Cloud Identification

Anyone care to try to identify these wavy clouds? Photos taken 12/12/12 in northern SC around 11 AM.

Storm is a storm is a storm is a storm

But a storm by any other name would be as destructive.

A long time ago (but not in a galaxy far, far away), someone came up with the idea for naming tropical cyclones. The credit is given variously to several people but it doesn't really matter now. The point is it turned out to be a pretty good idea.

A lot of work and collaboration has gone into the strength rating and naming of storms over the years and slowly it has become a quite well-oiled machine. No one really has any problem with it. The only little hitches were when people (feminists) decided to become offended because all the storms had female names. To me this was only a natural outgrowth of other naming systems: boats and ships were traditionally given female names (and mostly still are) and a lot of times fighter pilots in the wars unofficially named their planes after wives or sweethearts. So it changed to alternating male and female and the dust settled until the next beleaguered group reared its head. Now we have both male and female names of English, French and Spanish origins in the Atlantic and of multiple other (including Polynesian, Japanese, etc.) origins in the Pacific. This makes sense for the areas the respective storms will affect.

The Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale was created in 1973 and went through various adjustments over the years, the latest adjustment being only this year. Thus we have a relatively simple system for telling how strong a hurricane or typhoon is and a way to quickly and easily identify it in all of the countries which it may affect.

All well and good. Then an entirely new animal emerged just a little while ago: the naming of winter storm systems.

The excuses given are various but THE claim to credibility is the precedent set by the Europeans to name winter storms. Let's just look at that for a moment:

First, the Europeans name all major windstorms, not just winter storms (although most do occur in the winter). Second, a given windstorm will likely track across multiple countries in the course of only a few days and it is not a bad idea to have one name for the thing so there isn't confusion. Third, given number two, you would think that you would thereby avoid confusion by having an official naming system. Alas, no. The media started the naming system and it gradually spread. Because it is not sanctioned by any international meteorological society the storm can acquire different names along its course. Fourth, you can have multiple winter windstorms affecting Europe at one time so naming them is a way to distinguish between them.

So, back to this interesting development in the U.S. The Weather Channel unilaterally created and instituted this naming system. The Weather Channel, contrary to what some people think, is not an official and disinterested meteorological body. [The National Weather Service (NWS), one branch of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is an official government body.] TWC exists to make money, plain and simple. It is not a non-profit. It is interested in increasing ratings and thereby increase income. Everyone knows how hyped up hurricane season has become an how people hang on TWC's every word. When there is a storm about you can go into restaurants with bars and the televisions are tuned in to the TWC. It's playing in the airports. It's everywhere. I admit that when we had cable (almost 3 years without!) I would watch it too...although not 24 hours a day. All it does is keep recycling the same thing every 15 minutes. When hurricane season is over things settle down. The excitement goes down. You don't go into public places and look up to see people in yellow slickers with "TWC" emblazoned across the front hanging onto lamp posts with the wind blowing them at 45 degree angles. Consequently, ratings must go down.

By deciding to create the same excitement during the winter as during hurricane season, you never get that drop in ratings. About the time the last hurricane has blown through there's snow on the back side of it. [Spring is already covered with "Tornado Season".] It's brilliant.

Do we need it? I have to say, by the time we're seeing the end of hurricane season (and usually well before) I'm a bit sick of the hype. I don't mean the well-deserved warnings and the sober predictions, I mean the hype. Winter is a relief from all of that. And now we're not even to get that break? It's like always being in election year. Gah!

So, back to the question, do we need it? I say no:

1. When a winter storm system comes through the U.S., it generally affects Canada and the U.S., two quite large countries. It's not hard to communicate storm warnings between only two countries.

2. We usually don't have two major winter systems at once although we have had up to several tropical systems being tracked at the same time.

3. Naming winter storms is a good way to confuse tropical and arctic systems as far as the public is concerned. Someone will say, "Remember Olive?" and the other person is left wondering if it brought blizzards or beach erosion. This does bring up the point: how are we going to have naming systems that are obviously distinguished from one another?? Is there something about "Alvin" that is tropical and "Marvin" that is wintry? 

I would rather see the NWS institute a winter storm naming system if it is going to be established. I would still have arguments against it but at least I would feel that it was a fairly unbiased decision. As it is, TWC seems to be coming up with the latest gimmick to line its pockets.

At least one weather station's reaction to all the hype: 

1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane

84 years ago last night, September 16th-17th, 1928, a hurricane made landfall in south Florida. The eye made landfall near West Palm Beach and then moved right over Lake Okeechobee.

Thousands of migrant farm workers, mostly black, lived in the low areas near Lake Okeechobee. There was a 5 foot dike to keep the waves out during storms, but it was no match for the hurricane. The figure below details the area that completely flooded. The southern end flooded first; when the eye passed over the northern end that area flooded as well.

 
People living in the area had evacuated initially but the hurricane did not show up when predicted. They went home, a fatal mistake. Thousands perished, many bodies being washed into the Everglades where they were never found.

(click to enlarge)

The racism of the day dictated what happened next. The few coffins were given to bury white victims; the black victims were either burned or dumped in mass graves with no memorial markers. It was only in the last several years that markers were put up.

The Red Cross initially estimated the dead at 1,836 but because so many bodies were never found and the migrant population was not well documented, that number was probably much higher. In 2003 the death toll was revised to "at least" 2,500 to reflect that. This makes the 1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane the second-deadliest to make landfall in the U.S. (the greatest being the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 with a death toll of 8,000 - 12,000).

Further reading:

NOAA memorial page
Wikipedia article on hurricane
Article in St. Petersburg Times - interviews with survivors
Extensive blog post on Alvin's Weather Blog
Black Cloud: the Great Florida Hurricane of 1928

Grandpapa

[1963] U.S. Meteorologist Robert L. Smith checks over one of the radar operated weather tracking pieces of equipment in the U.S. Weather Bureau located in this northwest Florida coastal city [Apalachicola, FL]. This station is one of five that fringe the state. The equipment Mr. Smith is looking at is a radar operated camera that takes both still and movies of heavy weather disturbances up to 150 miles away. The picture at the right was made several years ago and shows a hurricane off the southeastern Atlantic coast.

(source)

The first Doppler-radar measurements of a tornado were made in 1958 by U.S. Weather Bureau meteorologists R. Smith and D. Holmes. They obtained a Doppler radar from the U.S. Navy, set it up in Wichita, Kansas, and then waited. Just over a year later, on June 10, the radar detected a tornado in El Dorado twenty-five miles away. What luck that a tornado happened to touch down within range of the first Doppler radar used for meteorological purposes! The likelihood of a tornado striking within thirty miles of a given location during a given spring is extremely small. Although at the time it was not possible to discriminate between approaching and receding velocities, the wind spectra obtained by this radar detected maximum velocities (that is, wind speeds in the line-of-sight direction) of 200 mph.

-Tornado Alley: Monster Storms of the Great Plains, 1999, Howard B. Bluestein, p. 12-13

Click to go to the PDF file of the entire study.

[Another publication citing my grandfather (for my family's interest): Flood of September 20-23, 1969 in the Gadsden County Area, Florida]

Ahhhh...

Just a quick post to note that it is almost 9 AM and 65 degrees with 77% humidity outside! It's going to warm up, of course, but we should not have a heat index over 100 and we should also get some breeze today. Thank God! I know that summer is not over, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's SO nice to get a break.

Summer...be gone!!!

Right now the temperature is 97.9 with a heat index of 113. Ok, that's too hot. Just. Too. Hot. This morning I woke up, looked out at a nice, fresh-looking day with a breeze, and sitting in an air-conditioned house thought, "My, what a lovely fall day it looks!" On examination, the temperature was already over 80 and the air was soggy.

Enough already!!

It looks as if there's supposed to be a cold cool front coming in on Saturday and from Sunday on (at least as far as the forecast goes) the temperature should be much more moderate: highs from 75 to 81 and lows from 59 to the mid 60's. There's also supposed to be a breeze with that, mostly out of the north.

Oh, please...let it be true!!!

"Inside the Sun" [The Far Side - Gary Larson]

Local Aftermath

We seem to be among the very lucky people because we only lost power for a few hours last night, still have power, water and internet...and an intact roof. The other side of our street doesn't have power and indeed, most of our town doesn't have power. In fact, I can hear the generator running at the ATT building on the opposite corner of our block. Our house is fine; we mostly have small debris covering everything. The church and hall are fine except for the same small debris. I went out to see what was going on (which you're not supposed to do) and took some pictures. I did pass one house partly smashed by a large tree, but I didn't take a picture; it seemed heartless.

This is at the end of our street, a block and a house away. 

Looking through the blocked intersection.

Another view. You can see it came down right across the power lines.

Three blocks from our house.

About ten blocks from our house.

About five blocks away on the main road. The signals are out.

And in one case...missing.

About eight blocks from our house in another direction.

About four blocks away.

And, a little closer to home, the zinnias survived.

And we wound up with just a light covering of small debris.

Interestingly, I found this graphic:

 

Our little town has achieved notoriety. Also, it explains why the dam at Percy Quin State Park is full and about to go. They are evacuating 50,000 people below the dam in Tangipahoa Parish, LA. Let's hope it holds.

Watch Isaac Pass

It's neat to look at our local stats for the week and see Isaac pass. Of note: The humidity was very high (duh!) so you see the temperature and dewpoint right up next to each other. Notice that the temperature remained fairly constant once the heavy cloud cover and rain started. Looking at the pressure you can see that just after midnight the center of the storm passed. Even though I don't exactly remember it, apparently we had gusts to just over 40 mph but our steady winds never really got out of the 20's. MUCH lower than forecasted. Also interesting, you can see the wind direction changing from the north to the east and now to the south as the storm passed by.

Videos of the storm

Frankly it has been a rather boring day. It has rained, more or less continuously, and we've officially had just under 2 1/2 inches of rain. The wind started out just a bit squally but graaaaadually increased to gusts of 20-30 mph. We haven't lost power and the weather has generally not lived up to the forecast, but then it rarely does. Isaac, now back to a tropical storm, is nowhere near gone though: It was moving at about 7 mph this morning and now it's moving about 5 mph to the NW. We've got a loooong way to go. In fact, Pickles remarked on how long the storm was lasting while I was out on the porch taking a video of the winds. As usual, a child steals the show.

Wednesday

I woke up this morning to squally conditions but nothing impressive. Isaac is still moseying along at 6 mph. It's basically going to keep raining for the next 24 hours or so.

The cat, who is well on his way to being named Isaac, is still with us. He's chasing a moth in the window of the porch as I type. I think he spent the night under the house.

I'll update as soon as there's anything worth updating. Ho hum.