135 Tornado Reports But Only Few Deaths?

135 tornado reports were logged by the Storm Prediction Center on Saturday and early Sunday morning. Nearly 100 of these tornadoes were seen in Kansas. This amount is more than the standard for an entire month's total.

With 135 tornado reports, one would think many human casualties must have come from this many storms. On the contrary, only five people have been pronounced dead thus far from the outbreak. While that still is five misfortunes, the tally could have been much greater. Tornadoes ripped through populated areas like downtown Wichita, Kansas and severed 75% of the town of Thurman, Iowa, but both recorded zero deaths. How? Enough notice.

Meteorologists are dogged for missing forecasts and supposedly being wrong half the time, but does missing the amount of cloud cover or exact temperature really impact people? Are peoples' lives really at stake? The weather models were hinting at severe storms almost a week and a half in advance and continued that pattern until that Saturday. The Storm Prediction Center put out a severe weather outlook an entire week in advance.

Every day until that outbreak, they mentioned what the models were showing and at three days out, they warned of the intense severity. By consistently saying that severe storms would break out in the Kansas and Oklahoma area a week in advance from a very well respected group of meteorologists, people got the picture. Action plans were put in place days ahead. Evacuation arrangements were made in case these dreaded tornadoes hit close. Warnings were made and people listened.

Meteorologists saved lives that Saturday.

~Meteorologist Heather Brinkmann

Tornadoes in Dallas

WFFA.com

With the numerous tornadoes that traveled through populated areas last year, it is hard to think that it would not have happened again this year. Unfortunately, tornadoes were targeted near the Dallas area today.

The video above was recorded by a local television station's helicopter. It is showing a tornado south of Dallas ripping apart tractor trailers. It is uncertain, at this time, if anyone was hurt from this storm or the other tornadoes that formed near Dallas.

As a meteorologist, I like to diagnosis the atmospheric setup to figure out how these tornadoes formed. So this is what I found:

A strong upper level low pressure system is currently positioned in northeast New Mexico. While this system helped to form storms in Texas, it is also providing upwards of a foot of snow to Colorado. You can see as it tries to move eastward in this water vapor imagery loop.

As it makes its way eastward, it is producing storms to the Texarkana area (Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana). This upper level low is actually being steered by the oncoming system that is moving into the Pacific Northwest. This can be seen in the image below.

Not only does this upper level system play a big factor in producing these storms, but so did the storms that moved through last night. After the storms moved from northwest Texas yesterday, they left behind a moist boundary layer. Also, sufficient outflow boundaries were left from the storms. Moving on to today, clouds were able to break enough this morning so that the sun could heat up and destabilize the atmosphere. Modest CAPE(Convective Available Potential Energy) of upwards of 3000 J/Kg was in place by early afternoon. And to add to all of the other severe weather ingredients in place, a trailing cold front moved through Texas initiating storms ahead of it. Combining the preexisting outflow boundaries and the trailing cold front, wind shear(change of wind speed or direction with height) was able to increase the already sufficient low level shear in place.

More than enough severe weather ingredients were in place today to form these storms. However, it is unfortunate that these tornadoes went through such populated areas.

~Meteorologist Heather Brinkmann

Solar Tornadoes

Can you imagine what it would be like to experience this? These solar twisters were seen by NASA. These "tornadoes" were caught on NASA's high definition video when recording the sun.

"The sun tornado video shows swirling fountains of plasma creeping across the sun during a 30-hour period between Feb. 7 and 8. But unlike tornadoes on Earth, which are wind-driven phenomena, the sun's plasma tornadoes are shaped by the powerful magnetic field of our [sun]" (Space.com).



Can you imagine trying to forecast this? Wow!

~Meteorologist Heather Brinkmann

Eerie Fog

With fog prevalent for the past couple of mornings in northern Illinois, I thought it was only appropriate to show that you are not alone.

The view above is along Panama City Beach, Florida. Yes, even the luxurious beaches in the United States gets fog too. It is actually quite a special circumstance that this fog is occurring. What is happening is that Panama City Beach is experiencing very fluid onshore flow off of the Gulf of Mexico. When this happens, the flow of the air moves towards these high rise buildings and the pressure drops. This, in turn, results in condensation which is seen as fog. The air continues to be pushed up and over the buildings. Then, just like it started, returns near the ground.


A little eerie, isn't it?


~Meteorologist Heather Brinkmann 

Weather Roundup for January 12, 2012

Series of Radar from 1/12/12

If you recall, Wednesday had nothing but sunny skies and mid 50° weather. But like the saying goes, “All good things must come to an end.” For most of us, we were ecstatic to finally get some measurable snow. The setup was quite different, in that we banked off another storm for moisture. The low pressure system that moved up along the East Coast provided sufficient moisture from the Alberta Clipper system that we received. With our forecast of four to eight inches, it seemed almost probable that most locations would get the high end amount from this storm. It was all day Wednesday that we watched as the weather system from Canada slowly moved through the upper Midwest. By early morning Thursday, this system entered Illinois. It was not until around 7 AM that snow reached the western suburbs of Chicago.  Snow continued throughout the entirety of the day into the overnight hours. And after almost 11 months, it was nice to finally drop the blade.

Here are the snow totals from this storm:

~Meteorologist Heather Brinkmann

The lull continues......

As December 2011 gets ready to come to an end, we had an incredibly mild start to the 2011-2012 winter season.  It was almost as if mothernature decided to skip winter and jump right into spring with temperatures well into the 40s for much of the month.  Chicago O'Hare airport officially recorded 1.7" of snow this month which is well below the average of 8.3" for the month.  


So, the million dollar question asked is........what's in store for 2012?  The picture below helps illustrate the overall pattern across the U.S.  You can see the jet stream from northern Washington through North Dakota and stretch down through Tennesse and back up across the northeast.  Typically with this type of flow, we have clippers systems that move through, however, the warm air from the Pacific is able to push into the midwest helping temperatures stay well above normal. 

There are signs of colder air moving into the Midwest to start the new year, but they are short lived.  The next couple weeks show the same pattern continuing, but historically speaking, we should finally start seeing snow events, not rain events through Jan and Feb.   Only time will tell, so make sure to keep following us on our blog and twitter!


Eric Szos
Chief Meteorologist

1st Measurable Snowfall

Chicago was well on its way to breaking a record for the latest date with its 1st measurable snowfall.  That changed, however, as an Alberta clipper system moved through the area.   Anywhere from a trace to 1.0" was recorded across the Chicago metro area and into northern Indiana.

     

 Courtesy of the NWS

 

With O'Hare recording 0.4" of snow this past event, Chicago ties for the 5th latest date to record measurable snowfall.   The record still stands at Dec.16th, 1965.  If this past system would have stayed to the south, it's likely that we would have broken this record since the next 7 days appear to show no snow coming up.   A strong system could develop and move across the Great Lake region by next Wednesday the 14th, however, this appears to be a rain producer at this time.   

Stay tuned!

Eric Szos
Chief Meteorologist