The storm chasing community lost one of their own on February 4th.  Andy Gabrielson, founder of findthetornado.com died in car accident on I44 outside of Tulsa, OK.  He would have been 25 on the 19th.   Many members of the stormchasing community, also members of spotternetwork.org, manually updated their locations, users of software such as the GRLevelX products would have seen this tonight:   That screen capture is courtesy of Sean Casey, and the following Facebook pos...

I recently had an opportunity to drive over Lake Somerville dam.  Lake Somerville is a reservoir formed by the damming of Yegua Creek, which is a tributary of the Brazos River.   Lake Somerville is not a terribly large lake, but it is used to provide flood control for communities downstream (including Somerville, which lies just to the east of the dam), as well as water and recreation.  Lake Somerville lies within the CWA for NWS Houston/Galveston, and is one of the reservoirs tracked in their w...

I am making a bold prediction for the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane season.  The first named storm of the year, Andrea, will hit the Houston-Galveston area.  How can I make such a prediction? Let us take a look back in history. The era of modern tropical cyclone naming in the Atlantic basin began in 1979, when the six rotating list of alternating men's and women's names began. Nineteen Eighty-three marked the first use of list #5, which is the same list (which changes due to retired names) that will b...

Earlier today, the NHC declared a new invest, 95L, for a system attached to a front well of the east coast of the US.  ATCF now indicates that invest has become Tropical Depression 6: ATCF   It seems likely this system will become Tropical Storm Franklin during its fairly brief passage over warm water:   UPDATE: While I was typing this, Advisory 1 was issued for TD 6, and they do forecast at least a possibility of becoming a tropical storm....

This past weekend, we made a trip to San Antonio, TX (we live in a western suburb of Houston).  This trip crosses several rivers, major and minor, as well as numerous streams (including what, in my opinion, is one of the most unique place-names in Texas: Woman Hollering Creek.)  I was rather looking forward to driving through squally weather from Tropical Storm Don, but, alas, that was not to be.  But I did get to observe the effects of the drought on waterways.  (unfortunately, no pictures)   F...

Data coming in from the hurricane hunters indicate that Tropical Storm Emily has likely formed near Martinique, just east of the Caribbean Sea.  This has not been officially declared yet....

As recon data comes in, it is almost certain that Tropical Depression 4 has formed, and it may even be Tropical Storm Don already.  I expect tropical storm watches will be issued shortly for parts of Texas.   My own best guess is that it will make landfall somewhere from roughly Matagorda Bay to High Island late in the week, as a high-end (65-70mph) tropical storm, or possibly as a minimal hurricane.  Note that this was not an official forecast, just my own guess.   UPDATE   The first advisory f...

As seen on the main page, we have Invest 90L in the Atlantic, to the east of the islands.  Very long range (1 week plus) are putting this somewhere in the GOM in the next week to week and a half.  The ridging that has been in place over the Gulf states for the last few months (currently displaced north, and causing the extreme heatwave) supports a trek into the western Gulf, in my opinion.  That is, should the storm actually form and take the path through the Caribbean, as opposed to moving more...

The is no way to describe exactly what transpired in the South from April 25-28th.  The National Weather Service has posted the following numbers: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/april_2011_tornado_information.html     During the 24-hour period from 8:00 a.m. EDT April 27 to 8:00 a.m. EDT April 28, The National Weather Service (NWS) estimates there were a total of 312 tornadoes. The NWS Storm Prediction Center issued severe weather outlooks five days in advance and tornado watches hours in adv...

I have heard reports on TWC, as well as in the Wikipedia article for this outbreak, that Tanner, AL, was struck by an EF4 (or higher) tornado.  Tanner was also hit by two F5 tornadoes in the Super Outbreak.  I have not seen confirmation of this from NWS.   UPDATE: I found the public information statement:   * EVENT TYPE: TORNADO * EVENT DATE: 04/27/11 * ESTIMATED PEAK WIND: 190.0 MPH * PRELIMINARY RATING: EF-4 * PATH LENGTH: UNDETERMINED AS ENTIRE TRACK WAS NOT SURVEYED * MAXIMUM PATH WIDT...

This will be brief.  There is certainly an historic tornado outbreak in progress tonight, particularly in Alabama.  I  wanted to share the following image I captured earlier today of the Cullman, AL tornado.  This is base reflectivity as the tornado passed through Cullman.  Classic hook echo and debris ball:   UPDATE: Public Information Statements out of NWS Hunstville seem to indicate that this tornado destroyed the NOAA Weather Radio transmitter in Cullman County:   ...THE FOLLOWING NOAA WEAT...

A significant portion of the Southwestern US is in a drought.  Consider this graphic: In the last year, Texas has gone from having only 5% of the state under drought conditions to 100%!  A rather sizable amount, 10%, is rated as exceptional, with 60% rated as extreme. My own part of the state, the extreme northern part of Fort Bend County, on the SW side of Houston, is rated extreme.  From WFO Houston/Galveston (http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/?n=pns_2011_04_14_drought_statement) ...

I will not spend any time on newly named Tropical Storm Nichole.  She is pretty well on track and is not long for this world as, within 24 hours or so from now, she is forecast to be absorbed into a non-tropical low. Beyond Nichole, GFS is still showing a very interesting pattern in the Caribbean and surrounding waters through the first half of October. The first storm forecast to form after Nichole appears to be on October 2nd in the SW Caribbean: I do not think the small low shown in the...

Here is an update on what GFS shows for the Caribbean, Gulf, and SE US over the next couple of weeks. First, GFS continues to forecast the development of Nichole within the next 1-2 days. It is hard to pick up on an exact time for cyclogenesis, since there is already a very broad area of low pressure in the NW Caribbean. However, in today's 12Z run this seems to be the most likely time: This is essentially 24 hours from now. However, NHC only places this feature in the medium chance developm...

It seems that 95L will soon be updated to a tropical cyclone.  Recon has been investigating the system today and it seems they have now found a closed circulation.  A Vortex Data Message was issued for 95L: 938  URNT12 KNHC 231542 VORTEX DATA MESSAGE   AL952010 A. 23/15:26:30Z B. 13 deg 52 min N   075 deg 37 min W C. NA D. 32 kt E. 009 deg 17 nm F. 090 deg 36 kt G. 025 deg 26 nm H. EXTRAP 1008 mb I. 25 C / 193 m J. 25 C / 196 m K. 16 C / NA L. NA M. NA N. 1345 / 01...

Well, this looks interesting.  Model guidance on 95L is rather divergent right now.  First, Weather Underground's model summary: Right now, all the models except for one take this system into Central America in the short-term.  This is reflected in the SHIPS intensity forecast, which now takes 95L only to a 90mph hurricane before weakening it to a tropical depression.  The notable outlier is one of the hurricane models, HWRF.  Over the course of the next five days, HWRF...

So I see the NHC has tagged a new Invest in the Caribbean.  This would be the storm GFS has been forecasting for well over a week now.  Let us see if it becomes a tropical cyclone.  This is the initiation information for 95L from ATCF: ftp://ftp.tpc.ncep.noaa.gov/atcf/stext/10092112AL9510_ships.txt Since there is now something "real" to track I will shift focus slightly. Although I will continue to monitor GFS, especially since it is still developing multiple systems in the C...

This is a quick update as I am busy this morning. The 6Z GFS from this morning (9/22) actually continues with a similar scenario as 12Z yesterday had.  A tropical cyclone forms in the Central Caribbean and tracks into Central America, then re-emerges into the Caribbean just south of the Yucatan Peninsula and restrengthens.  It then crosses Cuba and winds up off the SE US coast.  There are also other storms in the Caribbean during this run.  Hopefully I can provide a full upda...

My my, the 12Z GFS is quite "interesting."  At this point I am almost ready to ignore it given the extremely strange scenario it presents.  It looks like GFS is seeing no fewer than three systems develop in the Caribbean over the next couple of weeks, and one of those appears to dissipate and then regenerate!   When I first started seeing this storm on GFS well over a week ago, the system was being developed in the far easter Caribbean, near the southern Leeward Islands.  How...

  I was out of pocket over the weekend so I was unable to do any updates. It appears there have been some rather interesting changes to how GFS develops this storm.  I am looking at the 6Z GFS run on 9/20.  As is usual, the storm first appears around 9/26:   Still in the southwestern Caribbean.  There is a rather large weakness between the Azores/Bermuda high and another ridge located over the Great Lakes.  There is also a center south of the Florida Panhandle. &nb...