Catching Up

Been a little while since I've gotten a chance to post something.  Oddly enough now that the hockey season is over, I am busier doing stats now than I was during the season.  That's the way it goes. 

Going to make this pretty quick today.

Flooding continues in North Dakota.  It seems like this is a yearly occurrence for residents as snow melts and spring rain begins.  This time Minot is in the thick of things.  Residents are being forced to leave due to the rising Souris River.  If like me, you are unfamiliar with this river, check out a map.  It is one of the strangest flowing rivers I can recall seeing.

Wildfires have been tearing through the southwest where conditions have been extremely hot and dry.  What's worse?  According to some, the fires that burned thousands of acres and dozens of homes was caused by Mexican drug smugglers.  Seriously.

Things got a bit hairy at the College World Series in Omaha yesterday.  The central plains were hit hard by storms yesterday that also rolled across the baseball field.  Here are a couple pictures that would have surely freaked me out.

I've been holding on to this one for some time now.  This is what Chicago looks like from the air as fog roles in from the lake.  Pretty cool.

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Not a Heat Wave

Yes, it is going to be hot tomorrow and Thursday.  People do need to take the proper precautions including checking on the elderly, drinking plenty of fluids while outside and avoiding hours of direct sunlight.  But it takes a lot more than two 90 degree days in a row for me to break out "heat wave."

It's sometimes easy to overlook the rest of the country after all these posts on tornadoes and our partly cloudy or partly sunny 75 to 80 degree days.  Apparently it has been quite warm in the central and southern U.S.  Even I almost overlooked this one.  Now for our area, the meteorological definition of a heat wave is three consecutive days of above 90 degrees.  Most of the rest of the country would laugh if they saw this.  It's like when winter storm warnings are posted for the south for 1-2 inches of snow and the cities shut down.

Take a look at some other places recently.

Chicago- With a predicted temp of 94 tomorrow, 4 of the last 5 days will hit 90

Minneapolis- Currently at 5:30 it is 102 degrees

St. Louis- Lowest high temp since May 29th was 87, once

Dallas- 11 straight days of 90+, everyday in June has been above 95, lowest temperature in the 10 day forecast is 95

Atlanta- 10 straight days of 90+ with the next 9 predicted to exceed 90, their average temps now are in the mid to upper 80's


Certainly we have to be mindful of the temperatures.  I already have a couple backup plans for my normal Thursday afternoon run.  But by Saturday, temps might struggle to get out of the 70's for a week.  And this past weekend, nightly temperatures were in the 40's.   

I'm personally not going to make a big deal out of two days of heat, but I won't have a problem if the local news does.  Like snow in the south, people just aren't expecting it.  So maybe constant warnings will save me from reading about people leaving their kids in the car.

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Final Report

The 2010-11 winter season probably won't be well remembered in our immediate area, but some places saw well above normal snowfall including New York City.  Here are the winners, or losers depending on your feelings.  Only cities with at least 100,000 people are included since they keep accurate totals and are more affected by amounts.  Obviously other places receive far greater snowfall.  Off to the list.


1.  In an absolute runaway, the New York Yankees of the snowfall community, Syracuse, New York, easily took the number one ranking amongst major cities with a hefty 179 inches of snow this season.  Even for the hearty central NY residents, this amount was a bit abnormal.  This season will go down in the top five snowiest in the last 60 years and was almost 70 inches above average.  They set a December record of 72.8 inches of snow, with at least measurable snow falling on all but five days.  For comparison, out of the other 62 major cities that received at least 10 inches of snow, 50 of them didn't get that much all season. 

2.  Not shockingly, the number two spot headed west on I-90 to land on the south shore of Lake Ontario in Rochester, New York.  Here is where we see the difference between number one and the rest of the pack.  Rochester came in at 127 inches, a full 62 inches behind Syracuse.  Needless to say, I think they will let the Cuse take first every year as this total, while above normal, is not uncommon.

3.  We are having so much fun in New York, let's get back on I-90 and move a little further west.  Before we move into Canada for beer and hockey, we can swing by Buffalo, who finished in a respectable 3rd place with 111.8 inches of snow.  Buffalo is somewhat similar to Syracuse in that while they are not in the jackpot zone for Lake Effect snow, they are still in a prime position to pick up heavy amounts.

4.  The trip will be rounded out by continuing on the same highway we began on, this time heading south right along the shores of Lake Erie until we hit the town that shares its name.  Out of New York we move into Erie, Pennsylvania who picked up 107.4 inches.  Quite frankly, anything over 100 is impressive and considering the highest amounts Erie has recorded have been in the 140's, this total is quite a lot.

Let's be honest.  The fact that these four cities finished at the top is not surprising at all.  And if I keep following the website that posts these numbers, I'd expect to see the same four next season in a similar if not exactly the same order.  Not only are these four located in prime lake effect snow belts, they also deal with clippers and nor'easters.  When these storms spin up the coast and nail us, they generally get something too.  And when they track inland, these places really get nailed. 

5.  Perhaps a little surprising especially to people outside the world of weather or geography is our 5th place finisher.  None other that South Bend, Indiana rounds out our top five and last to get over 100 inches with a very impressive 105.6 inches.  I documented in my blog over winter that the city received over 30 inches in one weekend of persistent lake effect snow.  It takes a unique setup for the town to get pummeled, but when the winds are right, a very thin line of heavy snow trains over the same area for hours.  They set a daily record this year with over 23 inches of snow in one day.


Now we can take some time to look at some other places around the country that did well.

Both Minneapolis and St. Paul finished in the top 10 receiving 30 more inches than normal.  Right around 30 seemed to be the magic number as South Bend also finished exactly 30 inches above average.  Amongst other place in the northern mid-west, Green Bay had a very strong 2010-11 campaign with almost 40 inches above normal.  This number was helped out by a late season snowfall of 17.8 inches, an amount they hadn't seen since the 1800's.  It's easy to forget that while most of the snow that falls on the east coast comes in large amounts, that is not the case in most other areas.

Speaking of the northeast, I will let my bias show and say that this area took the cake again for snowfall.  Actually, that's not so much of a bias as a basic fact.  Both Worcester and Hartford finished in the top 10 in snowfall while Boston came in at 11.  Tallied together, they places average 148.4 inches and ended the season with 260 inches. 

Then there was New York City.  62 inches fell.  Far above the normal 22.  The record for January was shattered.  Multiple 20+ inch storms.  I think most of their totals came in three storms.  The city was basically shut down.  That is the typical northeast storm.  The snow comes all at once. 

As far as Allentown goes, well we had a very strong beginning to the season but we started to fall behind when the storms stayed right along the coast.  It was still an above average year, but just barely as the city finished with an unofficial 38.9 inches finishing 37th on the list. 

If you were looking for losers of the season, head west.  Not all the way to California, they did well in the mountains but clearly they are not eligible for our contest.  Instead, look at Colorado.  It was just not their year.  Most places finished between 20 to 30 inches below normal.  Denver ended at 22 inches, well below their normal 55.

As I write this today, there are Winter Storm Warnings out for Yosemite Park and virtually the entire Sierra Nevada's.  But it's for areas over 7,000 feet.  I don't think many people have to worry.

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Springfield Joins the List

I feel comfortable in saying that no matter what happens for the rest of the summer, nothing will come as a surprise.  The northeast was in the target zone for strong storms today but oddly enough instead of seeing numerous storms across the region, Massachusetts became the main battle zone.  All the tornado reports that came from the northeast came from the state including the main culprit in the tornado that hit Springfield.  Yet another major city.  And like many of the others that went through a populated area, the news cameras were rolling.  One happened to catch the video below as the tornado crossed over the Connecticut River.  Honestly, I've never seen this before and it is incredible.  





I have heard reports of one fatality involving a tree falling on a driver.  Things could have been much worse.  Unlike areas prone to storms, us folks in this general area are not familiar with tornadoes.  There are no tornado sirens.  I don't think many people are tuned in to the local weather station or listening on the radio.  The only other way to find out is by seeing the storm.  It was hard to tell the strength of this tornado.  At times it didn't look too organized but some of the damage would suggest otherwise.  I'd think a low EF3 is certainly possible, but I am clearly not an expert.

Of course I was following the radar during the day when it appeared that storms were getting ready to fire.  I stopped checking when the sun broke back out and the storms stopped forming.  I got home in time to see the coverage of the Springfield tornado and raced for my new radar program.  I at least was able to watch the storms as they intensified throughout Massachusetts.  And I even captured a screen shot as a little sneak preview.

This is what a tornado looks like on radar.  If you have watched any of the coverage from TWC with Greg Forbes, you have probably seen this or something very similar.  It's a great program.  This particular storm was east of Springfield when it produced a strong tornado in Sturbridge.  The hook in the storm is where the tornado is located.  I had zoomed in on the map when I took this image pic.  But if you notice the purple upside-down triangle, that is the program indicating there is a tornado.  The green triangle indicates a pocket of hail and if you move the cursor over the triangle it will give you an estimate of how damaging the hail is and the size.  The white line extending from the triangle is the current path of the storm.  And the purple lines are parts of boxes that if I had zoomed out would show what areas were under tornado warnings.

The radar features 23 different maps that if I knew a little more, would probably be even more useful.  And you can select from over 200 different radar stations.  The radar automatically updates every four to five minutes depending on the conditions.  If I was in the south or the plains, I would own this program in a minute.  Our thunderstorm probability within the next week or two looks pretty low so I will probably have to continue to play and learn about this radar by looking at other areas of the country. 

And by the way, today is the official start of hurricane season.  I don't even want to see what this season has to bring. 

I've talked about it for what seems like months, but with calmer and cooler weather heading in, it seems like the perfect time to finally get in my end-of-winter post this weekend.  About time.

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