Winter Sneak Peak

I'm not ready to fully commit to a winter outlook-- so, let's consider this my preseason outlook. I'll lock and load it in by Nov 10th or so as there is a little more data that I'd like to see before a final outlook.

This will be the 3rd winter I've made a public outlook-

09-10 was pretty cold- called for 30-45 inches of snow region wide, colder then normal and targeted the end of Jan/ Feb as the BIGGEST snow threats. 

LINK to the forecast

https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=174886414694

Good outlook, A grade IMHO

10-11

Went cold December-cold breaks in January, 5-10 inches of snow for the winter.

Good call, not cold enough but it's foolish to go -9 or whatever the mean December and broke the cold to early. Part of the cold hanging on longer was a spike in the PNA (PNA= ridging or trough on west coast--ridging on west coast translates to trough on the east coast-- troughs are characterized by colder and stormier in general terms.)

Good outlook, I'd put in in the B+ range. 

http://lynchburgweather.blogspot.com/2010/11/winter-outlook-2010-2011.html

Winter 2011-2012

We are in a second year La Nina that is in the weak to moderate range. 

La Nina's in general feature colder then normal Decembers that warm once we move into January and usually have  mild February in our region. This happens because the mean trough shifts west and get riding along the SE coast. 

Why I'm not 100% locked in yet--

1. Something called the QBO or

 Quasi-Biennial zonal wind Oscillation

  -- we have a tendency to see more high latitude blocking. High latitude blocking. This blocking helps keeps cold air on our region. The QBO has dropped to just below positive and I'd like to see a stronger drop when the October data comes out. Further, we have a a split QBO where the 30 MB is negative but the 50 MB is positive. 

When the QBO runs negative (based on wind direction WAYYY up in the sky which was discoved in 1883 when Volcano Krakatau erupted and the ash circled the globe in 15 days on strong westerlies at this level and further research developed from there)

2. Recent tendencies of Artic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation to run negative.- This links the first point-- this is the high latitude blocking I was talking about. 

3. Solar flares-- reading some research on this and they've some what established a lag time between low solar flares and impact on global weather patterns. I'm still chewing on this one in my hierarchy  of impact- this impacts the amount of blocking as well. 

This summary- our entire winter depends on how much high latitude blocking we get. If we lack the blocking-- it's going to be a warm winter. Conversely, if the blocking is stronger, more dominant we could be colder/more stormy as the mean storm track slides east putting us in the colder, stormier pattern. 

Early Thoughts--

I like the idea of a colder pattern developing late November and lasting 3 weeks into December. Pattern relaxes into mid January and the block emerges again Mid month to early February. Pattern relaxes again with another "possible" block 2nd week of March to the end of the month. 

So, starting Dec 1-- Cold 3 weeks, warmer 3-4 weeks, cold 3 weeks-- warmer/relaxed 3-4 weeks, colder march 10th or so but that's all relative to seasonal averages when you get into March. 

Snowfall-- this is what people care about most, yet has the highest element of luck as you can't really time short waves. 

La Nina's tend to low on sub tropical jet - think of those big snows in 09-10 where the tv guys showed this STRONG wave that came from the equator. So, we are dependent on the northern (polar jet) to provide storms. Unless we get strong blocking, we won't get a HUGE storm. 

Can we get a huge storm-- Yes! The polar jet gets forces south and becomes a part of the subtropical get provided the short wave (spin the weather men like to show on sat. shots)  If we DON'T get that via timing or other issues the "colder events" will be light on the precipitation, like .25 of an inch to maybe .75. Issues with the strorm track will always have mixing as a risk. I'm leaning we can see a 4-8 region wide snowfall-- good event, not historic or memorable and a bunch of 1-4 inch mix messes. (More in those events in the Mts to our west) Good risk of an I 81 special where the heaviest snows(BIG EVENT) run up 81 and tails of quickly east of there due to mixing/rain. 

The cold snaps will have a bit to them and the warm breaks will seem GREAT comparatively speaking. - Snowfall total ideas-- I like a pronounced gradient from NW to SE where I can see Harrisonburg and Staunton being a good bit about normal, Blacksburg and Roanoke very close to normal, Lynchburg slightly below normal and Danville to Richmond below normal. This is caused by a storm track that approaches from the west/Soutwest and the low ends up in eastern TN or SW West Virginia and jumps to the coast east of Virgina Beach or even the Delmarva/ NJ. The snow is usually slower to slide east and the mountains due to dry air and the Mt regions have snow for HOURS before even Lynchburg does. Once the moisture gets in the air is warming aloft and while Blacksburg/Staunton have already had 4-5 inches, Lynchburg gets a quick inch and it changes to sleet/freezing rain. Danville gets some sleet and freezing rain that changes to rain. 

Expect a final call with more exact data, comparable years by November 10th. 

Winter Outlooks are trickling in--

Keith Allan is a "Professional Forecaster" from the DC region-- His outlooks at time have held "heavyweight" status to those who read and follow him. I'm going to share the forecast for this year plus some raw data from what he did in years past. I have a resource who has his forecasts all the way back to the 80's. I'd define his finest moment as the legendary winter of 1995-1996 where he called for 45 inches of snow in DC for the winter and there was 46.2.

His forecast is DC centeric, but I do read it and extrapolate what that should mean down in our region.

Snowfall for DCA:20-24".

December:+1
January:+2
February:-3

** Even though it's a math 0.0 he says the 2 out of 3 months being above average gives it a mild lean.

He thinks a 4"+ snow event in mid December, then quite mild until very late January and then turning very cold. He thinks a 6" to possibly 12" event will occur in February and well below average temps. He believes the cold will continue well into March. Even with a mild January he thinks there will be 1-2 freezing rain/sleet events for DC area.

Analogs:1946-47, 1966-67, 2006-07.


From Keith--


I'll let you grade him on his own merits once the winter ends. Longer range forecasting is some skill and some luck. With that, I'm hedging the first half of winter is "colder/snowier and the second half is milder/drier. 


His past years--
ACTUAL NUMBERS IN PARENS

2001-02

DEC: +2 (+6.0)
JAN: -2 (+6.7)
FEB: +3 (+4.5)

Overall: +1 (+5.7)


DCA SNOW: 10" (3.2")


2002-03

DEC: +0.5(-2.3)
JAN: -1(-3.8)
FEB: -3(-4.4)

Overall: -1.2(-3.5)

DCA snow: 20-25"(40.4")


2003-04

DEC: +1(-0.3)
JAN: -0.5(-4.3)
FEB: +2(+0.1)

Overall: +0.8(-1.5)

DCA snow: 12-14"(12.4")


2004-05

DEC: +2 to +3(+0.6)
JAN: +2(+1.2)
FEB: -2(+1.5)

Overall: +0.7 to +1(+1.1)

DCA snow: 14"(12.5")

2005-06

DEC: -1 to -2(-3.1)
JAN: -1 to -2(+8.2)
FEB: +3(+0.5)

Overall: -0.33 to +0.33, but call for slightly below normal(+1.9)

DCA snow: 25"(13.6")

2006-07

DEC: +2 to +4(+4.7)
JAN: +2 to+4(+5.8)
FEB: +2 to +4(-7.2)

Overall: +2 to +4(+1.1)

DCA Snow: 8" (9.5")

2007-08

DEC: +2 to +4 (+2.3)
JAN: +2 to +4 (+5.1)
FEB: +2 to +4 (+2.9)

Overall: +2 to +4 (+3.4)

DCA Snow: 10" (4.9")

2008-09

DEC:-1.0 (+0.8)
JAN:+1.0 (-3.3)
FEB:-2.0 (+1.7)

Overall: -0.67 (-0.3)

DCA Snow: 25" (7.5")

2009-10

Dec: +3 to +4 (-1.6)
Jan: +0.5 to +1.0 (+0.4)
Feb +3.0 or higher (-3.9)

Overall: +2 to +3 (-1.7)

DCA snow: 10-12" (56.1")

2010-11

Dec:-1 (-4.9)
Jan:+1 (-1.2)
Feb:-2 (+3.7)
Average:-0.67 (-0.8)

Snowfall DCA:20-24" (10.1") 


Some people just read patterns better-- he's never revealed the method to his madness, but ENSO isn't a HUGE factor as shown by many years. 




For our region--


06-07 was warm till Feb and once it got cold, the storms still tracked will to our north. We had one minor sleet storm, one 3 inch snowfall and ONE ice storm. 


66-67 was a good winter snow wise-- with a MAJOR snowfall region wide on Christmas eve-- 6+ inches in the NRV and Roanoke and over 10 inches in the LYH region. Over 30 inches of snow fell that winter, with + falling in December. 


46-47 was a a snow winter with almost 30 inches region wide. We had three 8 inch snowfalls in late Feb lasting into the end of March. 3 separate snowfalls of 8 inches. 


Take it for what it's worth-- 


My outlook should be out by mid November at the latest. 

Home from Hampton

I drove up to Hampton Roads region to "enjoy" the storm. A good friend from college lives up there with his wife and daughter and they "sponsored" me by letting me sleep at their home. The storm was rather large with the impact felt far from the center-- our worst conditions were actually late AM Saturday vs late evening with the EYE was only 50 miles or so to our east.

Wide reach-- wide damage. I've never heard a good reason why they keep it as a hurricane as long as they do when NO surface obs show hurricane strength winds. (I'm sure there were some over SE VA, but that's about all) Not to downplay this storm, it dealt a huge blow to many, but not many observations outside show hurricane winds.

Here are a couple videos-- They are set to public, but I can embed them for some reason.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150358106272059


http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150358110137059&comments

All systems go to "Rock you like a Hurricane"

Just heard this song on a lead in on a radio show-- haven't had something that "tacky" since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheer team did a dance to it while playing the New Orleans Saints 2 weeks after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Having said that-- being a weather fan, I do like this song. 

The storm track seems to be set in mud-- I don't think there is much to shift it WEST. Showers may reach Lynchburg, HIGH doubt anything reach Roanoke. You may notice a breeze, but nothing out the norm. 

Landfall will be someplace between Moorehead City and Cape Hatteras. It should be close to or just on the coastline heading towards NYC-- so for all those in points in between, it's going to a rough 24 hours. Regions closest the shore/water will have the worst winds. Rains will be 5-10 inches for those nearest to the track. It's been rather wet from the Philly region north, so even wind gusts of 50 MPH could cause some bad tree damage. 

Quick update later-- I'm possible heading to the Hampton Road area for some "Hurricane Chasing"

Early AM Irene thoughts

I was tempted the last few days to start writing about Irene, but the model data became LESS ominous for region. While I am rather interested, my interest was NOT quite enough blog. There's been a slight jog west and it's going to be a HIGH impact event EAST of 95 in Virginia. 

Brief review-


It was rather clear Irene would form and have a good threat to make landfall on the USA. Most of the model data tried at one point or another to pull it into the Gulf of Mexico. Looking at the overall set up, it was clear this was not an option. Model data began to shift east and I really thought that the Myrtle Beach area would be in the landfall region. My personal error was assuming that the east shift on the model would stop. That is NEVER a safe or good assumption to have. The models had trended at one point just about was a total whiff for the NC region (Landfall wise, not impact)

For those who wonder WHY the models struggle with these fine details. Short waves, (energy aloft) approaching the US Pacific NW were hard to gauge along with their potential impact. It's hard to quantify an impact when you don't have a good gauge on the strength. Secondly, there is a ridge to east of the US. (I think most heard the term Bermuda Heat Ridge before) The model data was a tad to strong ( Strength= HEIGHT-- ridge was not as big as anticipated) For people who like to "blame" weather man for NOT being accurate-- this is like trying to be an accountant and neither given all the receipts or all the incoming payments. You simply can estimate, but won't be "accurate".

The NWS has added extra " information" into the computer models by way of extra drops into sky over the east coast and Montana to fill those gaps. This has lead to better sampling and a slight shift WEST.

Where is she going?


When the model data was making landfall near Charleston, SC-- that would have been a big ticket item for our region.(Lynchburg/Roanoke) We would have had near Tropical Storm force winds and rains of 3-6 inches region wide. As it moved to a landfall near Hattaras, we'd be breezy, maybe a shower east of the Blue Ridge. As the data has maybe shifted west, places east of the Blue Ridge MAY are getting close to a more substantial rainfall event (Maybe 1-3 inches and a tad more windy/breezy)

Landfall will be somewhere between Wilmington NC and Cape Hatteras as a Cat 3-- I expect it to peak as a cat 4 sometime today. Still a pretty wide spread on landfall but that should become more clear later today.  From there it heads N and depending on the interaction with a shortwave from the W it will move NE, N or maybe just west of N for a while. Any place east of Richmond along the 95 corridor will have SOME to MAJOR impact. Coastal regions will have the greatest impact-- for obvious reasons.

It should hold together hurricane strength winds for a LONG while after landfall-- especially in coastal regions where there is less friction from the land.

This is the ECMWF run-- it's the most left landfall and brings landfall near Moorehead City, NC.

The furthest west option currently on the table-- brings the rain VERY close to the Blue Ridge.  Any further west jog brings more substantial rain to our region. 

This is a 500mb (18000 ft or so) map in motion. It shows a short wave diving
in from the NW and pushing IRENE just west of due north. This is the furthest
west of ANY other guidance currently. Click on this image to see it in motion.

My current thoughts would say that landfall is just east of this depicted model and the worst of the conditions stay Richmond east. Lynchburg may see a half inch of rain from showers, Farmville maybe 1-2 inches and much worse conditions Richmond east. Hampton Roads/VAB gets Hurricane conditions.

 My friends and family up in Delaware/Philly region=

Expect a pretty nasty event- Flooding rains along the lines of 5-10 inches. Winds inland will be sustained at 50, gusts to hurricane force and coastal regions (Near my Mom's in Rehobeth Beach) winds will be sustained at hurricane force, gusting to maybe 100mph. 

Model data should continue to improve today as we get that extra information added- will update later this evening. 

Link to the National Hurricane Center's website-- has some cool maps estimating winds, etc. 

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Still kicking

Heat, Heat, Heat-- Humidity.

Summer weather-- loving enjoying the outdoors and pool, but the heat has been horrible. Watching ANOTHER nasty heat wave next week. (July 20-26 or so) Enjoy this weekend as it's about as close to perfect as you can get for summer with temps in the low to mid 80's.


Tropical Weather-- Haven't had much yet (Minor Arlene event)-- should be a fairly active season that starts to kick up in the next 2-3 weeks.

SevereWx and my lack of updates-and some information on the Joplin Tornado.

To say that this has been an active severe weather season is quite an under statement. We've had our share of pretty intense storms that have impacted our forecasting region. My person favorite was the April 28th morning thunderstorm that dropped the visibility  to .5 of a mile at the Greater Lynchburg airport. Comparing that to snow-- visibility of .5 of a mile is moderate snow, approaching about an inch an hour. Terms like "It's really coming down" would be used. In rain-- that's some heavy rain. We actually had a .2 of a mile visibility reported at 7:46 AM and between 7:40 and 7:52 we had .62 of an inch of rain. That's about the heaviest rain I've seen. One six minute cycle had .37 inches of rain-- WOW!

My updates have been LOW and it's by choice. This is just a hobby to me-- BY choice, I don't let myself jump in feet first to the severe weather. If I ranked my favorite events-- WINTER event wins, Hurricanes are second and Severe comes last. If I allowed myself, I could get obsess with ALL three, but I willfully limit myself. I've got a career, children and just general life balance that is needed. My spider senses do start tingling so to speak when these events are incoming, but my sanity and just being a normal guy supersedes in this case. I'd always throw out a facebook status if there was a critical storm heading our way, but the day to day

 For those who don't have him-- Sean Sublett is on facebook and twitter and is incredible at updating for our region. If you've not "liked" his fan page-- please do and he will take care of you with various updates during severe weather.

Many of you know I am a counselor by trade-- did that type of work 10 years. Part of me is an extremely sensitive and caring person who hates to see human suffering. I truly have to watch myself when they show those videos of the just horrible carnage after these huge events as it BUGS the life out of me to not be able to do much. Yeah, I give to the various charities but it hardly seems enough.

I've been very involved in an online weather community currently hosted at www.AmericanWx.com. The short story is a ton of us found each other on some message boards in the mid to late 90's-- and finally found people who were not meteorologist but just LOVED weather. We built a community-- found REAL mets to help enhance the place and it's been a fun 10 years. One of the "regulars" lived in Joplin, MO  only three blocks away from that intense E5 from last week. His pre and post reports were pretty amazing and I thought it be worthwhile to share this information.

The Joplin Tornado was a one in a million perfect event-- the SPC only had a 10% risk of severe storms and pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did. I hate seeing the 142 ish death total. So sad and so many tragic stories. This example just shows WHY we need to heed warnings, even if it seems like we are crying wolf. This guys is an extreme weather hobbyiest like me and literally was only spared because the tornado was 2-3 blocks away.



I'm cutting and pasting this-

I'm guessing about 3-4 minutes.

I think at 5:17 I posted:

"nd there go the sirens, rotation just NW of here."

This was the 2nd couplet that formed and not the actual tornado I don't think. This slid off to the north of me.


Then at 5:27 I posted:
"Pitch black out, couplet nearly on me... Joplin, MO"

This was the 3rd storm and the EF-5 couplet. It rolled through about 3-4 minutes later.

After I posted that, I looked out west and saw the lowering, then a minute or two after that, heard the rumbling. 


This is his FULL report-- I've highlighted a couple lines that hit me. 




This is what happened as I recall, the times may not be correct and it may not have completely happened how I remember it but this is what I remember.

We are very used to having tornado warnings in Joplin. The first instinct of everyone when they hear the sirens is to jump up and go outside to look for it. It's even a joke between me and Wx24/7 that once a storm enters the Springfield, MO CWA, they'll issue a tornado warning for it no matter what.

I had been watching the HRRR all day Sunday and noticed that it was developing the very last storm over Joplin but nothing farther south. The helicity was scary crazy as well. I thought this was maybe just the HRRR being flaky until I saw the storm develop over SE KS and that it was moving SE.

As I remember it, the parent supercell storm that was moving SE developed a couple of cells on it's SE flank. These storms went from nothing but a small blip to a storm in no time at all. SPC mesoanalysis was showing 5000 SBCAPE. The last images other than the base velocity radar image I saw was the LFC and LCL heights, which were both 1000 over the area.

As the storm(s) were approaching, I heard constant rolling thunder and lightning. I was watching the initial parent thunderstorm, it had an unorganized couplet that was rather large and I knew it would slide by to the north of me. South of that another couplet was developing on the second 'blip' that had popped up. This one was farther south than the first one but was still really unorganized. I do believe both were Tornado warned. Then suddenly a third storm rapidly developed south of those storms. A tornado warning was issued that included my area and this was the one that produced the EF-5 tornado.

I watched it go from no couplet to a big bad couplet right over me in a few minutes time. ( I just watched the video that someone posted that showed how quickly the tornado went from a tiny rope to a giant wedge and I'm amazed.) I looked out the window to the west and the sky was pretty much black, much like how it looks when the sun is out at your location and there is a storm some distance away, only this time it was cloudy where I was. There was a lowering which was probably part of the wall cloud. It gave off an orangish hazy looking color against the black sky.

The sirens had gone off for one of the other tornado warnings, but they were going off a second time as well. It was then I heard what I thought was rolling thunder... only this time, it got louder.

I listened to the 'rolling thunder' get louder for about 5-10 seconds before I figured out that it was not thunder. I looked up towards where I heard the sound but the blinds were closed so I decided to get in the only safe place which was a closet before the windows blew out. As I turned on the closet light, the power went out. I was not really expecting an EF-5.

The sound was exactly like what people compare it to, a freight train. It was a loud roar, and it had times where it almost sounded like it was growling. The winds at my location were from the north or northwest because I heard the air screaming in the garage door, it screamed, stopped for a few seconds and then screamed again and then the roar got quieter so I ventured out.

I looked into the rest of the house, no glass was broken, still had a roof. I decided to look outside and despite having a tree that fell over, most of the other trees had no damage. It was now foggy outside though. I suspected I had just been through a weak tornado. I went outside and the first thing I smelled when I made it outside was the smell of freshly cut trees or wood. I thought that was a little strange, but some neighbors trees had broken limbs so I thought it was from that. The roof had sustained some shingle damage but nothing really bad.

I came back inside and I turned on a battery powered radio because I was wondering what the rest of the city was getting or what had happened. It was then I heard that St. Johns Hospital was 'leveled' (a report that was not true, although it had sustained heavy heavy damage) I was like.. whoa that's not good. It was around that time I heard firetruck/ambulance sirens. These sirens ran constantly from right after the tornado hit at around 5:40 PM until midnight. They also ran a lot the next day as well.

I walked down the street, heading to a local church (there's almost one on every corner here) and as I was walking that way I noticed a lot of trees down on just the next street over and the damage got progressively worse. People's privacy fences had been blown over, but this was nothing compared to what I saw at the end of the block. As I was walking I noticed the smell of natural gas, it was getting stronger the closer I got but I just had to see. People had gathered at the church and it was being used as some sort of local triage for minor wounds. I kept walking until I reached the end of the block where everything to the south of the intersection was completely destroyed. I looked down the street and I didn't recognize anything and I realized I could see much much much farther than I could before. There was a lot of traffic that was being turned around there and I didn't want to interfere with the rescue work so I returned home.

 I didn't sleep at all that Sunday night, the days events, the sounds, the thought that I wouldn't probably be here if the tornado was three blocks closer, all kept replaying in my head.
I let the rescuers do their thing on Monday and it was raining most of the day, but on early Tuesday morning I walked back down there and down the street, and I almost could not stop walking. The entire area looked like it was a landfill. On my left, a car parked in the 'garage' where a house would have been but there was nothing but a slab there, water gushing out of a broken pipe. On my right, another street where nothing remained but debris. On the ground there was a St. Johns medical braclet from someone.

The streets were marked by wooden signs spray painted with the street name. "Haz gas" was spray painted on a piece of wood next to a gas meter, a couple of guys pulled up to check and make sure it wasn't leaking still, it was, so one of them phoned the gas company to tell them it was still leaking. The area was being patrolled by police officers from the area and from other counties farther away, but they didn't have much to say or didn't care I was there since I was on foot.

I ran into a lady who had brought a camera to take pictures, she told me that the State trooper guarding the intersection had told her that she had to see it. Pictures don't really do it justice though, people who have lived here all their lives and are older get turned around and lost because there are no landmarks left since it's just a debris field. It reminds me of a post-apocalyptic scene but it's real life. I probably stood on top of a hill and looked around for about 10 minutes at everything, how far I could see and where the damage path was then I returned home.

I decided to go back on Wednesday, a little later in the day and people had returned home to gather their belongings. There were also rescue workers in the area. I saw a boy and his mother on the 2nd floor of what was left on their house. It didn't exactly look safe but nobody was stopping them. I heard an insurance adjustor talking to a woman as another woman was inside what was left of their house attempting to gather whatever she could. I saw a man sitting on the back deck of his destroyed home, holding his head. I looked down and saw that a bunch of debris had gathered down in this valley and rescue workers were there, attempting to find people in the rubble I guess. I felt uneasy and like I was intruding so I decided to return home.

The last trip down there I took this evening. They had cleared away a bunch of the trees. The road was blocked by electrical trucks working on the electric lines, I didn't want to disturb them so I just watched them work. There was other equipment working in the area as well, no heavy equipment yet though.

There have been helicopters flying over for the past few days. I don't remember what day it was but there were 2 blackhawk copters from the National Guard on patrol then two A-10's flew by. I'm not really sure what the point of all that was and most of my neighbors thought it was really stupid. It's not like they were protecting us from some kind of invasion or something.

The city has a curfew in the disaster zone from 9 PM to 6 AM. You can't be in the area after that time. They were going to make people get permits, but they ran out of permits pretty quickly so they just decided to beef up security.

This radio station did a great job of locating people and getting information out there:




Link of the tornado blowing up in a SHORT time.






Various stories about individuals- the HS story is the worst.


Doctor's first hand account.

Dedicated thread at AmericanWX.com about the Joplin tornado.



Pretty amazing events-- always love reading the goodness of man despite horrible circumstances.