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Old 05-31-2008, 01:44 AM   #1
CanisLupusArctos
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Default Weather in the News

A couple of tidbits worthy of note...

1) When you hear the words "Fire Weather Warning" or "high fire danger" as we did yesterday, it's not confined to forests as many people think. Here is an article from yesterday regarding the massive apartment fire in Peabody MA.

PEABODY, Mass. (AP) - Fire investigators say a huge fire that
destroyed a Peabody apartment building was started when someone
carelessly tossed away smoking materials.

State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said a mulch bed next to the
building was ignited Thursday by the smoking materials.

The fire then spread to the building's exterior and consumed the
entire four-story structure at the Highlands at Dearborn complex.


2) New England Cable News has just released some video of the Worcester Tornado from the 50s, never-before-seen. This is such a timely reminder, because this year looks totally capable of making a sequel to that event. All we need is for warm air to start pouring in here while the polar region is still bowling cold air at us.
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Old 05-31-2008, 06:54 AM   #2
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the question is will we ever get real rain . I think we had less than 1/2 inch in May. Garden and lawn are parched
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Old 05-31-2008, 10:26 AM   #3
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There's a popular song on the radio now, by Daughtry. It's called 'Home' and carries the lyrics: "Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you just might get it all, and then some you don't want."

The tropics are already active, and the official season doesn't start until tomorrow. The last time New England had a hurricane was in 1991, and the last time we had a real hurricane was in the 60s. The last time we had a devastating hurricane was in 1938. In other words, it's been too quiet for too long. Beware the "stale green" traffic light - the one that's been green for a while as you approach it. We're at the point now where every hurricane season has been getting us through that traffic light without it changing. When that happens on the road, we might say we're feeling really, unusually lucky. That's where we are with the hurricane seasons.

Apart from that, New England's climate gives rain primarily in the form of showers and thunderstorms all summer long. Those just keep our ground moist in between wet seasons. This summer has been unusual in that we've had the winter pattern continue (it's still going) which has meant cooler with the occasional steady-precip-storm. But in winter, those sometimes miss us, leaving us cold and dry for weeks at a time (winter 2007) and that is what's been happening this spring.

Once we get the summertime air in here, the thunderstorm season will pick up (it's already just barely started, this week.) However, this year has proven to be a doozy in that department, and it's been slowly working its way northward since late winter when it was pummeling the deep south. The battle zone between the unusually cold winter pattern and the summertime heat/humidity has finally reached our doorstep and as a result there is a new tornado watch now in effect for the southern half of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, WV... and severe thunderstorms are possible from the Lakes Region southward today (increasing chances the farther south you go.) Primary threat from thunderstorms today (in NH) is damaging wind.

As Daughtry said, "be careful what you wish for..."
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Old 05-31-2008, 02:49 PM   #4
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CLA i was hoping for somewhere between the drought and the deludge
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Old 05-31-2008, 07:36 PM   #5
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Exclamation Traffic light turning yellow in Massachusetts already!

Quote:
Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos View Post
There's a popular song on the radio now, by Daughtry. It's called 'Home' and carries the lyrics: "Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you just might get it all, and then some you don't want."

Once we get the summertime air in here, the thunderstorm season will pick up (it's already just barely started, this week.) However, this year has proven to be a doozy in that department. Primary threat from thunderstorms today (in NH) is damaging wind.

As Daughtry said, "be careful what you wish for..."
We had 2 inches of rain in about 20 minutes last Wednesday and Straight Line Winds creating lots of weather related issues here in Massachusetts.

Again today more deluge but no high winds.


Just a precursor of things to come this summer!!
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Old 05-31-2008, 09:43 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos View Post
A couple of tidbits worthy of note...

1) When you hear the words "Fire Weather Warning" or "high fire danger" as we did yesterday, it's not confined to forests as many people think. Here is an article from yesterday regarding the massive apartment fire in Peabody MA.

PEABODY, Mass. (AP) - Fire investigators say a huge fire that
destroyed a Peabody apartment building was started when someone
carelessly tossed away smoking materials.

State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said a mulch bed next to the
building was ignited Thursday by the smoking materials.

The fire then spread to the building's exterior and consumed the
entire four-story structure at the Highlands at Dearborn complex.

2) New England Cable News has just released some video of the Worcester Tornado from the 50s, never-before-seen. This is such a timely reminder, because this year looks totally capable of making a sequel to that event. All we need is for warm air to start pouring in here while the polar region is still bowling cold air at us.
The company that does the landscaping in the plaza where I work has put down mulch over the last two years that almost seems to have some kind of petroleum base to it, and has caught fire twice. Once, we put it out, and once we had to call the fire dept because it had got a pretty good start, and was out of sight from the front of the building. both cases, it was extremely hot dry days, and cigarette butts were found on the mulch at what appeared to be the start of the fires. Who'da thunk it????
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Old 06-01-2008, 01:17 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wildwoodfam View Post
We had 2 inches of rain in about 20 minutes last Wednesday and Straight Line Winds creating lots of weather related issues here in Massachusetts.

Again today more deluge but no high winds.


Just a precursor of things to come this summer!!
Weather patterns can change, so there is hope. But if this one doesn't, I'd have to answer, "yes."

The polar influence has been very strong this spring, and continues to be. Every time you get a powerful cold front plowing into warm, moist air, you get a huge battle zone with the warm air literally getting lifted up by the heavier cold air. That's what makes the thunderheads which are sometimes 50,000 feet tall. It gets turbulent within them, which first leads to lightning (a large-scale form of laundry static), then hail if it gets even more turbulent, and finally tornadoes. Until last week we haven't had much warmth/moisture for the cold fronts to play with, and now we're starting to get it.
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Old 06-01-2008, 07:36 AM   #8
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CLA, Barry Burbank was hinting at 90 by Friday here in Mass., what do you think for the lake?
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Old 06-01-2008, 01:12 PM   #9
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ITD, Right now I think 85 would be a good bet for both Friday and Saturday, with the usual warm places around here getting up to 90. If it starts to look more likely by the time we get to Tues-Wed, it will be worthy of a new thread like, "First time in the 90s this season?" so all us wx geeks can chime in with a bet for what the max temp in the area will be.

With heat appearing more likely for Fri-Sat (and maybe longer), remember the "weather in the news" as this thread suggests. The polar region is still throwing abnormally cold air at us because it can. That means when these hot spells break, there is a greater chance they'll do so in a violent manner and thus make headlines.

Review severe weather safety rules and teach them to the kids just like fire safety. It could save your life, but more likely it could prevent an expensive trip to the ER. After-Storm-Safety is just as important. You'd be sadly amazed at how many people say, "hey look, it's a wire in the street, let's move it out of the way..." In May 2006 I watched a bunch of teens surfing in urban floodwaters on inner tubes. The water was so gross you couldn't have paid me to stick my hand in it. And the current was pretty strong.
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Old 06-02-2008, 12:50 PM   #10
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Default What happened Saturday

CLA, I was wondering what happened to all of the rain they predicted for Saturday. I heard as late as friday night that Sat was going to be a washout. I live in Henniker and we haven't seen any good rain since April. I planted a bunch of veggies and set them out hoping for a good soaker. Not a drop!
Yesterday I was on the lake (2:30pm til 6pm) There was a very strong wind from the north whipping the lake into quite the frenzy. My wife thinks it is her. Everytime we go out together it's cloudy windy and rough. When I go myself it's beautiful! When I docked about 6 it seemed to all die. Still no rain in Henniker.

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Old 06-03-2008, 09:55 AM   #11
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We've had very dry air lately. As is the case in the desert, dry air eats rain before it hits the ground, and also causes weather systems to dry up as they approach. On Friday evening I saw the National Weather Service going for .25 to .50" rain here, and based on the dryness (like the fact that my skin feels like I've been sleeping on a chalkboard) I went for the low end of the scale. I ended up being too high. The actual rain we got at the lake was 0.13, most of which fell during a downpour with thunder on Saturday morning. If you weren't lucky enough to get one of those hit-or-miss downpours, then I'm not surprised you got nothing at all.

The last couple days we've seen a trend toward higher dewpoints (a more accurate measure of humidity than *relative* humidity, because dewpoint is not relative to the temperature.)

The dewpoint fills in the blank in this statement:

Warm air can hold more moisture than cold air, and there is enough moisture in the air right now to saturate the air if it cooled to _____ degrees. The warmer the air, the bigger the glass. The closer the dewpoint is to the temperature, the fuller the glass is. Half full (50%) at 90 degrees is a lot more moisture than 50% at 20 degrees... and that's why relative humidity is irrelevant.

Anyway... lately we've been having dewpoints in the 30s, even with temps in the 70s. That's not conducive to rainfall. The last couple days we've had dewpoints in the 50s, enough to feel, and as a result we actually have some rain happening up here now. A few days ago this same situation would've evaporated before hitting the ground.

We're going to see a trend toward more humidity this week. Our flow has been out of Canada where there's abnormally cold, dry air for this time of year. This week the prevailing winds will shift to southwest, and this will bring up some Gulf of Mexico air. Gulf Coast air is soup to your lungs. It supports rain forests where it comes from, so evaporation of rain showers will no longer be an issue.

Tomorrow I see the bulk of the widespread rain simply missing us to the south, as the past several storms have done. Rather than dryness, this sort of thing is just weather pattern. The storm track isn't hitting us. We'll still get some good downpours scattered around the area, but predicting which towns will get one of them is like any casino bet. Call it in the air, heads or tails?
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Old 06-03-2008, 04:03 PM   #12
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At least it isn't snow!

TG
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