We brought up the topic of humorous live weather journalism (various mishaps during random local news-stations and such) at work the other night and I was reminded of Jon Stewart's coverage of a news-station out of Terre Haute, IN and their promo on their Doppler Radar. Apparently, they think fairly high of it and felt the need to completely bash their competition over whose radar is best and who has the most Meteorological experience.
There's not much in the weather department to really discuss, so enjoy the video from the Daily Show archives:
That's just hilarious!
Surprisingly, every once in a while something funny comes across the weather wire. And instead of storing these things on my personal computer, I figured I would share the following with the blogger community (whomever you are!).
First up, a much too detailed Area Forecast Discussion from the Duluth, MN NWSFO on the morning of November 6th:
We had a pretty good laugh about it at work. Not only because it is the most detailed and technical discussion any of us had seen for a lake-effect event, but also because some of this, we had no clue what to make of. Personally, my favorite part was the mention of the "seemingly immortal showers." That's just funny.LAKE EFFECT SHOWERS MAY TAKE THEIR TIME IN MOISTENING THE
LOWER PARTS OF THE COLUMN...BUT ONCE THAT COLUMN IS
MOISTENED...THE SHOWERS PERSIST EVEN AS MODELS TRY TO
INFILTRATE DRY AIR AND END THEM. MORE IMPORTANT THAN
MOISTURE...ANGULAR MOMENTUM IS CONSERVATIVE. IT TAKES
QUITE A BIT OF ENERGY TO START AIR ROTATING ALONG AXES OF
STREAMWISE HORIZANTAL VORTICITY. BUT ONCE THAT ENERGY HAS
BEEN INVESTED...THE ROTATING HORIZONTAL TUBES OF
HORIZONTAL VORTICITY WILL MAINTAIN SHOWERS IN THEIR UPWARD
MOTION AREAS. EVEN WHEN AN INVERSION LOWERS...THE SHOWERS
CONTINUE BECAUSE THE INVERSION SEEMS TO BE PUSHED ALOFT
MANY MANY METERS OVER THE UPWARD MOTION AREAS...
MAINTAINING ENOUGH DEPTH FOR SUBSTANTIAL SNOW PRODUCTION
FROM EXISTING SHOWERS. WE HAVE FOUND THAT ONCE LAKE
CONVECTION HAS BECOME ESTABLISHED...WARM ADVECTION AND AN
ACCOMPANYING WIND SHIFT AT ALL LEVELS HAS TO PHYSICALLY
PUSH THE SEEMINGLY IMMORTAL SHOWERS OFF THE SHORE WHERE
THEIR EXISTANCE OR NON-EXISTANCE IS NO LONGER OUR PROBLEM.
WE ANCPT COLD ADVECTION UNTIL ABOUT 10Z WEDNESDAY ACROSS
THE GOGEBIC RANGE. SO WE ARE TEMPORIZING BY EXTENDING THE
WINTER STORM WARNING UNTIL 06Z WEDNESDAY.
THERE IS ANOTHER POINT BEARING UPON OUR REASON OF EXTENDING
THE WINTER STORM WARNING WESTWARD ACROSS ASHLAND COUNTY.
BESIDES REPORTS OF SEVEN INCHES OF FRESH SNOW AND VERY
HEAVY SNOWFALL RATES SOUTH OF ASHLAND...RADAR SHOWS A
STANDING WAVE DEVELOPING EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS THAT RUN
DOWN ALONG THE SPINE OF THE BAYFIELD PENINSULA. SATELLITE
IMAGERY CONCURS WITH THIS OBSERVATION. THE STANDING WAVE IS
PROPAGATING TO THE SOUTHWEST...SOUTH OF THE BAYFIELD
PENINSULA. SUBSTANTIAL MOISTURE HAS BECOME ENTRAINED INTO
THIS PROPAGATING WAVE INTO AN UNSTABLE ENVIRONMENT. THAT
PROPAGATING CONVECTION IS THE SOURCE OF THE SNOWFALL REPORTS
IN ASHLAND COUNTY...WELL SOUTH OF THE LAKESHORE. WITH LITTLE
CHANGE IN COLUMN STRUCTURE...THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE
HAT THE STANDING WAVE WILL FALL APART ANYTIME SOON. OUR
COMMENTS ABOUT ANGULAR MOMENTUM BEING CONSERVATIVE ALSO
APPLY TO THE EXPECTED CONTINUED EXISTANCE OF THIS STANDING
WAVE.
Secondly, a rather humorous (obviously edited!) forecast map:
A friend of mine had this in his Facebook profile. Drizzle, that makes sense, but the rest? Quite the laugh!
Hello folks,
Much like the personal blog went through a redesign of it's layout, I've decided to do the same for the weather blog. I've also been noticing that the weather blog has been increasingly taking up storage on my web-space at mhartman-wx.com.
Considering this, you may notice that I'm back at Blogspot for hosting.
This also enabled me to use the new template. Apparently, hosting on your own server limits what you can do with XML templates.
Enjoy!
Note: I will gradually be transitioning older posts throughout the afternoon.
Our friendly "little" winter storm appears to be spinning up late this evening:
Can you find the low-pressure system? ;)
I've been catching sporadic reports and I've seen amounts generally from 3 to 5 inches thus far. A deformation band appears to be phasing and stretching from central Illinois through northern Indiana and also is resulting in some moderate to heavy precipitation, especially over the northern half of Indiana. Warm air has really pushed northward with this system and freezing rain and ice pellets have been reported across a large part of Indiana and Ohio, as well. This will limit accumulations some, but I still anticipate some hefty accumulations by Sunday evening over northeastern Indiana and far northwestern Ohio. We have amounts from 11 to 15 inches over these parts in our IN-DOT and O-DOT evening (9:00pm) forecasts.
Light snow continues to spread over much of the Ohio Valley this afternoon ahead of a fairly potent low pressure system. Winter Storm Warnings continue and it also continues to appear that significant snowfall accumulations are eminent over the northern half of the Hoosier state through tomorrow evening.
Here is what our afternoon forecast for IN-DOT is indicating for total snowfall accumulations. This is valid for the 1:00pm Saturday through 1:00pm Sunday 24 hour period.
Winter Storm and Heavy Snow Warnings have been issued for much of the Ohio Valley today and are valid from this afternoon through most of Sunday.
It appears that most of Indiana and Ohio will see significant snowfall with this system, with northern areas seeing the heaviest accumulations. While computer models differ some on their precipitation forecasts, the most aggressive (the NAM, or North American-Mesoscale) model is painting quite the picture for parts of Indiana:
The image below indicates that heavy snow will begin late tonight over western parts of Indiana, then spreading northeastward during the overnight and into early Sunday morning. The image below shows a maximum accumulation of liquid of 0.989, which assuming a 10:1 ratio, would amount to near 10 inches of snow, but paints most of northern Indiana over 0.75 or 7-8 inches of snow by 12Z on Sunday. This is equivalent to 7:00am EST. Note, this also only indicates snowfall during the previous 6 hours - so this is 7-8 inches within a 1:00am to 7:00am period. Nearly an inch per hour! If that would actually occur, that's pretty impressive!
This next image from 18Z, or 1:00pm EST shows the next 6-hr period and indicates another 5 to 8 inches over north-central and northeastern Indiana. This would bring a total accumulation from 12 to 16 inches of snow!
And finally, the last 6 hours of the event, for the most part, indicates only light accumulations (generally an inch or less) associated with lighter snow and flurries through 00Z Monday, or 7:00pm EST, Sunday evening.
Things should be much quieter by this time, but I'm sure all you Hoosiers will all see a much whiter world tomorrow!
If you are reading this from Indiana and would happen to snap any photos of this snow event, please pass them along! I'd love to see how things pan out. While I don't exactly feel that 17-18 inches will fall, I'm confident enough to say that a 12 inch accumulation will be likely, somewhere, and that there is a possibility that there could be some local spots of slightly higher accumulations.
My personal snowfall forecast would sound something along these lines...
+ Locations north of a line from Crawfordsville to Portland: 8-12 inches (slightly higher, locally)
+ Locations south of this line and north of a line from Terre Haute through the south-side of Indy to Richmond: 4-8 inches
+ Locations south of this line and north of a line from Vincennes to Lawrenceburg: 1- 4 inches of snow with light ice (freezing rain or sleet) accumulations possible
+ Points southward: an inch or two, with ice accumulations up to a quarter-inch also possible Sunday afternoon
Clear skies this afternoon are revealing much of the snow-cover across the Northern Plains and upper Midwest... Click on the image below to bring up a loop.
The snow continued through much of this afternoon... And driving into work at 11:30am today was a mess. For some odd reason the city hasn't done so well at cleaning these streets this year. They have not always been great, but this year seems especially bad. The photo to the right shows 17th Ave. on my east approach to 42nd Street this morning. As you can see, roads were very much snow-covered and slick! Our total accumulations (from last night through this afternoon) came to a whopping 8.1 inches, which obliterated the daily record snowfall for December 4th. The old record in Grand Forks was 4.0 inches back in 1926. Fargo also set a record for daily snowfall, receiving 5.9 inches. The previous record for them was also in 1926 with 4.3 inches.
Here's a summary of amounts as received by the Grand Forks NWS as of 3:00pm this afternoon:
SITE SNOWFALL AMOUNT
NORTH DAKOTA
CAVALIER SHERIFF........................6 TO 9 INCHES
PEMBINA SHERIFF.........................6 TO 8 INCHES
RAMSEY SHERIFF..........................6 TO 7 INCHES
WALSH SPOTTER (GRAFTON).................6 TO 8 INCHES
STEELE SHERIFF...............................7 INCHES
TRAILL SHERIFF...............................5 INCHES
CASS SPOTTER (FARGO).........................6 INCHES
CASS SHERIFF.................................4 INCHES
MINNESOTA
KITTSON SHERIFF..............................6 INCHES
ROSEAU SHERIFF...............................6 INCHES
MARSHALL SHERIFF.............................8 INCHES
PENNINGTON SHERIFF......................4 TO 6 INCHES
RED LAKE SHERIFF.............................6 INCHES
BELTRAMI SHERIFF.............................3 INCHES
POLK SPOTTER (CROOKSTON)................5 TO 7 INCHES
POLK SPOTTER (FOSSTON)..................2 TO 3 INCHES
LAKE OF THE WOODS SPOTTER(WILLIAMS)........0.5 INCHES
NORMAN SHERIFF..........................5 TO 6 INCHES
CLAY SHERIFF............................3 TO 5 INCHES
WILKIN SHERIFF...............................2 INCHES
OTTERTAIL SHERIFF............................6 INCHES
GRANT SHERIFF................................2 INCHES
MAHNOMEN SHERIFF........................4 TO 5 INCHES
WADENA SHERIFF...............................4 INCHES
HUBBARD......................................5 INCHES
CLEARWATER..............................5 TO 6 INCHES
OTTERTAIL SPOTTER(NEW YORK MILLS).......4 TO 5 INCHES
CLEARWATER SPOTTER(LOWER RICE)...............6 INCHES
BECKER COUNTY(PONSFORD)......................4 INCHES
An addition to the 4-8 inches that was received around the area this past weekend, an on-going Alberta Clipper is bringing additional snowfall to the region this morning.
The Grand Forks NWS issued this just minutes ago:
1030 AM CST TUE DEC 4 2007
..HEAVY SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS AFTERNOON
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GRAND FORKS HAS ISSUED A
HEAVY SNOW WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS
AFTERNOON. THE SNOW ADVISORY IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.
SNOW...HEAVY AT TIMES WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON
IN EASTERN NORTH DAKOTA AND WEST CENTRAL MINNESOTA. TOTAL
ACCUMULATIONS WILL RANGE FROM 6 TO 8 INCHES BEFORE THE SNOW
TAPERS OFF BY THIS EVENING. ROADS ARE SNOW COVERED AND
SLIPPERY AND THIS SITUATION WILL NOT IMPROVE DURING THE
AFTERNOON HOURS... SO BE SURE TO ADEQUATELY PREPARE FOR THE
AFTERNOON DRIVE HOME AND CARRY YOUR WINTER WEATHER SURVIVAL
KIT.
For more information on winter weather advisories, please visit your local NWS web-site.
In other news, it also appears that records were set for snowfall during the 24 hours of Saturday, December 1st. Both at the Grand Forks Int'l Airport and at Hector (in Fargo):
...RECORD PRECIPITATION AND SNOW FALL SET AT
HECTOR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN FARGO AND GRAND FORKS
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT...
A RECORD SNOWFALL AND PRECIPITATION FELL AT HECTOR
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT FOR DECEMBER 1. THE 0.67 INCHES
OF PRECIPITATION AND 7.4 INCHES OF SNOW RECEIVED BROKE
THE PREVIOUS RECORDS OF 0.48 INCHES SET IN 1909 AND 2.8
INCHES SET IN 1985. RECORDS AT HECTOR INTERNATIONAL
DATE BACK TO 1881.
A RECORD SNOWFALL AND PRECIPITATION FELL AT GRAND FORKS
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT FOR DECEMBER 1. THE 0.18 INCHES OF
PRECIPITATION AND 6.4 INCHES OF SNOW RECEIVED BROKE THE
PREVIOUS RECORDS OF 0.07 INCHES SET IN 1972 AND 0.7
INCHES SET IN 1990. RECORDS AT GRAND FORKS INTERNATIONAL
DATE BACK TO 1941.
For those of you that are curious, here is a final tally on snow totals from this past weekend's snowfall:
..WEEKEND STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL REPORTS
THE FOLLOWING TOTALS ARE FOR BOTH SATURDAY AND SUNDAY AND ARE
BASED ON REPORTS FROM SPOTTERS...COOPERATIVE OBSERVERS OR LAW
ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS.
SITE SNOWFALL AMOUNT
NORTH DAKOTA
MANTADOR...............................8.0 INCHES
HAVANA.................................8.0 INCHES
LIDGERWOOD.............................8.0 INCHES
WAHPETON/BRECKENRIDGE..................8.0 INCHES EST
FARGO/MOORHEAD.........................7.6 INCHES
FORMAN.................................7.0 INCHES
LISBON.................................6.7 INCHES
STARKWEATHER...........................6.5 INCHES
GRAND FORKS NWS........................6.1 INCHES
FINLEY.................................6.0 INCHES EST
MAYVILLE...............................6.0 INCHES EST
VALLEY CITY............................5.5 INCHES
BINFORD................................5.5 INCHES EST
PEMBINA................................5.3 INCHES
LANKIN.................................5.0 INCHES
MCVILLE................................5.0 INCHES EST
LANGDON................................5.0 INCHES
COOPERSTOWN............................4.5 INCHES
DEVILS LAKE............................4.0 INCHES EST
CAVALIER...............................3.0 INCHES
EDMORE.................................3.5 INCHES
SARLES POINT OF ENTRY..................3.0 INCHES
HANSBORO...............................3.0 INCHES
MINNESOTA
WADENA................................11.0 INCHES
NEW YORK MILLS.........................9.5 INCHES
PARK RAPIDS............................9.5 INCHES EST
BEMIDJI................................9.0 INCHES
ITASCA.................................9.0 INCHES
SEBEKA.................................9.0 INCHES
ELBOW LAKE.............................9.0 INCHES EST
MAHNOMEN...............................8.5 INCHES EST
LONG LOST LAKE.........................8.5 INCHES
FERGUS FALLS...........................8.5 INCHES EST
FOSSTON................................8.5 INCHES EST
BLACKDUCK..............................8.0 INCHES
HALSTAD................................8.0 INCHES
PHELPS MILL............................8.0 INCHES
DETROIT LAKES..........................8.0 INCHES EST
SABIN..................................8.0 INCHES
BRECKENRIDGE...........................8.0 INCHES EST
DALTON.................................7.8 INCHES
MOORHEAD...............................7.6 INCHES
PELICAN RAPIDS.........................7.5 INCHES
RED LAKE FALLS.........................7.1 INCHES
ROTHSAY................................7.0 INCHES
CROOKSTON..............................7.0 INCHES EST
LANCASTER..............................5.6 INCHES
ARGYLE.................................5.1 INCHES
WARROAD................................5.0 INCHES
WASKISH................................5.0 INCHES
WARROAD 4W.............................4.6 INCHES
GREENBUSH..............................3.5 INCHES
Snow is continuing across much of the upper Midwest this afternoon. The snow didn't pan out as heavy here in our area, but it still has been snowing all day. There was some light snow out there before I went to bed this morning around 8:00pm and it's still coming down out there.
Here are some preliminary amounts from around the area as of 2:00pm:
Additional reports of snow further south over eastern South Dakota have amounts from 5-7 inches with amounts generally in the 4-6 inch range across Minnesota. Southern areas of Minnesota and a large portion of Nebraska and Iowa have received appreciable amounts of ice and sleet. Some of the reports I've been looking through have anywhere from a quarter to a half inch of ice with some areas getting nearly 3 inches of sleet. That just sounds nasty!SITE SNOWFALL AMOUNTS
KFGO 3.5 INCHES
WALSH COUNTY 1.5 INCHES
GRIGGS COUNTY 3.0 INCHES
TRAILL COUNTY 3.0 INCHES
KITTSON COUNTY 1.0 INCHES
ROSEAU COUNTY 1.5 INCHES
HAVANA 3.5 INCHES
NORMAN COUNTY 4.0 INCHES
CLEARWATER 2.0 INCHES
BELTRAMI 3.5 INCHES
MAHNOMEN 3.5 INCHES
CLAY 3 TO 4 INCHES
BECKER 3.0 INCHES
WILKIN 3.0 INCHES
OTTERTAIL 4 TO 6 INCHES
WADENA 5 TO 6 INCHES
HUBBARD 3.0 INCHES
POLK 3 TO 4 INCHES
PENNINGTON 2 TO 3 INCHES
MARSHALL 2.0 INCHES
RAMSEY 1 TO 2 INCHES
GRAND FORKS 2 TO 3 INCHES
So, those of us here in Grand Forks, it could be much worse!
Stay safe!
The National Weather Service has issued Winter Weather Advisories all across the mid-section of the country over the past 24 hours for not only the possibility of heavy snows, but freezing rain and sleet. Quite the ice storm is expected over parts of Nebraska and Iowa today. It's already on-going over portions of Nebraska:
We here in the Upper Midwest and Northern Plains are certainly not excluded from this latest batch of wintry weather...
The Grand Forks NWS office has a Snow Advisory in effect for us until 6:00am Sunday:
URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GRAND FORKS ND
430 AM CST SAT DEC 1 2007
...THE FIRST MAJOR SNOW EVENT OF THE SEASON IS EXPECTED TODAY AND TONIGHT...
.THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT SNOW EVENT OF THE WINTER SEASON IS EXPECTED FOR EASTERN NORTH DAKOTA... NORTHWESTERN AND WEST CENTRAL MINNESOTA TODAY AND TONIGHT. SNOW WILL QUICKLY SPREAD FROM SOUTH TO NORTH BY LATE THIS MORNING...AND BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES BY AFTERNOON. STORM TOTAL SNOW AMOUNTS WILL RANGE FROM 6 TO 9 INCHES IN THE WAHPETON... FERGUS FALLS... AND PARK RAPIDS AREAS TO 3 TO 6 INCHES IN THE GRAND FORKS...AND BAUDETTE AREAS. EXPECT REDUCED VISIBILITIES AND ICY... SNOW COVERED ROADS. THE SNOW WILL RESULT FROM AN AREA OF LOW PRESSURE MOVING OUT OF THE ROCKIES INTO THE CENTRAL PLAINS. CONDITIONS WILL IMPROVE BY SUNDAY MORNING AS LOW PRESSURE MOVES INTO THE OHIO VALLEY.
...SNOW ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM CST SUNDAY...
SNOW WILL DEVELOP BY 9 AM IN GRAND FORKS... MAYVILLE... COOPERSTOWN... WARREN AND CROOKSTON. SNOW WILL BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES BY NOON... AND CONTINUE INTO SATURDAY NIGHT. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS FROM 4 TO 6 INCHES ARE EXPECTED BY LATE SATURDAY NIGHT. FALLING SNOW WILL REDUCE VISIBILITIES TO ONE QUARTER MILE AT TIMES THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. THIS WILL MAKE FOR HAZARDOUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS ...SO CARRY YOUR WINTER SURVIVAL KIT.
I will continue to monitor the skies outside my window and will likely report back on my findings as the afternoon progresses. And, of course, may take some pictures as the snow starts to pile up.
Stay safe on the roads, folks! Wherever you may be...
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