phenomenon over which we have little control.
As for breaking one with a gunshot, gee, why not? But first, let’s you and me go on a snipe hunt. Now, you just stand over there in that swamp, hold this burlap bag open, and call, “Here, snipe-snipe-sniiiiipe!” while I circle around through the woods…
The College of DuPage will host its fourth severe weather conference in Downer’s Grove, IL, on Thursday, November 5, through Saturday, November 7. At $220 a pop for non-students, it’s a pricey proposition. But considering its proximity, Great Lakes chasers may want to invest their shekels. I’ve attended two conferences hosted by Paul Sirvatka et al some years back, and they were very worthwhile. With its cast of preeminent presenters, and topics that include the preliminary findings of Vortex 2, this year promises to be particularly rewarding.
According to the FAQ on the symposium website, “This conference is intended to present the latest in severe weather meteorology to a diverse group of severe weather professionals and students. National conferences present some of this material but time contraints do not allow for a detailed look into the state of the science.”
In the words of COD:
The conference is intended for professional operational and research meteorologists, upper-level undergraduate and graduate students of atmospheric science, storm chasers, severe weather spotters and severe weather enthusiasts. We assume that attendees will have some understanding of severe weather meteorology in order to receive maximum benefit from the severe weather sessions. The focus of the conference is primarily on understanding the latest techniques for severe weather forecasting, the use of meso-scale and storm-scale modelling, physical processes leading to the development of supercells and tornadoes and the effective use of remote sensing in severe thunderstorm evolution and behavior.
This symposium will also highlight some of the preliminary results of VORTEX II.
Rooms at the DoubleTree Hotel and Suites, where the conference will be held, are available for $95 per night and will accommodate four persons.
So there you have it. If you can afford the hotel prices and the cost of the conference, which includes an evening banquet, then this is one event you’ll want to make. I’m contemplating my cash flow, holding my breath, and getting set to register.
After last Saturday’s busted waterspout chase, I’ve become curious about what goes into predicting waterspouts. It’s an area I haven’t paid much attention to, but after reading a paper on waterspouts sent to me by Mike Kovalchick, I’m interested in learning their forecasting parameters.
I had always thought there were just two categories of waterspout: non-mesocyclone and mesocyclone. But the paper presents four categories: tornadic, upper low, land breeze, and winter. All of them fall within a range of variables depicted on a “waterspout nomogram” that correlates convective cloud depth and the difference between water temperature and 850 mb temperature.
Tornadic waterspouts cover a broad swath of the nomogram. The remaining three kinds fall within more specific territory:
* Land breeze waterspouts require a minimum convective cloud depth of 5,000 feet, stretching all the way up to 32,500 feet, and water/H85 temp differences between 11 and 19 degrees C.
* Upper low waterspouts require a minimum convective cloud depth of 6,500 feet, stretching up to 36,500 feet, and water/H85 temp differences between 9 and 19 degrees C.
* Winter waterspouts, as one would expect, are a different animal. Convective cloud depths range from 2,250 feet to 9,750 feet, with water/H85 temp differences starting at 24 C and apparently extending beyond that indefinitely.
* All of the above presume 850 mb wind speeds of less than 40 knots.
This is obviously an extremely simplified summary which I’ve extrapolated from the waterspout nomogram. The nomogram brings out variables that I haven’t addressed here, and it’s well worth checking out in the aforementioned paper (see above for link).
Developed by Wade Szilagyi of the Meteorological Service of Canada, the nomogram is in use for predicting Great Lakes waterspouts, and evidently is under consideration for use in the Mediterranean Sea as well. It looks to be an easy-to-understand tool, and one I’ll surely be using as the Lake Michigan waterspout season ramps up.
The marine forecast for Saturday remarked on the possibility of waterspouts on Lake Michigan. Kurt Hulst and I headed to the lakeshore in the hopes of seeing a few spouts, but we wound up disappointed.
We initially targeted Holland, but once we arrived, it became clear that our best shot would be farther north where at least some convection was showing on the radar. So we headed up Lakeshore Drive to Grand Haven and parked in the state park.
In a word, we got skunked. Decent vertical development didn’t begin to show up until it was time to leave, around 4:00 p.m. Kurt needed to be home by 5:00 for a dinner date with his grandmother, so there was no question of sticking around. That was unfortunate, as some formidable-looking cloud bands were finally starting to roll in, and I’m left to wonder whether there were in fact any reports of waterspouts later in the afternoon. As for Kurt and me, we didn’t see a thing, other than some very impressive surf rolling in on a stiff northwest wind.
I’ve never seen a waterspout, and neither has Kurt. Today did nothing to change our unbroken record. Oh, well. Maybe next time.
