Wet, windy Nor'easter slams Northeast; season's first Category 5 storm is Ului
An extremely wet and windy Nor'easter whipped through the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S. over the weekend, dropping rains in excess of six inches over some regions, and driving high winds gusting near hurricane force. On Saturday afternoon, JFK Airport in New York City recorded sustained winds of 45 mph, gusting to hurricane force--75 mph. Soils already saturated from run-off due to all the melting snow from the heavy winter snows have been unable to absorb the heavy rains. As a result, there is widespread minor to moderate river flooding, and many power poles have toppled due to the high winds and wet soil. Over half a million people were without power in the region over the weekend. The Nor'easter will continue to bring strong winds and moderate rain to the region today, then gradually weaken and move away from the Northeast on Tuesday.
Figure 1. Estimated precipitation from the weekend Nor'easter over the Northeast. Rainfall amounts in excess of six inches (pink colors) occurred in New York and Connecticut.
Ului: first Category 5 storm of the year
The first Category 5 tropical cyclone of the year has arrived. Over the weekend, Tropical Cyclone Uliu intensified into a lower-end Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds in the open waters of the South Pacific, east of Australia. Ului has weakened slightly into a still-powerful Category 4 storm with 150 mph, but is projected to significantly decay as the week progresses, due to high wind shear. Some of the models foresee that Ului will be a long-range threat to the Queensland coast of Australia by the end of the week, but the storm should be in a much weakened state by then, and may also turn out to sea without hitting land. Australia has had a remarkably easy hurricane season so far--no tropical cyclones entered Australian waters during the month of February, the first time that has happened since 1944. That would be equivalent to the U.S. having no tropical storms near our coast in the hurricane-prone month of August.
Figure 1. Tropical Cyclone Ului at peak strength at 22:22 UTC Saturday, March 13. At the time, Ului was a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds and a minimum pressure of 918 mb. Image credit: NRL Monterey.
Tropical Cyclone Tomas
Meanwhile, Category 3 Tropical Cyclone Tomas is causing trouble in the Fiji Islands, where the cyclone's 125-mph sustained winds are being felt in the less populated eastern islands. Tomas has already claimed one life, ripped off roofs, and caused extensive power outages in the Fiji Islands, according to news reports. However, the cyclone is missing the two largest and most populated islands.
I'll have a new post on Tuesday.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Here is the clip of the comet and the link. L8R :)
http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=14&month=03&year=2010,, sorry , fixed it
It looks to me like as the phases change, the easterlies seem to come down through the Stratosphere in a rather erratic fashion, with a lot of bumps and sudden jerks. The westerlies, however, which are dominant in the lower levels, propagate quite rapidly and smoothly into the lower Stratosphere when phases switch.
In a general sense then what this means is that when the easterlies come down, they do it more slowly, a gradual process from the top of the air column to the bottom. This results in easterly winds laying on top of westerly winds during a phase change from westerly phase to easterly. However, during the opposite phase change from easterly to westerly, the westerlies overtake the entire atmospheric column rather fast and smoothly, easily becoming dominant in the lower Stratosphere in a short time.
So here's an idea. When the easterlies are coming down, they spend a good deal of time laying on top of low-level westerlies near the tropopause, while radically jumping downwards. Maybe this creates some sort of horizontal vorticity (think rotating column of air lying on its side between the two layers of opposing winds). This could cause a sort of cascade of "logs" of air rolling down from the top of air column to the bottom, sending pulses of downward air motion crashing into the top of the troposphere. This would tend to inhibit deep convection at the top of the troposphere, and reduce hot-tower events, thunderstorms breaching the tropopause. It could also throw batches of freeze-dried stratospheric air into the upper troposphere.
I haven't done heavy physics yet, but is this possible? I'm really trying to understand the QBO lol.
Marco Giorgetta, Elisa Manzini
The general circulation of the atmosphere exhibits various modes of variability, each with its characteristic domain and scales. Within the equatorial stratosphere, the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) of the zonal wind is the dominating mode of climate variability because of its outstanding structure in space and time, and the QBO plays an important role in the interpretation of observed variations in the distribution of ozone and other chemicals in the whole stratosphere. For a general review on the QBO, see Baldwin et al. (2001).
* The QBO in observations and reanalyses
Simulating the QBO in a general circulation model, therefore, has been an important issue for many years, both for the understanding of the QBO as well as for its effects. MAECHAM5 allows the simulation of the QBO if the vertical resolution is chosen adequately
* The QBO in MAECHAM5.2 T42 L90
Recent work has focused on the sensitivity of the QBO to CO2 doubling (Giorgetta and Doege, 2005) and on the analysis of the climatology and forcing of the QBO in MAECHAM5 (Giorgetta et al., 2005). The first QBO simulation in MAECHAM5 has been shown in Giorgetta et al. (2002). It was found that the QBO in MAECHAM5 depends by and large equally on resolved wave mean-flow interaction and parameterized gravity wave drag. The parameterization of deep convection plays an important role in the excitation of the resolved tropical wave spectrum. Large differences in the characteristics of different parameterizations and resulting spectra have been identified in the intercomparison of middle atmosphere GCMs by Horinouchi et al. (2003).
Older studies based on ECHAM4 in conjunction with QBO assimilation have shown that the QBO feeds back to the Asian monsoon system (Giorgetta et al., 1999). Further it was shown that the QBO modulates the atmospheric tape recorder signal (moisture anomalies) both in strength and in velocity (Giorgetta and Bengtsson, 1999).
LoL, good to see ya. You might be right :)
CFS is forecasting a fairly moist (or at least normal) western Sahel throughout the hurricane season:
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Well thanks SDF. I'm still waiting for Atmo to make my cheeks go red with a really obvious physical explanation for why I'm wrong...lol.
Re: post 301...Very interesting link Ossgss.
Thanks!
2005:
2010:
I don't like how they put a smoother on the data from recent years. To me it's like smoothing radar imagery...it looks cool but at some level it still distorts the actual data pixels.
Air Force Col. Ron Solberg, commander of the 119th Support Group of the North Dakota National Guard, right, addresses full-time North Dakota Air National Guard personnel as he initiates personnel mobilization plans for regional flood contingency operations beginning in the Red River Valley in Fargo, N.D., March 15, 2010. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. David H. Lipp
North Dakota Guard Mobilizes for Flood Duty
American Forces Press Service
FARGO, N.D., March 15, 2010 –
The North Dakota National Guard will mobilize soldiers and airmen to begin flood operations for seven of the state’s southeastern counties today and tomorrow.
The Red River in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota is expected to crest about 20 feet above flood stage and three feet below last year's record crest by March 20.
The Guardsmen will serve in Steele, Traill, Barnes, Cass, Ransom, Sargent and Richland counties. Some 300 to 400 Guardsmen will be mobilized “with boots on the ground” by tomorrow, said Air Force Col. Ronald Solberg, the North Dakota National Guard’s emergency operations commander for Region 4, which includes those counties.
Working in 12-hour shifts, the Guardsmen will conduct a variety of flood-related missions, including traffic control, logistical and supply support, sandbagging and creating rows of barriers.
"Airmen and soldiers will begin traffic control points in Lisbon and Fargo today," Solberg said.
I'm just taking the ones from the AOML page and changing the year in the URL bar lol
Evening msgambler,
It appears that the upper low northeast of her center, which degenerated into a trough this morning, is continuing to dissipate, and Ului is starting to gradually mix out the dry air and rebuild her eyewall. If she can keep this up she may hit Cat 4 again before her turn south.
^^Click the Visible Image for Loop^^
Evening Gambler.
Good evening, and I could say the same about the South Florida coast :~)
The erratic, almost fighting, phase change to easterly is exactly what I think is associated with everything else you describe...called stratospheric intrusion. (Seriously, I think you've got it figured well)
a. k. a. tropopause folds.
A little detail here: http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/SEES/ozone/class/Chap_6/6_5.htm (at bottom)
This isn't a well-studied subject, IMO.
Plus, I am seeing that trop folding can introduce added vorticity into the troposphere. That would only help a TC should all else be good conditions...but would have to compete with very dry air and, in the presence of a easterly QBO (I think), more shear. (just considering the opposing wind directions)
Awww, come on. You do just fine.
Lol, so are you saying my idea has merit? I figured you of all people here would know if it was a physical possibility.
EDIT: just saw your reply that went down the page really fast. I'll read it now.
HOMEWARD BOUND - U.S. Marines disembark the amphibious dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry in Morehead City, N.C., March 13, 2010. The Fort McHenry has completed participation in Operation Unified Response to provide humanitarian support to Haiti after a devastating earthquake, and is returning to homeport in Little Creek, Va. U.S. Navy
That wind finally die down along the coast??
With only two months and change to go for the start of the season I see that attention has turned in that direction. Interestingly, I have often thought that having many cold fronts sweep down into the Caribbean would lead to a slow start for the season due to low SST from the cold air aloft lowering the water temps.
While I have no statistics to show the relationship between an active cold front season into the Caribbean and an active or inactive hurricane season I do recall being surprised more than once as to how quickly SST rebounded from "cold" Caribbean winters and went on to support active hurricane seasons.
So far this winter season we have had multiple cold fronts swing down into the NW caribbean, sometimes two a week with day time temps in the 60s being recorded in both Feb. and March.
When this has happened in the past my recollection is that we have seen active hurricane seasons follow which sounds couterintuitive but there it is.
Colder than normal winters in the NW Caribbean are no doubt associated with colder than normal winters in the SE US which in turn is linked to El Nino and the NAO induced colder winters in the SE. La Nina or neutral conditions usually follow El Nino winters so I suppose it stands to reason that when we experience "cold" winters in the NW caribbean the odds of an above average season are on the table due to La Nina or neutral conditions following.
Time will tell.
Ului
Thanks Atmo. That is interesting. The added vorticity could be the very reason why an easterly QBO doesn't always significantly dampen an Atlantic hurricane season (e.g. 2005). The inconsistencies are such that it seems things like anomalously warm SSTs or moist mid-upper atmosphere can somewhat easily overwhelm the negative effects of the QBO and take advantage of the positive ones. That's assuming the folding actually occurs in tropical latitudes and lends that vorticity to tropical systems.
In fact Dr. Gray stopped using the QBO in his December Forecast scheme due to the drop-off in correlation to Atlantic hurricane activity over recent years. He also dropped West African rainfall due to lack of correlation. He has found no explanation for either.
From his December 2009 Forecast:
"This was due to the discontinuation of the strong relationships we had earlier found between West African rainfall and the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) with Atlantic basin major hurricane activity 6-11 months in the future. We did not expect these African rainfall and QBO predictive relationships that had worked so well during the 41-year period from 1950-1990 to stop working. We do not yet have a good explanation. We have discontinued this earlier 1 December forecast scheme and have developed two new 1 December forecast schemes (Schemes B and C) since that time."
Ehhh, I cannot find anything that relates QBO to tropical intrusions. They are a mostly mid and high latitude phenomenon...more common there at least.
I dunno...
Never too early to drop in LOL.
The BBQ grill is working just fine although there have been a few times when stiff NW winds have been a challenge this winter !.
Interesting season coming without Quikscat to resolve questions of " closed or not closed " circulations. Ascat is pretty much hit or miss at the best of times so classifying systems far out in the Atl. will no doubt provide much fodder for debate.
Well it's an intriguing thing to study. Storm said he had a few papers on the subject that he was going to share sometime.
Was a funny thing Kman,..I met Hurricane Forecaster Avila the Day Quikscat Failed Nov 24th as he was at the Cuban US Hurricane Conference that day here in NOLA.
He said that we have ASCAT and other ones to augment the Loss,but that he would keep us safe ..
Avila was a Speaker that day and had some fine words too.
My entry on that day and some pics.
US-Cuba Conference
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