Category Archives: commentary

Hot start to the week

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Monday afternoon

It’s hot, but at least the humidity isn’t too bad.  Current dew point is 65, right on the bottom end of when humidity starts adding discomfort.  General rule is that dew points below 65 cause little problem for the majority of the population.  However, when the dew point rises above 65, the humidity really gets noticeable.  For this area, Dew points at 70 or above can make the air feel oppressive.  The dew point, by the way, is the temperature to which the air must drop for the air to be 100% saturated.  So, dew points are an absolute way to express moisture in the air.  The higher the dew point, the more moisture is in the air.  Relative humidity, a more familiar term, is highly variable and values change widely during most days.  I know you’re not supposed to define a word by using, but relative humidity really is “relative” (to the air temperature).  More on this at a later date, if anyone is interested – or even if you aren’t!

Back to the weather…there’s a large, weak upper air disturbance over the deep south that is bringing scattered showers/t-storms from the Gulf Coast as far north as Tennessee and east as far as the Carolinas.  This system has been cut-off from the normal wind patterns over the northern U.S.  As a result it is just drifting aimlessly.  Forecast models continue a general weakening trend with a WSW direction.   Thus, higher moisture will be trapped by this system and discourage northward movement.

That becomes the big question mark for our midweek chance for rain.  As usual, the NAM family and the GFS have their differences.  But, once again, none of the models is expecting much rain.  The NAMs are faster and stronger but bring in rain/t-storms during  the morning – the worst time for significant rain.  Meanwhile, the GFS holds off the rain/t-storms until about 4-10PM.  That allows time for more heating, but thunderstorms also need moisture.  That’s being trapped by the southern system.  Neither system holds out much hope for a decent amount (say, .50″ or more) of rain.

As I’ve mentioned before, beyond a day or two the GFS seems to be better.  So it looks like tomorrow and Wednesday should both reach the lower 90’s with a good chance of late day thunderstorms on Wednesday.

Commentary (and a bit of bragging)

As I write this, my wife and 12-year old granddaughter (Holly) are downstairs in the sewing room.  My wife sews a lot (quilt-maker) and Holly has always been fascinated and has been learning for years.  Today they are working on a charitable project called Dresses for Africa.  The original idea used pillow cases to make a quick and easy dress for young girls in Africa.  They made five a few weeks ago and are back at it again.  Here’s a picture of Holly’s first efforts.       016  If you sew or know people might be interested, you can get all the information at www.littledressesforafrica.org.

July at its Best

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Wednesday midday

Pleasant weather continues…another nice pause from the usual July heat and humidity.  So far this summer we’ve seen several times when the heat/humidity build and then fade away after 2-3 days.  That’s been the dominant pattern since May and current forecast models continue the trend.  That would be nice, but I’ve never had much faith in long range predictions.

Current forecasts are concentrating on growing chances for showers/thunderstorms over the weekend.  The NAM model hits it pretty hard for Saturday rains while the GFS doesn’t buy that idea.  The GFS “hints” at a small chance for showers late Sunday.  In my experience, at forecasts beyond two days, the GFS seems to have a better handle on things, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about a wet weekend (at this point).

Blatant Unsolicited Promotion

Yesterday’s post featured a couple of beautiful photos of Rocky Mountain cloud formations.  They were sent to me by some friends who were on a business trip to Colorado.  Their business: hiking.  They’ve recently launched a third web site…RockyMountainHikingTrails.com.  More than everything you’d ever want to know about hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park (one of my  favorite spots on Earth)  and surrounding areas is on the site.  Their two other sites are HikingintheSmokys.com  (a little closer to home) and HikingGlacier.com.  Don’t leave home without them!

Hype and Happenstance  (not by Jane Austin)

The recent Typhoon to strike the Philippines has been largely ignored by the media.  But it brings to mind the incredible hype about the “Super Typhoon Haiyan” last fall.  Strongest storm ever…220 miles per hour winds…another result of climate change…and on and on.  All these “reports” came out during or in the immediate aftermath of the event.  The images of the death and destruction were truly horrible, but  unfortunately not unusual for an underdeveloped nation.

But a few months later, after things had settled down, the real story of Typhoon emerged.  In the Philippines, any typhoon that produces winds over 140 mph is called a Super Typhoon.  Haiyan just managed to make the list.  Maximum winds recorded over land reached 147 mph.  The Weather Service of the Philippines ranks Haiyan as 7th on their list of strongest typhoons over the past 60 years.  So, Haiyan wasn’t the strongest storm ever, it just barely reached the Phillipines’ “Top Ten”.

My guess is that probably everybody reading this already knew the information in the first paragraph.  How many of you knew the 2nd paragraph’s info?  BE VERY,VERY WARY OF THE HYPE!

Disapointment Reigns

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Tuesday afternoon

Well, I said that these summer convective thunderstorm outbreaks fade fast after midnight.  And fade it did!  Hoping for a good soaking rain, we ended up with just .03″ at the airport.  Even those spots that got those thunderstorms last night didn’t get much rain – just power outages.

This afternoon we still find ourselves in the Storm Prediction Center’s slight risk area for severe storms.  And from what I saw around Noon most of the media seems to be playing right along with it.  (A bit of an aside…if your job is to predict severe thunderstorms you WILL  predict severe thunderstorms.  If they fail to occur, it doesn’t matter because your colleagues over at the National Weather Service will be happy to verify them for you.  Years ago, the NWS informal motto was “A few trees down do not a severe thunderstorm make.”  Now, two downed trees counts to “verify” a “severe” thunderstorm.  My how things change.)

Back to this afternoon, even though many of our human forecasters are still looking for severe thunderstorms, the forecast models are not!  As mentioned  in yesterday’s post, the primary energy and moisture would push drier air in this afternoon.  And that’s the case.  What’s left is a very weak cold front over southern Indiana pushing SE.  Instability is low, convergence weak, humidity dropping and any significant upper air energy is long gone.  I’ll go with the models and put any evening rain chance at less than 20%.  And severe weather just does not appear to be a threat.   (But I’d still like to see some rain.)