I ended my “Heat and Flood Diary” posts a couple of weeks ago when the last dangerous heat of the 2017 season subsided and Irma died over the South. On September 1st at the height of the last heat wave San Francisco established an all-time high of 106F. Now there has been an astonishing flip/flop […]
Month: September 2017
Tropical Cyclone Land Interactions… A Proposal
The worst hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin, so far, have made catastrophic landfalls. Two of them, Irma and Maria, took interesting paths from a research standpoint, that I’ll point out. In the original 1960s Star Trek there was an episode involving a “doomsday” automated planet killer machine that Captain Kirk figured out how to stop […]
Forecasting a Warm? Fall 2017
I’m going to quote myself from late spring when I attempted to make a summer forecast: “Forecasting for a season is perhaps the most difficult, and as the public knows, most unreliable product put out by any group be it those, for example, from NOAA or people putting together The Old Farmers Almanac. If farmers, power companies, construction companies, those […]
Irma Wind and Flood Diary September 10-11, 2017
Tuesday September 12th… Dear diary. Yeah! Our long national nightmare with weather appears to be over since Irma is spinning down, José is forecast to stay away from the U.S., and high heat, smoke, and fires have abated in the West. It will take many months, unfortunately, for residents to recover in Texas and Florida. […]
Irma Wind and Flood Diary September 8-9, 2017
Saturday Night Update… Dear diary. Looking at trends I’m changing my alarmist forecast to a category 4 hurricane hugging the west coast of Florida, which would be horrendously catastrophic anyway. Irma should strengthen to a four looking at new GFS guidance. Regardless, if Irma passes just west of Tampa Bay at CAT 3 strength the […]
Summer Heat and Flood Diary September 6-7, 2017
Overnight Thursday/Friday Updates… Dear diary. This Irma nightmare keeps getting worse. I can’t sleep before posting the latest model data. From here on out I’m just going to depict where Irma’s center is forecast to be near a major city from model run to model run. The first, of course is Miami. The operational 00Z […]
Summer Heat and Flood Diary September 4-5, 2017
Midnight Updates… Dear diary. The 00Z WED operational GFS is just a tad farther west hooking Irma due north out of the Bahamas paralleling Florida’s east coast. Taken verbatim the western eyeball wild be perilously close to shore similar to Matthews track last year. Here is Irma at its closest point to Miami on this […]
Summer Heat and Flood Diary September 1-3, 2017
Sunday September 3rd… Dear diary. After seeing a couple more model runs since posting my long diatribe on the chances for Irma making a U.S. landfall yesterday, my forecast has not changed. I’m giving Irma a 80% chance of making a U.S. strike somewhere along the East Coast the following week. Now we can start […]