By Paul Dorian (perspectaweather.com) – Re-Blogged From WUWT
12Z GFS forecast maps of 500 mb height anomalies show strong ridging from Alaska to the west coasts of Canada and the US both late this week (left) and early next week (right). This type of upper-level air flow will allow for the transport of these next couple of Arctic air masses from northern Canada into the central and eastern US. Maps courtesy NOAA, tropicaltidbits.com
By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. – Re-Blogged From http://www.drroyspencer.com
California Wildfires, Climate Change, and the Hot-Dry-Windy Fire Weather Index
Summer and early Fall are fire season in California. It has always been this way. Most summers experience virtually no precipitation over much of California, which means that the vegetation that grows during the cool, wet Winter becomes fuel for wildfires in Summer.
When you add the increasing population, risky forest management practices, and lack of maintenance of power lines, it should be little wonder that wildfire activity there has increased.
Few news reports of wildfires can avoid mentioning some nebulous connection of wildfires to human-caused climate change. This is a little odd from a meteorological perspective, however.
By Chris Martz Weather – Re-Blogged From WUWT
We’ve made it three weeks without extreme weather and/or climate change hysteria making rounds on social media. Unfortunately, that streak has come to an end, making the lives of most weather forecasters like me a lot more difficult.
We are quickly approaching climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season¹ (September 10th) (Figure 1), thus it should be NO surprise to anyone that we have seen an uptick in tropical activity. However, I stand corrected － people are losing their minds about it.
By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From WUWT
Watching the current maps and models, it appears the 2019 Atlantic Hurricane Season is off to a slow start. For people that the depend on disaster porn (climate alarmists, media) that means no weather events to claim as being climate driven.
With no current areas of storm development, 2019 has had the slowest start since at least 2004 when Hurricane Charley was named on August 9th, 2004.
By Chris Martz – Re-Blogged From WUWT
Last week, the Great Plains and upper Midwest were pummeled with a late-season blizzard. A wide swath of 10 to 20+ inches of snow buried parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, with the highest totals in the 20 to 30 inch range centered in far western Minnesota, and much of South Dakota (Figure 1).¹ The storm was not technically a “bomb cyclone” because the air pressure didn’t drop 24 millibars within 24 hours, although it did get close.
The highest official snowfall report was 30.8 inches in Wallace, South Dakota, although higher amounts in scattered areas were more than likely.² On top of that, an ice storm occurred in numerous Midwestern states, a dust storm moved through the southern Plains, and 80 mph wind gusts were observed in Texas and New Mexico, while thundersnow was reported in other locations.²
Re-Blogged From WUWT
From Penn State University and the “but we guarantee you there’s no predictability limit in climate science” department comes this interesting study.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In the future, weather forecasts that provide storm warnings and help us plan our daily lives could come up to five days sooner before reaching the limits of numerical weather prediction, scientists said.
“The obvious question that has been raised from the very beginning of our whole field is, what’s the ultimate limit at which we can predict day-to-day weather in the future,” said Fuqing Zhang, distinguished professor of meteorology and atmospheric science and director of the Center for Advanced Data Assimilation and Predictability Techniques at Penn State. “We believe we have found that limit and on average, that it’s about two weeks.”
