Category: Elsewhere in Weather News

Elsewhere in Weather News: July 12th, 2014

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Atlantic and West Pacific Oceans See Storms

Hurricane Arthur
The beginning of July started off on an active note as hurricane Arthur spun up just off the coast of Florida. Arthur quickly organized, pushing out the dry air that was initially a problem on the northwest side of the storm. Following the short bout with the dry air, Arthur formed a well-defined eye. The storm “only” reached category two as it made landfall on the Carolina coast near Cape Lookout, shortly after forming the well-defined eye. It brought with it sustained winds of 160km/h, whipping up a significant storm surge as high as 1.4m on the outer banks.

Base reflectivity radar image of Arthur shortly after it made landfall on the outer banks of North Carolina very early on July 4th. (Source: GRlevel3)
Base reflectivity radar image of Arthur shortly after it made landfall on the outer banks of North Carolina very early on July 4th. (Source: GRlevel3)

In the aftermath of the storm 41,000 residents from North Carolina had lost power, in addition to some minor damage to houses. Flooding was also a concern where a few areas received over 100mm of rain from the storm. Thanks to much warning in advance, no residents were injured or killed with this storm. Arthur brings an end to the lull in hurricane activity the United States has seen in the past couple years. The last hurricane to have made landfall in the United States prior to Arthur was in August, 2012.

Arthur further continued its trek up the East Coast bringing miserable weather to the US Northeast as well as Atlantic Canada, but was less of a threat (still significant) as a post-tropical storm.

Super Typhoon Neoguri
Super typhoon Neoguri was another significant storm that spun up to start off the month of July, this time in the western Pacific Ocean. With the help of very warm sea surface temperatures as well as little shear to tear it apart, Neoguri strengthened to a super typhoon producing sustained winds of 250km/h and bottoming out at a pressure of 930mb. Six deaths have been attributed to Neoguri as well as over 100 injuries. After passing through the Ryuku Islands, Neoguri got caught up in the polar jet stream and curved back east towards Japan as it started its transition to an extratropical storm over Japan. Satellite observations indicated rainfall totals of over 500mm in a few mountainous regions of Japan. Neoguri was officially declared an extratropical storm yesterday.

Another disturbed area is currently over the Pacific and is expected to become of tropical storm strength this weekend, however, is not expected to impact any landmasses in the near future.

Elsewhere in Weather News: June 28th, 2014

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Active Week in Southern Ontario

It’s been a fairly uneventful week worldwide regarding severe weather events. However, southern Ontario has seen its fair share of significant weather events this past week including a few tornadoes and flooding in Toronto.

Last Tuesday two tornadoes touched down in Ontario causing some damage to homes and barns. The first tornado reported touched down in New Tecumseth, ONT – a town located about 100km from Mississauga. The EF-1 tornado did significant damage to a barn which was almost completely torn apart, and 15 buildings (one with structural damage) along a path of 10 kilometres. Only a horse perished in the tornado; no residents were injured or killed. The second tornado has not yet been confirmed by Environment Canada as of yet but there is speculation that it occurred near Hawkesbury on the same day. The New Tecumseth tornado comes in the wake of the Angus, EF-2, tornado which did significant damage to over 100 homes two weeks ago. Ontario’s tornado count is already at six for the year while the average for tornadoes in southern Ontario is between eight and ten.

The barn destroyed in the New Tecumseth area by the tornado on Tuesday. (Source: Rob Cooper/CTV)
The barn destroyed in the New Tecumseth area by the tornado on Tuesday. (Source: Rob Cooper/CTV)

Southern Ontario has also seen flooding problems this past Wednesday. A slack flow aloft combined with a disturbance moving in made for fairly slow moving cells that trailed each other in the Toronto area. This generated some fairly significant street flooding in the area, some power outages as well as part of the city’s subway system being put out of order for a few hours. Water rescues also had to be executed due to motorists stranded in their vehicles on one of the city’s large parkways. Some recorded rainfall accumulations were in excess of 30mm in the region Wednesday evening. Since then the water has subsided and the power is back for residents that were left in the dark.

Elsewhere in Weather News: June 21st, 2014

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South Dakota Wessington Springs Tornado – June 18th, 2014

Three members of A Weather Moment team headed out to South Dakota this past Wednesday to chase severe storms and try to catch a tornado. It turned out to be quite the event. Julien has written a summary of what how the chase unfolded.

We left Winnipeg bright and early at 7 am on Wednesday and headed south. Our plan for the day was to target the warm front/triple point in southeastern South Dakota. We reached Fargo by late morning. After getting our internet worked out and had lunch, we continued south to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to reassess things (by then it was mid/late afternoon). We decided to head west a bit to Mitchell first, then Plankinton, SD. It was oppressively humid with dewpoints in the low to mid 20’s and temperatures near 30°C. In fact, as I walked out of the car, my glasses were fogging up! These yielded MLCAPE values around 5,500J/kg resulting in an explosive environment for any storm that formed.

By then, storms to our northwest were strengthening rapidly and rotation became evident on radar imagery. A tornado was also reported by another storms chaser. We were concerned of the possibility that additional storms would fire off south of the existing ones and become dominant. As a result, we decided to wait a little longer. Nothing new was really forming due to a strong cap, so we decided to head west then north of Kimball, SD to view the existing storms. We were impressed! Towers were shooting up extremely rapidly and there was decent structure to the storm. Rotation could be seen in some parts of the storm.

Not too long later, we repositioned north of Plankinton, SD, which was eastward. As we got closer to the storm, two funnels poked out of the trees! It was evident that the one in the distance was a tornado. However, the second funnel was hard to say if it was touching down or not because it was not condensed all the way to the ground. However, it’s impressive seeing 2 funnels simultaneously!

One funnel and a tornado simultaneously, with the one on the left touching down. (Taken by Matt)
One funnel and a tornado simultaneously, with the one on the left touching down. (Taken by Matt)

We followed the storm eastward and the dominant tornado was not giving up! Even though we were well in the distance far away from the tornado, we could clearly see its circulating winds moving rapidly which was quite impressive. Unfortunately, we did occasionally see debris being picked up. It took several minutes for the tornado to finally rope out and lift… before we witnessed it strengthening and enlarging again briefly. Then it dissipated and that was it for tornadoes for us for the day. After our chase was finished, we had heard that there was serious damage to the town of Wessington Springs, SD however no serious injuries had been reported thankfully.

Stovepipe tornado we observed. (Taken by Matt)
Stovepipe tornado we observed. (Taken by Matt)

We slowly made our way east to Brookings, SD for the night at a hotel. We left back for Winnipeg Thursday morning before 11 am and reached Winnipeg by around 6 pm or so after stopping by at Longhorns restaurant for a well-deserved tornado steak dinner in Fargo. The next day NWS had done a damage survey of the tornado and rated it an EF-2 tornado, the strongest tornado we had ever witnessed. Overall, it was well worth the trip!

This trough not only produced tornadoes on Wednesday in South Dakota, but also on Monday and Tuesday in Nebraska, including the incredible supercell near Pilger, NE that produced two large wedge tornadoes simultaneously. The upcoming pattern definitely looks calmer with upper flow slacking up in the US Plains; possibly hinting that summer is right around the corner for the region.

Elsewhere in Weather News: June 14th, 2014

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Western Europe Sees Severe Storms

It has been quite an active pattern to start off this past week across Western Europe. The pattern favoured severe weather and brought numerous modes of it to the region, including very large hail and damaging winds. A trough of low pressure was sitting just offshore, over the Atlantic Ocean, with a ridge over most of Europe advecting in warm, moist air to the region. As the upper level trough shifted further east, a surface low pressure over the North Sea, with a cold front extending southwards, also pushed east into a very unstable atmosphere setting up for a severe weather outbreak. Sunday through Wednesday all offered severe weather opportunities across the region.

Last Sunday night a severe thunderstorm hit Brussels bringing with it large hail. Hail the size of ping pong balls could be seen littering the city which postponed a World Cup exhibition game that was being played in the city. On Monday night, a completely different storm affected parts of Germany. A powerful bow echo raced across the country bringing winds as high as 142km/h in Düsseldorf, one of Germany’s largest cities. Numerous other reports over 100km/h were reported with the bow echo. Significant damage was reported with trees uprooted by the straight-line winds which also contributed to six deaths in the country.

Hail littering the soccer field in Brussels (Source: AFP/Getty Images)
Hail littering the soccer field in Brussels (Source: AFP/Getty Images)
Radar capture of the bow echo the raced across Germany. (Source: MeteoGroup)
Radar capture of the bow echo the raced across Germany. (Source: MeteoGroup)

Since then, calmer weather has moved into the region with more of a northwest flow aloft and colder temperatures. No severe weather is expected in Western Europe this weekend.