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Posts Tagged ‘12’
October 11 & 12 Rain Amounts
Good Morning!
Much of Northwest and the northern half of North Texas received more rainfall this morning as a complex of thunderstorms moved southeast across the area. Many of you received northwest winds of 30 to 40 MPH as an outflow boundary just ahead of the thunderstorms moved through. As expected, once the storms formed into a cluster they generally remained below severe limits with most having lightning and heavy rain. I’ve compiled several graphics showing the radar’s estimated accumulated rainfall from this morning’s event. Please understand that these amounts may be slightly off, but should generally be accurate for your region. I’ve split the graphics up into regions, with county graphics for the areas that received the heaviest rainfall. This is different then this past weekend’s event as many of you requested more specific information. When the National Weather Service posts a list of observed rainfall amounts, we’ll add that info here.
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Early Evening Update on Storms; Update on rain chances for North Texas
Texas Panhandle Radar at 7:46 PM
As I said earlier this morning, a few supercell thunderstorms have developed across the Eastern Texas Panhandle into Northwest Texas. Most have remained marginally severe with hail remaining at or below an inch, but one or two have become potent during the 7 PM hour with one supercell southeast of Pampa briefly becoming tornadic with a few funnel clouds reported. As of the time of this posting, all Tornado Warnings have expired. These storms will likely continue through the evening hours, congealing into a complex of thunderstorms known as a Mesoscale Convective System (MCS), which is a technical term for a larger area of rain/storms.
HRRR at 3 AM Wednesday
There is still some uncertainty on how long the storms will be able to maintain themselves before dissipating, but confidence has increased that they will be able to organize into a convective mass and move southeastward overnight. This particular model run (22Z HRRR) shows the storms moving southeast into North Texas, generally below severe limits overnight, moving into the metroplex around 4 AM. I should stress that timing is still up in the air, but this the 2-6 AM timeframe sounds good for any storms to move in from the northwest. By the time the storms reach North Texas, the primary hazards will be cloud to ground lightning, brief heavy rain, and some small hail. A severe storm or two isn’t out of the question due to cooling mid-levels which support the possibility of some hail.
Rainfall expected Overnight into Wednesday
This rainfall forecast covers tonight and tomorrow, and generally gives areas along and north of Interstate 20 up to half an inch of rain. That’s certainly possible wherever the storms track, but this won’t be anything like this past weekend and certainly won’t do anything to improve our drought.
Finally, here’s the chance of precipitation for those locations expected to be impacted by tonight’s thunderstorms. The first graphic is through the overnight hours, with the second graphic for the morning hours. It’s just a time cutoff, so just ‘combine’ both graphics for your chance of rain overnight.
Keep it tuned to Texas Storm Chasers as we continue to monitor tonight’s chances of rain.
- David
Record Temperatures and High Fire Danger
Temperatures across Texas at 5 PM
You know, this heat reminds me the Energizer Bunny. It just keeps on going and going. It seems like that is what’s going on with the heat. After enjoying fall-like temperatures last week, the heat has returned with a vengeance. Most locations across Texas are in the upper 90′s if not at 100 degrees. D/FW Airport hit 100 degrees just before 2 PM this afternoon, tying the all time record of annual triple digit days. Personally, I figure if we had to deal with this heat all summer we might as well break the record. Don’t worry, we’re going to dominate it tomorrow. Dewpoints remain comfortable in the 40′s to lower 50′s with the exception of the immediate Gulf Coast where the sea breeze has allowed for high dewpoints to make it onshore. We have a few more days of triple digit heat before we another cold front brings relief. Lets dive into it…
Temperatures at 1 PM Tuesday
This graphic comes from the North American Model (NAM) and shows it’s expectation of surface temperatures at 1 PM tomorrow afternoon. While I wouldn’t be surprised to see that this model running a bit on the hot side, it’s pretty clear that we will be at or above triple digits across much of the state by early afternoon. D/FW Airport will easily hit 100° and make 2011 the all-time record for number of 100 degree days.
Tuesday Forecast Highs - NWS
Here is the official forecast from the National Weather Service for high temperatures on Tuesday. Many location in Texas, with the exception of far western and the panhandle, will reach the triple digit mark if not exceed it. If there is one positive thing, the dewpoints will remain low and we should have some wind so it won’t feel like a sauna. However, that is not a positive thing if you’re talking about fire weather. Since Texas is in an extreme drought and we’re about as dry as you can get, the negative aspects of this far exceed any positives. Now lets dig in to what most of you really care about, the potential fire weather danger.
Expected Dewpoints at 7 PM Tuesday
Expected Humidity Values at 4 PM Tuesday
Since we’ve been under a northerly flow for the past week, moisture has been shunted out of the state and into the Gulf of Mexico. A return flow is not forecasted, so the higher amounts of moisture will likely remain confined to the coastal areas of Texas. As such, dewpoint values will likely remain in the mid-forties. You may be saying that 45 degree dewpoints are much higher then the 28 degree dewpoints we saw last week when we had several major fires break out. You’re right, but you also have to consider that we’re going to be 20 to 25 degrees warmer then we were when the dewpoints were in the 20′s. Thus when you consider a temperature of 105 with a dewpoint of 45, you still have humidity values below 20 percent in most cases. That alone would promote a high fire danger, but there’s one thing we haven’t talked about that always allows the fires to spread much more quickly, the wind…
850 MB Winds - 1 PM Tuesday
This graphic shows winds at 850 millibars, or 5,000 feet off the ground. The reason I bring this is because a lot of the wind we see at the surface can be attributed to winds just above the surface that are mixed down during precipitation or extremely warm temperatures. Obviously we’re not getting precipitation, and hot temperatures are extremely efficient at mixing down those winds. At this time, we’re expecting southwest winds of 10-15 MPH sustained across the state. Gusts could approach 20-25 MPH in some locations. These conditions are not as extreme as those we saw early last week, but with the conditions expected tomorrow, this will promote very high to critical fire danger allowing for rapid growth of grass fires.
Max Fire Threat for North Texas on Tuesday
Finally, we’ll leave you with this graphic from the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. This graphic shows the potential fire danger on Tuesday. Needless to say, it’s never a good thing to see a fire danger graphic maxed out. Tomorrow could be a bad day for wildfires and extra resources will be necessary. We’ll be posting updates on our Facebook and Twitter pages, along with all our followers posting their own updates. Thanks for stopping by!
- David
Tropical Depression #12 (Katia) – Discussion #1
Tropical Depression #12 Infrared Image - 8/29/2011 1:45 PM CDT
As expected, Hurricane Irene ended up creating significant disruptions across the Northeastern United States. The main impacts came in the form of falling trees, power outages, and record flooding. Irene has now lost all tropical characteristics and is now more reminisnt of a nor’easter as it continues to impact Canada. Our focus is now on another system that has formed out in the Eastern Atlantic. The National Hurricane Center designated this system as a Tropical Depression earlier this morning. Currently, the system is located several hundred miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. Infrared imgry shows a large area of disorganized convection.
Convection displaced west of the center of Tropical Depression #12
As the graphic above shows, the center of Tropical Depression #12 is devoid of convection. Most of TD12′s convection is currently located on the western sides of the system as some easterly shear impacts the system. This isn’t unusual for new, weak tropical systems. Convection should begin to fire over the center of TD12 later tonight and once that occurs some strengthening should begin and the system should be upgraded to Tropical Storm Kalia.
8/29/2011 18Z Intensity Models
In terms of intensity, Katia is expected to become a significant and powerful hurricane. Because of the open, warm waters and favorable atmospheric conditions, Katia should be able to attain at least Category 3 status, if not higher. This storm will be one of the ‘big ones’ of 2011, but since we don’t even have a Tropical Storm yet, we’ll leave the specifics for another time.
Tropical Depression #12 - 8/29/2011 18Z Tracks
In terms of the eventual track of Katia, it should continue on a general northwest motion for the next several days. From there, there are a few possible scenarios. The first is that a weakness in the ridge across the United States allows Katia to turn in a westward direction and eventually threaten Florida and the eastern GOM. That seems rather unlikely at this point in time. The other two scenarios are the same that Irene faced. The ridge could deflect Katia, turn her northeast and keep Katia from impacting any land areas, or Katia may approach the Eastern US Coastline in the same fashion as Irene. We’re still way too far out to say definitively what will happen, but it definietly bears watching. Should Katia approach the US, the threat is still 10 to 14 days down the road. We’ll definitely keep posting updates on this storm. Stay tuned!
Chasing Oklahoma in July – Who Thought?
Good Morning,
It’s just before the despicable hour of six and the sun has not even begun to rise as of the time of this typing. Not exactly the way I wanted to start off the chase, but hey, I can’t sleep so what am I going to do?
Checking data this morning the first thing that pops up is that there is an extensive amount of precipitation and cloud cover over Texas and Oklahoma this morning. Most of Oklahoma has some light precipitation this morning while more vigorous convection has developed over West Texas in the past hour, as shown by the brighter colors in the Infrared map. That convection, and associated cloud cover, will most likely impact areas along and south of Oklahoma City as the morning goes on. That precipitation shield is associated with a disturbance that will move into Oklahoma today and help spark off more convection.
With situations such as this the models have a very hard time keeping up with current trends, thus their projections for later periods are usually out of whack. The same applies to this case, thus It’s going to be more of a hand-analysis type of day to determine where the boundaries are along with the stationary front. Low Level Shear is weak but stationary fronts have a tendency to locally enhance the shear, so if any storm can ‘ride’ the front it will have a brief chance of producing a tornado. It looks like a High Wind Event should commence across Oklahoma later today so that, along with a slightly lower chance of hail, will be the main threats. It should be noted if a sustained supercell can develop the hail threat will temporarily become the most significant threat, and the potential for an isolated tornado will become more likely, especially if its riding the front.
Connor is out of town this week, thus I’ll be out chasing solo today. My plans are to depart around the 9 AM hour. My current thoughts are that North/Northwest Oklahoma will be the best area, but that will be determined by trends later today. I’m likely going to head where clearing has taken place as that will be the area with the most destabilization. There is a chance that convection will fire earlier then anticipated thus I could be ‘chasing’ or heading to intercept a storm by the time I reach Oklahoma City around the lunch time hour, but I would anticipate that the best chances for severe convection to hold off until the afternoon. I’ll be updating the Twitter account regularly (twitter.com/txstormchasers) so stay tuned to that for the latest information. It’s often hard to post a blog update like this one once the chase has started. Both the Live Stream and GPS will be online today so make sure you check them out at our Live Stream Page!
Chase Status
This shows the probability of a storm chase within the next 5 days.
By roczag
By weatherworm