As a young meteorologist stationed at Homestead Air Force Base in southern Florida, I’m familiar with the tropical weather of the region. Morning funnel clouds just off the coast were nearly as common as the sound of jet turbines spooling up at the first hint of daylight. Viewed from the control tower, distant waterspouts were [...]
Before too many more days get away from me, I wanted to remind you that this week is National Flood Safety Awareness Week, brought to you by NOAA and the National Weather Service. Flood Safety Awareness week is intended to highlight some of the many ways floods can occur, the hazards associated with floods and [...]
[Just as this post was about to be uploaded to YourWeatherBlog an amended storm report surfaced that included a lone, weak tornado in California on February 27. Not wanting the facts to stand in the way of a good severe weather article, we're posting the article in its original state while at the same time [...]
Oh, come on! Icebergs on Lake Michigan? Really? So says the email that landed in my Inbox this morning. The icebergs were big and white and some were even streaked with blue. Quite pretty, but Lake Michigan?? Purported Lake Michigan icebergs. Photo: Who knows? (Snopes actually attributes the photo to Oyvind Tangend, a Norwegian sailor.) [...]
You’ve been hiding under a rock since the 1940s if you’re unaware airplanes have been flying into hurricanes to send back detailed and otherwise unobtainable information to weather forecasters. One of NOAA’s (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) missions is penetrating hurricanes from their base in Florida. They use jet aircraft for high-altitude research and turbo-props [...]
Thanks to El Niño, the mid-range forecast suggests a big soak should be expected over the US West Coast over the next couple of weeks. Early indications suggest this pattern will break "sooner rather than later," but exactly when remains unknown. The typical El Niño allows sea surface temperatures to rise over the eastern Pacific, [...]
One of our Houston TV mets said yesterday that this cold outbreak was "Generational… The kind of cold outbreak that you’ll be telling your grandchildren about." I’m not quite sure I buy into that, but one thing’s for sure: This is not your average cold front with your average winter temperatures. Let’s look at what’s [...]