Tag: weather

Animated wind map

The map above is a screen grab from an animated wind map. If you go to the site hint.fm/wind, you will see that the lines move in the direction of the wind, and the speed of the moving lines varies depending on the actual wind speed. The data is downloaded from the National Weather Service’s database every hour, so what you will see there is near real-time conditions.

It’s interesting that on the site, they advise that you: “Please do not use the map or its data to fly a plane, sail a boat, or fight wildfires 🙂 “.

Check it out. It’s mesmerizing.

You’re welcome.

(Note: when you go to the site, it takes a lot of computer horsepower to animate the map . It may not work on your smart phone, or even on your computer. They advise: “If the map is missing or seems slow, we recommend the latest Chrome browser.”)

weather

Red Flag Warnings, April 12, 2012

A smaller portion of the United States is under a Red Flag Warning than in previous days. New England is out of the spotlight, and the folks living in Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas must be living right, since for the most part, their states avoided the warning today. Either that, or the National Weather Service forecasters in different regions use various criteria for Red Flag Warnings.

weather

Red flags, prescribed fires, and cannon fire

Red flag warnings 4-6-2012 — Red flag warnings April 6, 2012

The map for April 6 shows Red Flag Warnings covering large areas of the United States. And again, the map shows the warnings-constrained-by-state-boundaries-syndrome. This makes a person wonder if the forecasters on one side of the state boundary were too aggressive with their warning, or if the folks across the border were too timid, or it simply didn’t occur to them to post a warning. Or none of the above.

Check out the map below showing the locations of spot weather forecasts.If you go to the National Weather Service web site and click on one of the large flame icons, you’ll see that most of them are for prescribed fires — few are for wildfires. And almost all of the prescribed fires are less than 100 acres.

Spot weather forecasts 4-6-2012 — Spot weather forecasts April 6, 2012

Two spot weather forecasts are for locations in the Pacific Ocean. One was for a prescribed fire near Coburn, North Dakota, and the other one, in the Gulf of Alaska, was requested by the Coast Guard. I’m thinking that the latter is for the incident involving the derelict ghost ship Ryou-Un that was set adrift during last year’s tsunami in Japan. The Coast Guard decided to use a cannon on one of their cutters to blast holes in the ship and sink it rather than risk the chance of it running aground or endangering other vessels in the busy shipping lanes between North America and Asia.

From the photo below, it appears that the ship took quite a few cannon rounds from the Coast Guard cutter.

Coast Guard sinks ship — The Ryou-Un is set afire after being hit by the cannon from a Coast Guard cutter. Photo by U.S. Coast Guard

red flag borders weather

Detecting wildfires using radar and satellites

Radar image detecting wildfire smoke plume

Some employees of the National Weather Service in Glasgow, Montana have written a description of how on April 3, 2012 they detected two fires using radar and satellite imagery. Below are some excerpts from their document, which was the source of the two images displayed here.

…As our forecasters were working during the day on April 3rd, they noticed some plumes on satellite imagery, on a day where there weren’t any clouds for hundreds of miles in all directions. They called Richland County dispatch to check and see if there were any fires, and were notified that there were at least two fires, one in southwestern Richland County, the other in northeastern Dawson County.

As the day warmed up, the winds increased from a southerly direction, and the humidity dropped from around 68% at 8 am to below 20 percent after 1 pm. According to Rob Gilbert with the Sidney fire department, an area that had been burned during the weekend had reignited and quickly grew out of control as the winds blew the top layer of ash off the old burn. In all, the southwest Richland County Fire burned at least 1000 acres of land, and two abandoned farmsteads, northwest of Richey, MT.

The smoke plume from the Richland County fire was high enough that we were able to detect it on the Glasgow weather radar. The fire was located about 75 miles east-southeast of the radar, and at that distance, the lowest level of the radar beam (0.5 degrees) would put the radar beam at around 7,500 to 8,000 feet AGL. So, the smoke plume rose at least 1.5 to 2 miles high in the atmosphere.

weather

Red flag warnings for New England

It is unusual to see Red Flag warnings for the New England states, but today the list includes most of southern New England — portions of: NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, NY, as well as parts of the western states of NV, AZ, NM, TX, MT, ND, and SD.

Here is an example of one of the warnings issued by the National Weather Service, in this case it is for western Mass.:

============================================================

RED FLAG WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM THIS MORNING TO 8 PM EDT THIS EVENING FOR MUCH OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN TAUNTON [MASS.] HAS ISSUED A RED FLAG WARNING FOR MUCH OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM THIS MORNING TO 8 PM EDT THIS EVENING. THE FIRE WEATHER WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

AFFECTED AREA…ALL OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND EXCEPT FOR CAPE COD AND THE ISLANDS.
WINDS…NORTHWEST 10 TO 20 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 30 MPH.
TIMING…FROM LATE MORNING THROUGH EVENING.
RELATIVE HUMIDITY…AS LOW AS 13 PERCENT.
TEMPERATURES…IN THE UPPER 50S TO MID 60S.
IMPACTS…ANY FIRES THAT DEVELOP WILL LIKELY SPREAD RAPIDLY. OUTDOOR BURNING IS NOT RECOMMENDED.

===============================================================

Be careful out there New Englanders.

weather

Wildfire potential, April through July, 2012

The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their National Wildland Significant Fire Potential Outlook for April through July, 2012. If correct, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, and portions of California and Nevada will experience above normal wildfire potential for the months May through July.

Below is a summary of the wildfire potential:

Significant Fire Potential

Above Normal Significant Fire Potential is expected along the east coast from near Wilmington, North Carolina, to near Panama City, Florida, including all of the Florida peninsula; most of northwestern Nevada; foothills and inland valleys of southern California; and the lee side of the Hawai’in Islands.
Significant Fire Potential will increase to above normal in the spring across most of Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, the upper peninsula of Michigan and northwestern Iowa; central and western New Mexico, most of Arizona, southern Nevada, far southern Utah and extreme southwestern Colorado.
Below Normal Significant Fire Potential is expected for much of the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, the middle and lower Mississippi Valley, and Puerto Rico. The rest of the country will have normal significant fire potential.

Climate and Drought Conditions

La Niña will continue to weaken as oceanic trends point to warming of the equatorial Pacific through spring, favoring a neutral or weak El Niño cycle by early summer.
Warmer than normal temperatures are expected across much of eastern two-thirds of the U.S.in March and transitioning to above normal across just the southern half of the country. Below normal temperatures are expected for the West coast and much of Alaska.
Precipitation is expected to be below median for most of the southwest, central and southern Plains, and the Gulf coastal region including all of Florida, and southern Alaska. Above median precipitation is expected for the Northwest and northern Rockies, the Upper Midwest, theGreat Lakes region, and the Ohio and mid-Mississippi valleys.
Drought will persist through much of the lower Atlantic and Gulf coasts, most of the southwestern and south central U.S., most of central and northern California, the western Great Basin, and the upper Mississippi valley. Drought will likely develop across the northern Plains, the eastern Great Basin and central Rockies, and southern California. There will be some improvement in the Northwest, parts of northern California, east Texas, and on the lee sides of the Hawai’in Islands.

potential weather

Monday wildfire one-liners, March 26, 2012

Screen grab from report about Colorado wildfire conditions

Excellent photos of a P2V and an Air Tractor 802A at Jeffco Air Tanker Base in Colorado.

Annual wildfire refresher available, online and by DVD. Warning: a lame, pointless video with audio will automatically play for about 15 seconds when you visit the NIFC web site.

Video report about wildfire conditions in Colorado.

U.S. Forest Service starts women’s firefighting boot camp.

Two boys ordered to pay $10,000 each for starting fire near Gardnerville, NV.

New Hampshire man uses gasoline to ignite brush pile, is treated at hospital for burns on hands and face.

Two Single Engine Air Tankers begin their 7-day journey from Australia to the United States.

Meteorologist gives early prediction of a normal fire season for the northern Rockies.

One home and two outbuildings burn in three-acre wildfire in Chimayo, NM.

During the past 10 years, the Alabama Forestry Commission’s staff has been reduced by more than 300 employees.

air tanker Alabama Australia Colorado New Hampshire weather

More red flag warnings, March 26

More information about the red flag warnings.

The weather in western South Dakota is going to be interesting for the next day or two as you can see in the hourly graph below. The relative humidity will be above 50% until noon, when it drops into the low 20s. The wind will increase during the afternoon as a front comes through; 30+ mph with gusts in the mid-40s. And on Tuesday we’ll again see strong winds, 20+ with gusts around 30, with the RH about 20%.

weather

Record-setting high temperatures in March

I continue to be amazed at the extraordinary, record-setting high temperatures across much of the United States. According to The Weather Channel, approximately 2,000 record highs have been recorded in the last seven days. One of the effects of this we are seeing is the wildfire occurrence occurring a couple of months earlier than normal in the Northern Rockies and Great Plains areas.

The map below is a screen grab of an interactive map at the The Weather Channel web site, at which you can click on a dot to see the high temperature predicted for today, March 18, and how much it will exceed the record high for this date.

Record high temperatures forecast 3-18-2012 — Credit: Weather Channel

Some of the more notable high temperature records that are predicted for today include:

Bismarck, ND +10
Williston Sloulin AP, ND +12
Rochester, MN +17
Houghton Lake, MI +12
Burlington, VT +13

On Wednesday the temperature in Traverse City, Michigan was 81, which was 42 degrees above the average for that date, and 4 degrees above the previous high, according to records that go back to 1897.

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Red Flag Warnings – again

I don’t remember seeing Red Flag Warnings covering such large areas, so frequently, and this early in the fire season. What’s going on here? Is it possible that there really is something to this Climate Change stuff (he said, with tongue planted in cheek)?

More info.

climate change weather