Boring Weather Week on Tap

5/14/2012 forecast No Comments

Most of the United States can expect relatively boring weather this week, with no major severe weather outbreaks or extreme weather events expected through at least Friday evening. Some severe storms are possible across parts of the western Great Lakes tomorrow, with a heat wave in the desert southwest, but aside from that nothing very spectacular.

Tuesday:
A trough is currently digging down through parts of the northern United States right now, with a jetstreak expected to nose its way into Wisconsin by Tuesday afternoon. Given the lift from the upper- and mid-level troughs, as well as a surface cold front extending off a low pressure system in northern Canada, some thunderstorms are expected to fire up in the Upper Midwest. Some of the storms in Wisconsin are expected to be severe, with some large hail and damaging winds possible in the strongest convection.

Severe weather forecast from the SPC, issued Monday morning.

Across parts of the Carolinas down through Georgia, some severe weather is possible during the day on Tuesday as an upper-level low continues to spin northeastward out of the area. Given enough daytime heating, some organized thunderstorms could develop and produce the risk of damaging winds and large hail.

Severe weather across parts of Texas are dependent on whether or not a line of storms develops on Monday night and manage to linger into parts of Tuesday.

Wednesday-Friday:
As most of the instability moves out of the country, most of the United States will experience relatively boring conditions during the last half of the week. Some general thunderstorms could occur across parts of the southern Gulf states along the seabreezes, as well as some rain/thunderstorms across parts of the eastern half of the country. The SPC says that none of these storms are expected to be severe.

Rainfall forecast from the HPC, issued Monday morning.

A low pressure system is expected to drop down across parts of the northern United States Wednesday through Friday, bringing chances for general rainfall to parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Plains. The HPC forecasts a large swath of 1-2 inches of rain across much of the northern part of the United States over the next 5 days. The precipitation across the rest of the US will fall in the rain on Monday-Tuesday and subsequent popup thunderstorms.

Temperatures are expected to be seasonal throughout the week, with mid to upper 80s for highs throughout the southern and central US, and cooler temperatures in the northeast. The desert southwest can expect a major heatwave over the next few days, with excessive heat watches and warnings in effect for parts of southern California and Arizona. Temperatures could reach or exceed 110°F in some areas before the week is out.

NAM MOS max temperature output for Thursday, from the 06z run.

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Government To Begin Sending Emergency Text Messages To Cell Phones

5/14/2012 emergency alert system, weather radios No Comments

In a move that's been a decade in the making, the Federal government is set to begin a program that will automatically send emergency alerts to 97% of cell phone users in the United States. Similar to the Emergency Alert System that is broadcast over television and radio stations, the Wireless Emergency Alert system will automatically send a free, short alert message to your cell phone based on your geographic location alerting you to severe weather, AMBER Alerts, or other emergency alerts for which they would activate the emergency alert system.

From the USA Today article linked above:

"These text alerts will be very brief, under 90 characters," said National Weather Service spokeswoman Susan Buchanan, "and are intended to prompt people to immediately seek additional information through the wide range of weather alert communications available to them, such as the Internet, television, radio or NOAA Weather Radio."

Private forecasting companies have offered warnings to subscribers before, but this is the first national service by the federal government and the wireless industry.

Buchanan said alerts about very dangerous situations such as tornadoes will give advice such as "seek shelter immediately."

The weather alerts will be used specifically for weather "warnings," not the less-severe weather "watches."

The system triangulates your position using cell phone towers and uses this information to send you urgent safety messages through your cell phone. The FCC says on its information page that these aren't "SMS (text) messages" per se, but rather they will pop up on your phone like an alert that you have to clear off. The FCC also says that cell phone subscribers will be able to opt-out of everything but Presidential alerts (which, up to now, have never been issued) if the user so chooses.

You will only receive alerts for your geographic location. If you are in Richmond, VA, you'll only receive tornado warnings issued for Richmond, VA, as opposed to the counties all around, but not including, Richmond. Similarly, if an AMBER Alert is issued for the state of West Virginia, only cell phone users in West Virginia will receive this AMBER Alert.

This alert system rollout is a major coup for the safety of people across the country, especially in the wake of the incredibly deadly tornado season of 2011, where the lack of access to severe weather alerts may have directly contributed to dozens of deaths. During the April 27th outbreak in Alabama, an early morning line of severe thunderstorms knocked out power to tens of thousands, as well as destroying NOAA Weather Radio transmitters and landline telephone infrastructures. When the powerful tornadoes came through later that afternoon, the tens of thousands of people left in the dark had no weather radios and no electricity to receive warnings fast enough to take action before the tornadoes hit. This system is an added layer of protection for when severe weather approaches.

I urge you not to disable the severe weather alerts once this system becomes active. They could be an inconvenience, but an inconvenience is better than being injured or dead if damaging weather strikes with little warning. Also, please help to get the word out ahead of the conspiracy theorists who are already getting antsy over the idea of the government tracking your cell phone to send you alerts.

Be sure to get a S.A.M.E. enabled NOAA Weather Radio for your house as an added layer of protection, especially if you live in a tornado prone area. These specially built devices, when programmed correctly, are designed to automatically sound a loud alert tone and audibly read off the severe weather alert within seconds of a watch or warning being issued. Numerous companies manufacture these radios, and they all work really well so long as they are programmed correctly. Be sure that the phrase "S.A.M.E." (or Specific Area Message Encoding) is in the product description of the radio. This is the feature that lets the radio go off only for alerts in the county (or counties) you specify.


This wireless emergency alert system is another great example of the Federal government being put to good use. Let's hope the system works well and that lives are saved as a result.

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First Pacific Tropical Cyclone Develops

5/14/2012 tropics No Comments

Forecast track for TD One-E from the NHC's website.

One day before the official start of the 2012 Pacific Hurricane Season, the NHC issued an advisory this morning on Tropical Depression One-E. The system is sitting about 650 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico and is moving generally towards the west, well away from land. The system is expected to become Tropical Storm Aletta before quickly dissipating on Wednesday due to strong wind shear shearing the tops off the convection around the center of the depression-turned-storm.

Late last week, there was some concern among meteorologists that a tropical (or subtropical) system was going to form in the far eastern Atlantic near the Azores, but the system wasn't able to better organize itself and strengthen enough. Dr. Stu Ostro of the Weather Channel pointed out on his Facebook page yesterday that the satellite readings from the storm indicated that it may have briefly attained Subtropical Storm status, making it Alberto, but no official advisories were issued by the NHC. The system is still out there, just less organized and with little threat of development. It is expected to bring heavy rain to the Azores, nonetheless.

Invest area 92L yesterday afternoon in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.

The forecast for the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season doesn't seem too bad, but the "badness" of a season is wholly dependent on individual storms and what they do once they interact with land. InAccuWeather and The Weather Channel both predict an average hurricane season (average being something like 10-11 named storms, 4-5 hurricanes, 2-3 major hurricanes). Colorado State University predicts a below-average 2012 hurricane season. The average- to below-average forecasts are due an expected resurgence of the El Niño pattern, which increases thunderstorm activity in the Pacific Ocean which, in turn, increases westerly wind shear across the Gulf, Caribbean, and Atlantic. Wind shear spells death to tropical storms because it disallows crucial thunderstorm activity to flourish, thereby reducing the intensity of tropical systems (or inhibiting their formation altogether).

The 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season doesn't start until June 1st, and hopefully it won't start at all for coastal residents across North America. There's no accurate way to predict when and if a hurricane will strike the United States, as each storm is its own beast and is dependent on hundreds of individual variables, each of which could drastically alter a potential storm's ultimate path and strength.

For now, it's just watching and waiting.

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