Real Life Weatherman

Today was again quiet for the most part.

Thunderstorms were the big player.

I was on the East desk and Chicago was nice.

Washington D.C. was not directly impacted by thunderstorms, but there were huge delays due to congestion and routes being cut-off because of thunderstorms around the area.

Again thunderstorms in the Southeast, but not a big issue for anyone.

The main issue for thunderstorms outside of the East Coast was the upper Midwest.

Now, we were on the collaborative thunderstorms product, which is used by the FAA to plan the routes.  We were trying to nail down the best area for a cluster of thunderstorms and were fairly close.

Denver was impacted today as well with thunderstorms and there were tons of diverts.

Otherwise, I really didn’t do anything spectacular.

Today was again kind of quiet.

The same pattern with a stationary frontal boundary over the southern Ohio Valley up to the NYC area.  Weak short-waves continue to ride along the boundary and produce clusters of thunderstorms across the region.  The models are showing that the upper level trough moving through the western Great Lakes will produce rain and thunderstorms over Washington D.C. on Sunday, all day.  That will be an issue for tomorrow.

The Chicago area for the most part should be good again tomorrow.  Today, winds are light and variable, although mainly from the East.  As the high pressure pulls east, a short-wave trough over Montana will move east.  A warm front over the North-Central Plains was the focus for thunderstorms.  Any thunderstorms that do form could, in theory, move close enough to Chicago to produce high clouds over the area and lower the surface temperatures as well as limit any thunderstorm formation over the city.

A warming trend is in store for Chicago followed by more cool weather at the end of this week.

Denver was being impacted by high - base thunderstorms and hot temperatures.

San Francisco once again had low clouds, but without a strong trough moving onshore, the stratus was not very thick and burned off really fast.  The winds continue to favor San Francisco not having any smoke.

Lastly, Bertha.

The latest thinking is that the high pressure may be strong enough to keep the system south for now.  However, with a storm system expected across the eastern half of the country early next week and Bertha expected to be near the Caribbean Sea at that time, the storm will curve northwest and then north and northeast.  How close the system gets to the East Coast will determine any impact.  A stationary boundary across the region also could play a role.

One of the things that as a meteorologist you have to be able to do and get used to is working holidays.  I work holidays, weekends and lots of overtime.  I don’t mind it.  I like what I do so coming here on the 4th is not a big deal.  Usually holidays are easy because the traffic is light.

Today, the weather was kind of boring.

Chicago was under the influence of high pressure with an East wind and some cumulus clouds around 5-6000 feet.

Farther south over the southern Ohio Valley into Tennessee and then east into the Mid-Atlantic and west into the Red River Valley of Texas and Oklahoma, a frontal boundary was stalled out.  In addition, along the boundary, small weather systems were moving eastward producing showers and thunderstorms.

The only difficulty has been in pin-pointing any organized cluster of thunderstorms.  There really is not any low-level flow, just convergence along the front and again the systems moving along the front along with day time heating.

Just went with isolated thunder.

Florida had the usual sea breeze, day time thunderstorms.  There was an interesting feature moving over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the western edge of Florida.  An upper level low was moving down from the Florida Panhandle and had entrained dry air into the low pressure.

However, the western Gulf of Mexico was very active with numerous thunderstorms pushing a lot of moisture into the Texas Coast from Brownsville up to Houston.  This trend looks to continue over the next few days.

The West weather was once again dealing with isolated high-base thunderstorms from Tuscon to Spokane.

The San Francisco area finely free of the smoke from the Big Sur fire, is dealing with the usual low clouds.  With a trough of low pressure just over the West Coast, the trough is lifting the low clouds enough to basically dump them into the Bay.  Then as the sun came up it slowly burned off the low clouds.

They are expected to return again tonight.

Happy 4th of July, 2008

Again I was working the West Desk and again the issue was with smoke in San Francisco and again they didn’t believe me.

It is like a broken record.

High pressure is in control and there really are not any major weather systems expected to impact the Bay Area.  So as the fires continue, the smoke will just sit there.

At night there is smoke across the Bay, however because the sun is not shining through the smoke, a person can see fairly easily through the smoke.  Looking straight up and at an angle, the stars should be visible at night.

During the daytime, once the low clouds clear, the sun shines at an angle through the smoke.  The particles found in smoke reflect the rays of the sun and it creates a scattering effect.  So a person trying to look at an angle up through the smoke or from say a plane down to the tower would have a really hard time seeing anything.  You still could look up and see the blue sky, but the key is looking at an angle.

So this was the case in San Francisco.  The smoke was there all day, not real thick, but definitely there.  Most of the weather stations located at higher elevations were all reporting smoke.  The camera I use at work, based on Mt. Hamilton at 4200 feet looks down at an angle toward San Jose and San Francisco.  This is a good estimate of the visibility the pilot might see.

So, the camera, each morning starts out nice.  I can see the stratus clouds which is like any other day.  It is definitely hazy above the stratus.  About 1 hour past sunrise about 7am the visibility takes a very noticeable downward turn.  Yesterday, was only slightly better than Saturday.

As the sun rises, the visible satellite imagery doesn’t pick up the smoke, but it is there.

This is the position I took on the morning conference calls, a very hard-line, pessimistic stance and nobody wanted to hear it.

They did get some improvement during the afternoon, however about 1-2pm their time, the smoke from the fires really started to blow toward San Francisco.  There was a very visible smoke plume on satellite.  The camera really started to show nothing but smoke.  I think though that the smoke was high enough that it wasn’t a big issue.

So that was the big player.

The other kind of interesting thing was the chance for high-base thunderstorms at both Portland and Seattle which is rare.  There were definitely thunderstorms over central Oregon, but there was just a little too much moisture to be a high-base, so they were just regular thunderstorms, but there was lot of coverage.

That was my day.

So today I worked the West Desk, which was good because the eastern half of the country was not good.

The main issue was the Bay Area with smoke and haze from the hundreds of fires burning, but specifically the ones near Big Sur.

The stratus clouds were in and the inversion was lifting.  When this occurs the cloud layer is becomes thicker and so there is more clouds that have to erode for the skies to clear and so the clearing happens later.

Based on different tables, the clearing time looked to be about 11am SFO time.  However, after clearing out, there was a lot of smoke and haze across the area including the entire valley from north of Los Angeles all the way north of Sacramento.  The smoke and haze are trapped and with high pressure aloft and no end to the fires, this could continue for several weeks.

The problem with the airport is that the smoke is not at the surface, but just above the surface.  The planes, as they fly through it can’t see the airport.  This is just as bad as having stratus clouds.  The locals were trying to be optimistic and said it would clear out during the afternoon, but I think that is incorrect and they just don’t understand the issue.

This misunderstanding has happened everyday, and everyday it causes issues.  It looks like fog, but it is smoke.

The common mistake I heard is that because they could see the stars at night it must be improving.  wrong.  The reason it is so hazy and hard to see through is due in one part to the scattering of the light of the sun, so at night there is no scattering and you can see fairly easy.

So anyway, they had issues all day and just wouldn’t except the fact about the smoke.

Also, more fires are expected in northern California, southwest Oregon and northwest Nevada as another system moved out of Arizona with moisture aloft and very dry conditions at the ground.  Dry thunderstorms or high-base thunderstorms would be the likely result and thus could start fires.

Southern California just has some stratus clouds, but no other issues.  Also, this same setup is producing very nice weather for Seattle and Portland, although Portland may be getting closer to the fire-starting thunderstorms to the south.

Denver is dry for the next few days.

Chicago was impacted by a huge, upper level low pressure that produced some nasty, quick hitting thunderstorms.  This area will bring a raw, cool fall like day today.

The East Coast will have all kinds of issues again with thunderstorms.  The thunderstorms will run all the way to Houston along the coastal areas.

Should be a good day for my part on the West.

The forecast was pretty much wrong all day, it was a bad day.

It was supposed to be a day full of thunderstorms and bad weather, instead Chicago did not report any thunder all day.

Reason: Not enough sun.

The morning started out kind of like I had thought with some rain/thunderstorms moving from Iowa to northern Illinois.  It wasn’t as widespread as I thought, but it still had a good deal of thunder.

As it move into Chicago, I had briefed the Air Traffic Controller and the FAA that it would rain by 1pm.  Well, it did rain for 15 minutes, but that was not enough to create problems, so then I briefed the rain would hold off until 3pm.  It rained at 3:45pm or around there.  Again, not very much, and really didn’t cause a problem.  All the thunderstorms went to the north, south and west of us and then reformed east over the Lake.

So that is Chicago.

There was a large circulation moving toward us from northern Missouri and they had huge thunderstorms down by St. Louis, but there was much more sunlight and heating.  All these storms move northeast, but went into NW Indiana.  Then more storms blew up over southeast Wisconsin.  Overnight, there were strong storms in Iowa, but I didn’t go for that and just played a chance of sprinkles this morning.

Again the East Coast and the Ohio Valley were active with thunderstorms that caused mainly major routing issues.  That will repeat again today.

The West is still fairly good with a ton of tropical moisture feeding into Tuscon area, so flash flooding possible there.

The West Coast is still smoky and hazy in San Francisco and that is their main issue.  Until they really get some sort of storm system, it likely will remain that way.

The main issue today was thunderstorms along the routes.

We worked on the CCFP to forecast as a group where the thunderstorm areas would be and how they should route around this area.

After deciding the routes, which includes very long phone discussions, I worked on the forecast for Chicago.  This was fairly easy for the initial part as the weather was all west and south and east, but not at the airport.

The hardest part of the forecast was the overnight period tonight into Friday morning.  Thunderstorms are expected to form over Nebraska and South Dakota and move all the way into Northern Illinois by Friday morning.  Then, with favorable conditions in place, the thunderstorms could re-form over Chicago through at least midday before weakening or moving east.

Then the question was would the skies clear or stay cloudy Friday afternoon.

The East Coast was not an issue as the thunder was all west of the big cities.  Some forecasters thought there would be thunder over NYC, but we didn’t buy it.

Florida was very bright with lightning flashes all day long.  Not a good day to visit Mickey.

The Sea Breeze was going strong along the Gulf Coast.

Outside of my area, Denver was dealing with High - Base thunderstorms and wind shear.

The West Coast was dealing with smoke from fires. San Francisco had issues all day from the smoke.

Friday will be a very active day with all the thunder.  Not a good day to fly.

The major issue again today was thunderstorms.  The storms moved through Chicago early and then grew in size and coverage as they moved across the northern Ohio Valley.  This is a very bad place for them.  This literally cuts off a lot of flights between Chicago and the East Coast.  This causes the FAA to route the plains other places where there are already planes.  This causes delays.

The good news it was Saturday and a little less busy.

Over in my part of the world, not a whole lot going on.  The ridge of high pressure finally moved east over Denver, so for the most part it should reduce the amount of thunderstorms.  There is still a slight chance, but compared to the last few days it should be much less.

The other potential problem was the West Coast.  With the ridge moving east this allowed a big trough edge ever closer. Around the large upper level trough were several smaller short-wave troughs.  One of these little guys moved just west of San Francisco and sparked thunderstorms over Northern California.  With dry low levels, these thunderstorms were high base which is unusual for that region.

Then there was another short-wave south-southwest of San Francisco.  This would have not been much threat to San Francisco, but then the wind shifted. On hot days in San Francisco, a northwest wind draws hot air from the city and the surrounding hills and the airport temperature will spike.  So the temperature at the airport went from 75F one hour to 90F the next and the moisture went from 59F to 36F in one hour.  This new spread between temperature and moisture made the development of high base better.  The other conditions needed are a lot of upper level moisture around 15,000-18,000 feet and not very much below that.

Still watching that potential.

No other issues to watch for now.

The first day of summer came in with fireworks as thunderstorms exploded around the country.

My day started again on the West.  The first concern was southern California.  It was pretty foggy at LAX, but it quickly improved through the morning.

The fog bank has been hanging out there off the coast and despite really warm temperatures and an offshore gradient, it has still come in every day.

After that I turned my focus to potential convection.

At this point I joined on the CCFP, which is a collaboration among the airlines, FAA, and the government forecasters to depict areas of thunderstorms and how much or little activity there will be.

This product is available on the aviationweather.gov website under convection.

In between doing that every two hours, although my coworker did more than I did, I worked on the San Francisco forecast.

San Francisco has had really nice weather.  The ridge continues to sit just enough over them that the gradients are really weak and the marine layer really low. As soon as that ridge shifts east, the marine layer and the low clouds should come back in.  Everyday, it looks like the following day will be that day, but everyday, the ridge is still in place.

The models are now showing that on Saturday evening the sea breeze will be a little stronger and the pressure gradients will trend toward less offshore and weak, but more onshore.  This may be enough to at least get some patchy clouds.  However, with it being so warm, any clouds would probably not form until Sunday at sunrise, so not a huge issue.

Denver again is just on the edge, but once again missed the thunder for the most part.

There were several cool pictures I found from a camera on top of Pikes Peak. The pictures showed a huge thunderstorm moving across the peak and then south out of Colorado Springs.  The neat thing was that the storm dropped a ton of hail I am guessing over the ground.  It was covered white, as were all the cars in the parking lot.  Then this storm went on to drop a tornado.  It was a really cool shot because the peak was at the base of the clouds.

That was pretty much my day.

One more day left.

Today is my birthday, and nothing is going on.

I really didn’t have any issues as there is a ridge of high pressure over much of the West Coast and this extends to the Rockies.  Denver is on the edge.

What does this mean?

The stratus is totally gone off the coast of North and Central California.  Temperatures there warmed into the low 90’s at San Francisco which is a problem because they don’t have A/C out there.  The computer models continue to try and bring a upper level trough onto the coast, but it has not happened yet.  There is a cut-off low pressure northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia.  The Southern California region has been plagued the past few days by a persisten area of low clouds and fog.  San Diego has had fog almost every morning, yet it has been brief.  San Diego airport is right on the water, so it is easy for fog to move across the airport. Los Angeles has been better off, but still some patchy fog has lingered.

This has been the only issue.

With the high pressure, most of the Inter-Mountain West has been free of any weather.

Denver on the east side of the ridge has dealt with weak systems that ride over the ridge across Montana and then dive southeast into Nebraska and Kansas and eastern Colorado.  This flow continues all the way down into Texas.

So the result is, thunderstorms form during the afternoon as large super cell types and then merge into a large complex called a MCS.  This then rides the flow into North Texas.  After this, the flow becomes weaker, but by then some of the storms have so much momentum and the atmosphere is so unstable in Texas that the storms continue south and hit Houston.

I really haven’t watched much else.

I just sent a blurb about Omaha, Nebrasksa being hit by a thunderstorm between 6:00pm - 7:00pm central time.  The National Weather Service usally is not quick enough with an update, so in those situations I send out messages to update the dispatchers who update the pilot.

So that was pretty much it for the day.  So far it has been good.  I think San Francisco will become an issue again on Saturday morning if the ridge ever moves.