Archive for the ‘weather’ Category

Tropical storms Hanna and Gustav

Friday, August 29th, 2008

The tropics sure got active now..  In the Caribbean Sea there is tropical storm  Gustav.  It made another landfall today on Jamaica.  It doesn’t really look that   impressive but is forecast to go between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula and strengthen  over the warm water.  We’ll see how it holds together.  It seems to like land so far.

We also have Tropical storm Hanna north east of the Leeward Islands.  Again it doesn’t look all that impressive but does seem to have a burst of colder cloud tops now meaning that it has better convection.  It’ll be a little while before this one effects any land masses.

It would be kind of interesting to see these two storms strong enough and close enough together to have the fujiwhara effect.  At the same time they could cause damage and cost people there lives so I don’t really want to see that happen.

There is also an area of convection off of Mexico that they are keeping an eye on.

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Hurricane Gustav

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

The tropical depression I mentioned yesterday has become hurricane Gustav.  That was fast.    Right now it is forecast to stay along the southern edge of Cuba which will keep the rain away from the southeast US.  It is forecast to become a strong hurricane and move into the gulf of Mexico.  I guess that will bring oil prices up.  We’ll see what happens.

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tropical storm Fay brought heavy rains to south east

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Tropical storm Fay was pretty interesting to watch even thought it never got that strong.  It just moved so slow that it dumped flooding rains with lots of reports of high rainfall totals.  The that grabbed me was the spotter report of 27.5 inches of rain.  There were lots of reports of 15 to 20 inches in Florida too.  I would think the lucky thing is that the storm didn’t stall or move very slowly over mountainous terrain.

The storm held onto it’s organization pretty well while pretty much drifting over Florida.  That surprised me and was pretty interesting since the center wasn’t over it’s fuel source.

Now there’s a another tropical depression that looks like it should move north west over Cuba.  IF that goes over Florida or the south east US it could make for another mess down there.

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Chilly August night

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

The cold front came through and made for a nice cool night last night.  Actually this morning it felt a bit chilly out side.  We had a low of 51.4 according to my Davis vantage pro2.  I was hoping to make the 40′s but didn’t quite make it. This is my favorite part about August.  It’s when we start getting the first cool crisp nights of the year.

It won’t be too much longer until we are getting our first frost of the year.  Not to far off from that I’ll be hoping for snow only to be disappointed to have rain instead.

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Severe thunderstorms and a funnel clound on Sunday

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

We were away geocaching last week in four states and stayed over in Maryland.  We had a blast with it too.  Sunday morning there were already thunderstorms developing over Delaware.  I could see the dark clouds out the hotel window.  They had severe thunderstorm warnings.   We went to do a fun multi and then decided to head towards home.

As we headed north we could see a nasty looking storm to the north.  We never ran into it though.  Finally by the time we got to Quarryville we reached and area where it had rained..  After reading the reports of golf ball sized hail I am thinking maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t catch up to the storm.

Anyways I was just looking at the NWS website at storm reports from Sunday.  It seems  they had lots of reports of hail.  What surprised me was a funnel cloud over  Hinkletown.  They have pictures of it posted.  Pretty wild storms this year continuing. See it here ( Funnel Clouds Observed August 10, 2008)

The nice thing though is the fact that   it’s been very nice weather for the past week.  The heat and humidity are gone.

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surprise thunderstorms last night

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

About 2:00 am I woke up to thunder so of course I had to get up and go watch.  It looked very promising for a good storm with a constant flashing in the distance with fairly frequent flashes close by.  It looked like it had already rained a bit. It was actually nice outside on the porch..  Cool but humid but I’m adjusted to the humidity now.

Things calmed down.. with still lots of lightning in the distance.  I went and looked at the radar and saw that a small cell had formed and a northwest to southeast line of storms was exploding to the west.  The line was severe thunderstorm warned and they mentioned lots of cloud to ground lightning..  I guess that explained the flashing in the distance.

We were under a warning also so I stayed up.  There was occasional nearby lightning with some moderate rain.  I saw the solid line of storms so I figured I’d wait and it would get better.  Now the rain is pretty much just drizzle with some nearby lightning with some light breezes.  First there were some warm breezes from the east or so it seemed then it switched to a cool breeze from the west and the lightning wa becoming more distant.  I went and looked at the radar.  The line  had become a really nice east west solid looking line with a time  break right over us!   Usually that happens with storms moving from west to east here but not ones from the southwest.  oh well..  Maybe next time.  It was a bit of a disapointment but still a nice little unexpected surprise.

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July 13th storms

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Well I guess our storm shield has ended. We ended up having a pretty nice storm yesterday. Not severe but had some nice wind and heavy rain of course. The rain was not nearly as heavy as last week though. I only measured a quick .3 inches of rainfall.

It did feature lots of cloud to ground lightning. Unfortunately for me most of the lightning was in a direction I couldn’t see from the porch but heard lots of firecalls on the scanner for lightning strikes. I’m kind of glad our house has lots of taller things around it.

A new we were in for a pretty good storm when I heard the constant rumbling as the storm approached from the west. It had a nice look of a squall line too. What I really enjoy about storms we get here compared to what I remember gorwing up is the sky is a lot less hazy so you can actually know when the anvil is moving over us instead of the sun just fading in.

We apparently got heavy rain last night. My vantage pro2 measured about an inch. There must not have been much if any lightning because I was never woken up by thunder. I love the rain but it sucks when you have to get the roof fixed.

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nearly stationary thunderstorms

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Yesterday was a very humid day and pretty warm too. It featured small thunderstorms popping up all day long but completely missing us. Most of the day they seemed to be focused along the Susquehanna river. They were pretty much stationary but drifting slightly with a south to north component. They almost seemed to be forming along the hills on the river.

By suppertime I had written off any rain for us because the last i had looked at the radar they were weakening. After supper I came up stairs thinking to check my email. As the computer was booting I heard fairly close thunder so shut it right back down.

By the time it shut down I went out side. It was very dark here with bright skies to the north. The dark clouds above us looked low and had that bit of a boiling look to them. By now the lightning was pretty frequent just to out south and south west. and we were getting very heavy rain. for maybe 10 minutes. The rain let up with just a little sporadic drizzle now.

There were lots of random smallish dark clouds in the sky moving in different directions. Now there was a breeze that kept switching directions but seemed the strongest from the west. The clouds rapidly gathered to the north east and after a couple of minutes of that there started to be flashes of lightning off in that area.

The rain let up so we decided to run to the gas station so Molly didn’t have to do that this morning on her way to work.

While getting gas the clouds were rapidly spreading from the North east and the west. On the way home it started to pour with large drops of rain. The rain came down so hard it couldn’t even run off of our front yard fast enough. It just looked like a big puddle.

After that let up the temperatures here were in the upper 60′s with a dewpoint of 66. Not too bad and that made for a good night sleeping sans air conditioning.

I know the NWS had issued a flash flood warning because of radar estimating six inches of rain in two hours. That wouldn’t suprise me at all. We probably had less than a half an hour of rain total and my vantage pro measured .64 or something like that. We were on the edge of the storms and seemed like a few areas were constantly under them.

These storms were no where near severe but it was just cool to watch the life cycle of the storms and besides that it was nice to not get missed completely for a change. Looking at radar afterwords they seemed to have developed along route 30. I wonder if Chickies ridge was just enough to help them develop in t

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Yet another moderate risk for severe storms

Monday, June 16th, 2008

An active severe season continues. SPC has us in centeral PA, well actually the south eastern two thirds of PA, in a moderate risk for severe thunderstorms. Maybe we’ll actually get something in my back yard this time. It seems this year that storms are going severe just after they pass over here and here we’re not getting much more than a little rain and some distant thunder.

It really doesn’t have that feel of a day with strong storms. It’s cool out and not humid at all. I guess things are expected to change enough and other factors will be involved.

Hoping for a fun day!

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northeast heatwave ending with storms?

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

Today will be the last day of the heatwave affecting central Pennsylvania among other places. It’s been hot here but not record breaking with highs in the low to mid 90′s each day. The humidity hasn’t seemed to be as bad as it could have been either but that’s not really a bad thing.

My mom who lives near northeast Philadelphia said her car thermometer read 108. That seems a bit high but that area always seemed to run hotter in the summer. North East Philadelphia airport’s hight was 99 yesterday. I though for sure they would crack 100.

I see that the storm prediction center has us in a moderate risk for severe storms again. They should develop along and ahead of a cold front that’s in Ohio this morning. This front should move across Pennsylvania today and tonight. It looks like a decent shot at strong storms. The storms are sure to bring plenty of lightning with so much heat to generate the updrafts.

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