Get Ready for 120 Degrees - Below Zero!

I got this forecast today for Richmond, Virginia, at 2008 June 9 16:38 EDT:

Forecast for Henrico

Updated: 3:33 PM EDT on June 9, 2008

Heat [!?!!?!] advisory in effect until 8 PM EDT Tuesday...

Through 7 PM
Mostly clear. Highs around 101. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Wind chill values as low as 120 below.

Tonight
Clear. Lows in the mid 70s. South winds around 5 mph.

Tuesday
Mostly sunny. Scattered showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Hot with highs around 100. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30 percent. Wind chill values as low as 120 below.

Tuesday Night
Partly cloudy. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the lower 70s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph...becoming northwest after midnight. Chance of rain 30 percent. Wind chill values as low as 120 below.

Wednesday
Partly sunny. Not as warm with highs around 90. North winds 5 to 10 mph. Wind chill values as low as 120 below.

Wednesday Night
Mostly clear. Lows in the upper 60s. East winds around 5 mph in the evening...becoming light and variable.

Thursday
Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s.

Thursday Night
Mostly clear in the evening...then becoming partly cloudy. Lows in the upper 60s.

Friday
Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s.

Friday Night through Monday

Partly cloudy. Lows in the mid 60s. Highs in the upper 80s.

You just heard what it says. It's going to be 120 degrees in Richmond. BELOW ZERO. That's right, it will feel like it is -120 degrees F, almost cold enough to freeze the CO₂ out of the atmosphere into dry ice and stop global warming. Right now as I type this I am wearing only shorts and sandals, but if you go out like this tomorrow you will freeze instantly into a statue. You will need the same type of clothing that they wear in Antarctica in August when it hits -127 F.

What's more, the weather folks think they can get this type of chill out of a roasting 101 degrees F above zero. To me, hot feels HOT. It's not going to feel bitter cold. I think the problem is a misprint in something called METARS, but when it comes up, the results can be positively hilarious. You weather people need to double check before you enter these METARs or whatever creates these forecasts.

I will again wear shorts and sandals tomorrow, not an Arctic parka. By the way, it is 32 degrees and overcast with occasional rain and snow in Barrow, Alaska.

Arthur/Alma the Sex-Change Bear

Earlier I reported indications this week of a hurricane or tropical storm hitting Florida and then coming up the coast. Later runs of the GFS showed the storm to stall out in the Gulf of Mexico or the Bay of Campeche. When the storm first formed, it wandered into the Pacific, becoming that basin's first storm of the season, Alma. Alma headed back inland and lost its tropical characteristics. It then entered the Caribbean, and reformed, whereupon it was given the name of Arthur, the first Atlantic storm. So it went through a sex change. I have been waiting for a storm to do that. But in any case, Alma the Bear, which became Arthur the Bear, fizzled out because it stayed on land too long - it even formed on land.

The lastest run of GFS that I show shows no tropical storm development.

The Bear

The hurricane threat still remains. Some of the Global Forecasting System runs have been strange. Most of them have something going on in the Pacific Ocean south of Nicaragua, crossing Central America and moving north, developing into a storm which heads towards Florida, and then to the Gulf of Mexico, up the Atlantic seaboard, or out to Atlantic sea, depending on the run. One weird run has it splitting in half in the Gulf of Mexico, with one half heading towards Houston, and the other to peninsular Florida, and then out into the Atlantic. The GFS now shows the storm forming on May 31 near Central America, hitting Florida on June 3 and Virginia in the wee hours of the morning of June 6.

None of the local weather people or public forecasts of NOAA say much about the storm, but the meteorologists are aware of it. Here is what the Area Forecast Discussion says about the storm at 2008 May 25 14:46 CDT today:

THE GFS AND ECMWF WERE DIFFERING IN THEIR HANDLING OF THE TROPICS BY DAY SEVEN. THE GFS HAS A WEAKNESS IN THE UPPER RIDGE PRESENT OVER THE ENTIRE GULF COAST STATES. THE ECMWF HAD A STRONGER RIDGE IN PLACE FROM MEXICO ALL THE WAY EAST INTO FLORIDA. THE GFS AND ECMWF DEVELOP A SURFACE LOW IN THE SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN BY THE UPCOMING WEEKEND...WITH BOTH MODELS THEN GOING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS WITH THE SYSTEM. GIVEN THE TIME OF YEAR IT IS BEST TO SAY THAT THE TROPICS BEAR WATCHING.

That's right. They say the tropics bear watching. So I am going to name this storm The Bear, until it gets an official name, if it will get one. If it gets a name, it would be called Arthur. That sounds cute: Arthur the Bear. The adventures of Arthur the Bear.

With this type of storm already persistently showing up in the GFS, it looks like a bad hurricane season may be ominating this year. We have warmer temperatures, cold air to the north, and warm sea temperatures, all of which mean an active season. The Bear probably will come about because of a cold front that dragged too far south for this time of the year. I hope it stays away from us. We have already had problems with bears recently, including Bear Stearns and a bear in the Richmond area that wandered around before being clobbered on I-95 by a tractor trailer. We have also had problems with power outages. My area used to be safe from such outages, getting them only in the worst hurricanes and ice storms. We have had an 8-hour and a 12-hour power outage this year from ordinary storms and their wind, scarcely gale force. So please stay away, Bear.

Tornado? Wow!!

Tornado in Colorado 2008 May 22

Arthur on June 2?

Winter is over now. I recorded 34 storms or lows which created forecasts containing wintry precipitation in them this past winter, but nothing produced more than a dusting or perhaps an inch of snow. The most dangerous was a brief sprinklet lasting about an hour of freezing rain, but it caused hundreds of accidents in the Richmond area on December 7.

So now summer is coming up, and what comes near the end of summer? Hurricanes, that's what. Already we have a tropical storm threat. None of the weather people say it yet, because it is more than a week away, but the Global Forecasting System has been forecasting it for quite a few days in a row. Apparently a disturbance near the end of May in the southern Caribbean is going to move north, clip Cuba's western part, and head to Miami about June 2. The storm, which may be a strong tropical storm or hurricane, then will go out to sea off the Atlantic seaboard.

If this materializes, it would be called Arthur. So far the GFS runs have been consistent in predicting this storm, and the European Model (ECMWF) is now showing it as well. So residents of Florida need to keep aware of the forecast. There may be a hurricane headed your way.

Don't be concerned by the earliness of this storm. The year 2007 started with a subtropical storm, named Andrea, that did not do much except pinwheel around and ruin weather on the Atlantic coast. But keep a watch of it.

Hurricane in Kansas?

It's been some time since I made a tropical report. That is because nothing much has been happening. There is some formulation going on off the Florida and Georgia coasts. This has just recently been named Invest 93L. So what is Invest 93L going to do?

GFS - splits in half like the Wonder Twins when they activate, with one half going up the Atlantic seaboard and the other barreling into New Orleans.
GFDL - not much of anything. But then when it gets in the Gulf, it blows up into a Category 1 hurricane and hits New Orleans. Just what they need. Then it goes up into the Midwest, still maintaining tropical storm strength, right into Kansas and Missouri.
NOGAPS - Has been hurricane-conservative all season long. This one makes a tropical storm in the Gulf and takes it to the oil producing regions of Texas, south of Houston.
UKMET - Into New Orleans as a Class 4 storm or Category 1 hurricane.
HWRF - A small X in the corner.
CMC - into northwestern Florida as a tropical storm.

Now you see what I mean by a hurricane in Kansas. That's a bit overblown. The model still shows it as a tropical storm in Kansas. The main hazard I think is to New Orleans, where three of the models are sending this storm to. Remember that the Gulf waters are warm at this time of the year. Any little two-bit storm that gets into the Gulf now could blow up suddenly into a Category 5 hurricane. Look at Humberto. It had an extra few hundred miles of water to go through than they figured, and that was almost enough to make it into a Category 2 hurricane.

Now for the Sea Ice report. I got a reply to an email I sent to Jeff Masters. He says the ice has reached a minimum and will now start to expand. This is what I would think. But in the past week it has actually been shrinking. There is a lot of warm (if you call 40 F warm) water in the Arctic ocean, and that could inhibit the ice from forming as fast. So when will it start to expand? In October, we should see snow expand all over the place in Canada and Siberia. At around this time, the ice sheet should start advancing in a noticeable way. But when in October will this be?

Marine Summer Solstice

It has arrived. 2007 September 10 is the Marine Summer Solstice, the date when the warmth in the oceans and other bodies of waters reaches its peak. After today, temperature should decline in the oceans as we begin heading for 2008 March 10, the Marine Winter Solstice.

So how is the Marine Summer Solstice marked? First of all, it is the time when Arctic sea ice is at a minimum. From this time on, we can expect ice in the north to increase. The Weather Solstice already has occurred (July 26 or thereabouts) and so there has been cooling on the continents, and already snow is falling in eastern Russia and the Canadian high arctic islands. So what happened to the ice on September 11? It shrunk! That's right, it melted substantially and now nearly half of the Arctic Ocean is free of ice. This has to have an effect on the coming winter. One would think the winter should be abnormally warm, especially in eastern Russia and western Alaska. Further, with more moisture in the air, one would think that these areas would have more snow than usual, and it seems that this snow is already starting. The worst effect of this warmth is if it starts the Greenland ice sheet to melting. But that area is near the part of the Arctic Ocean that has not melted.

September 10 is also the peak of the hurricane season. So far we have had a season midway between the two previous seasons. There have been two Category 5 hurricanes, Dean and Felix. I followed Dean for about 3 weeks, from when it started as a storm in central Africa. We just had a squibbler of a storm (Gabrielle) hit the Outer Banks. So what's coming up next?

NOAA is tracking Invest 91L, a new one, in the Atlantic. This may become a tropical storm soon. Some models develop it into a Category 3 hurricane, but GFS so far has it dissipating before it gets close to land. The GFS runs keep showing over and over again, about two weeks from now, around 2007 September 26, a storm originating in the Caribbean, crossing the Yucatan strait into the Gulf of Mexico, and hitting the US coast. Earlier runs had it hitting New Orleans, but more recent runs show it flirting with Florida. So the season is not over yet.

So that's the Marine Summer Solstice. The next major point is September 23, the midpoint of Solar Autumn, when the nights start getting longer than the days.

Invest 99L

Felix has crashed into Nicaragua and Honduras - the first time that two Category 5 storms have struck land as Category 5 storms in the same season. It is traveling well to the south, and will probably dissipate in the high mountains of Central America after dumping 20-30 inches of rain in those areas.

I had also been following a disturbance in Africa that GFS says will launch from Africa and cross the Atlantic. But there is another upstart now. A bunch of clouds formed off the South Carolina coast. They have moved away from shore and show up as a cloud mass well out to sea in satellite photographs. The cloud mass looks like the hairdo of a Weather Channel broadcaster who was giving a report on the storm on or about 2007 September 4 1315 EDT.

The weather models predict the storm will head back to the US, as a tropical storm or hurricane. Some storms have done this. Tropical Storm Dean 1983 went out into the Atlantic, then turned around and headed towards Washington, DC. Hurricane Betsy (1965) went out into the Atlantic, started to approach the Carolinas, then did a loopdy loop and hit southern Florida and then New Orleans. Hurricane Ophelia in 2005 wandered about like a drunk on the ocean off the northern Florida coast, then staggered up the southeastern coast, grazing the Outer Banks.

Here is what the models say about Invest 99L:

GFS: the latest model run shows it going out to sea, and then splitting, with one half headed back to the Virginia coast, then turning around and heading towards New England
NOGAPS: Turns around and heads towards Florida, skirting by the northern Florida coast and striking the Carolinas.
HWRF: Hits New England after skirting Outer Banks
CMC: Hits Outer Banks then Central Virginia

One model (I can't find it now) has it turning around to Florida, crossing it near Daytona Beach, then going into the Gulf of Mexico and hitting the Mississippi area, and shortly after that, what's left of Felix then hits the same area.

This one is all over the place. Further, the official weather forecast for Richmond makes absolutely no mention of it: "Partly cloudy, high in upper 80s". One local TV met ignores 99L completely, and the other two mention it, saying we have to watch it, and making some allowance for it by calling for rain late this weekend. Jeff Masters lists several of the models and says where they take the storm.

Oh, yes. The storm from Africa. As of 18Z, it seems to be less of a threat. The last three runs of GFS show it going out to sea long before it reaches the states. The run before that one does have it heading to the Carolinas, but now Invest 99L has taken all the attention. That's the storm to watch. It may turn into a storm, perhaps a hurricane, this weekend, and some models show it going to Florida or to New York or New England. Keep tuned.

And don't forget Henriette. It made landfall today also, at Cabo San Lucas, as a minimal hurricane. It is the first time ever that two hurricane landfalls have been observed in the same day. Henriette will come up Mexico and then Arizona and New Mexico, where it will pour huge amounts of rain on unaccustomed deserts. Then it may go to the east and affect east coast weather, and maybe even influence the motion of Gabrielle and Humberto, as I imagine these two storms I discuss today are going to be called.