Irene Follow-up

I thought I was done with Irene after my last rant-like post. Turns out I'm not. Thanks Facebook.

I have bookmarked the Henry Margusity Fan Club on Facebook. It is the first page that opens for me and probably the main reason I even started paying attention to the site to begin with. Henry Margusity is the severe weather expert at Accuweather. Not only is he that, but he constantly discusses weather for the northeast, including every little to big snowstorm. On top of that he is very interactive whether it be through the page, on his blog, doing live discussions or through video updates. Now that we are moving into the third or fourth day past the storm, people on the page are still making comments about the predictions that were made. It has even become pretty heated amongst the regulars. Then Henry jumped in and posted the following (skip the middle portion):

Let me first state that I am glad he said that. I haven't heard anybody even remotely say they were inaccurate. And secondly, this is the exact point I was trying to make in my last post. I'm not taking away anything from the storm and the damage it caused, BUT the real focus should have been on the places that nobody talked about. When I woke up Monday morning, the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore was in Vermont covering what had been the flood. The raging waters were back to streams. Cantore had been covering the storm from New York City. A place that didn't see anything close to what was predicted. Instead, Cantore was left to witness the devastation in Vermont through pictures and videos on the internet. Just like the rest of us. And Cantore is from Vermont. Every person they interviewed said the exact same thing. We weren't expecting this.

As Henry stated, I have moved on. I just wanted to put my two cents in since following weather is clearly a passion of mine. Many people are still cleaning up and will be for awhile. Others have lost people they love. Even in areas throughout the Lehigh Valley and Berks, areas I don't consider taking a hard hit, people are still without power and could be for what ends up being a week. This is all part of weather. Chances are pretty good that another location in the U.S. gets hit before the season is over.

Personally, I saw my breath yesterday morning which has always been a favorite day of mine. It means we are getting closer to winter. The July hot spell has long been forgotten and there are no others warm-ups in sight. Even saw the first winter weather watch posted for Montana the same day. But all this can wait for the next post.

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Hurricane Irene: Aftermath

If only for future reference when I look back at my posts, I feel the need to give my reaction to this weekends event. Much conversation has continued since the category one storm hit Saturday into Sunday morning. Having scene the videos, scrolled through the pictures and read the comments, I give my perspective.

Heard the term bust being used. Taking into consideration the damage that did occur, I find that to be fairly misleading. Opinion of the storm will be subjective to what happened in your immediate area compared to what was predicted. Some places got what they were expecting, others did not and some were caught by surprise.

If you look at our general area, in this case the areas covered by the Philadelphia news outlets, I believe more people than not were expecting far worse. The hype leading up to this storm was a bit excessive. Telling residents of coastal New Jersey if they chose to stay to place an index card in their shoe with their name on it so they could identify them, while effective, is a bit much. Should this scenario happen again, these same people will not heed warnings and instead laugh you off.

Which brings me to my first point. Evacuations should be voluntary. Obviously our area is not used to dealing with this type of event and it showed. Closing major roads more than 24 hours before the storm arrived is borderline ridiculous. A lot of preparation must be done in order to leave your house for what could end up being an inordinate amount of time. Let people make their own decision based off the information given to them. But let them know that once conditions become dangerous, they are on their own. At the least this would help weed out the stupid from the intelligent.

Point number two. Hold the media accountable. I should preface this by commending the local stations for their tireless work during the storm in keeping people informed. However, please stop playing in the water.

This was not during Irene, but still one of my favorites.

We all know you are looking for the most devastated area to report from. Why wade into chest deep water to show the significance of the flooding is beyond me. Not only is it useless and dangerous, it sets a poor example. Expanding the coverage of the storm in terms of both damage and reporting, the media had their wall of reporters on the coast from North Carolina to New York to catch the money shot of journalism. Meanwhile, northern sections of New York and much of Vermont experienced horrendous flooding. Nobody was there to cover that. Instead I witnessed how desolate Times Square can be on a windy, rainy night. By the time I checked online news sources last night, the Vermont flooding had become the headline. All the pictures and videos were taken by locals and put on YouTube or Twitter. The national media was not in Vermont not because it didn’t have the big city flare like New York City, but because they didn’t know that type of flooding was going to happen. After all, that would have been a ratings delight.

This leads into my third topic. Trying to predict meteorological events has become nothing more than taking the very best educated guess. We don’t know when or where hurricanes will form or where they will hit or how strong they will be or what damage will be done. It’s a guessing game like virtually everything else. Lay off the apocalyptic phrases. It’s like crying wolf. At some point people won’t take it seriously and to be honest, I’m not sure how many people do now. Curiosity mixed with idiocy produces bad decisions.

Not sure how he held his composure with these dopes all around

As the title of the video indicates, these two scholars were later arrested for lack of common sense

I can't give an answer to the questions about hype. It is completely relative to where you live. My biggest issue is the amount of time spent focusing on areas that in the end came out pretty well. Many places inland experienced problems far worse. Should those people have been evacuated instead? It goes back to people making smart and safe decisions. And smart decisions should start with receiving the best possible information. In this case and in most others, I think the information was received. But it was presented horribly. I could write a few more posts about what people were being told that was inaccurate. And that inaccuracy is what will lead people to believe that they will be fine the next time a storm comes up the coast.


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Oh Yeah. One more thing. The weather boards have already moved ahead to look at Hurricane Katia and where that will hit. No, it's not a hurricane yet. But it will be. Then the dance can start all over again.

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Quakes and Canes

Anybody have the northeast getting hit by a major earthquake and major hurricane in the same week? Didn't think so. But so will be the case here in late August as a 5.8 earthquake hit Virginia today and Irene makes her way towards the coast.

Watched the first twenty minutes of the news today and felt like I was right back in winter mode. Reporters in multiple locations asking any passerby what they experienced today. Things shook. We were confused and a little scared. A can of tomato paste fell down. All in all, everybody was fine. And like their stories, mine too is a bit mundane to fill up a paragraph.

Especially when the major problem will be making its presence very well known in a matter of days. Since this is a blog dedicated towards local weather, I will try to keep my posts detailed with what the future holds for our area.

It still is a bit early to make a clear call on what will happen but I feel confident that this area will likely see some very heavy rainfall and maybe even sustained winds approaching tropical storm force. As for people closer to Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, well we can only hope for the best. That area looks to be once again the prime target for heavy rainfall totals which will clearly present a massive problem.

Even before we jump ahead to the weekend, which timing could play a key role, we also have to look at the threat of heavy showers Thursday. Guess it really wouldn't be much of a shock to see Philadelphia get the most rain out of the front that passes through. Again, if we look at best case scenario, the storms are hit and miss and don't cause any damage. The flooding threat with Irene, if the storm stays on the current path, could be devastating.

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Reading Rain Hole

I must admit that when I started this post, or at least had the idea on Sunday, I was not considering the potential impacts that the first hurricane of the year could have on the area. Regardless, I will continue this post while also putting in my two cents about the storm.

It would appear that central Berks county has been placed in a bubble. A very dry July compared to neighboring cities. And now August. It has been anything but dry and depending on what happens with Irene, it could become very nasty. But even while other areas get pounded by rain, Reading once again seems to be in a hole.

Check it.

Allentown is at 7.76 inches this month. They will certainly finish near the top five wettest Augusts since 1922.

Philadelphia is taking the cake with 13 inches. They already broke the monthly record and will absolutely demolish the wettest month ever perhaps by more than three inches.

And then Reading. How about a whopping total of 3.84 inches, just barely above average. If you think it's because the harder hit areas are all to the east of Reading, well Harrisburg also has received more rainfall.

Unfortunately it seems like the area is in line to potentially receive substantially more rainfall which of course would cause very serious flooding.



I hate to bring this up but if you look at my post from the 11th, I bring up a very specific location. As we approach that two week period I also mentioned in that post the current GFS model has the hurricane hitting, of all places, Myrtle Beach. And is it not odd that the first storm to impact the United States this season is also the very first hurricane of the season and we are already at the letter I?

Looking at the GFS track, the storm almost rides the coast like a winter storm. Which would actually be ever worse for the areas around here because the storm would not lose much energy. Places in and around the Chesapeake Bay and the southern coast of New Jersey would get pounded. And places like Baltimore, Philadelphia and all of Delaware and New Jersey would see very heavy rain and high winds.

Other models move the storm a bit further inland but that doesn't take away the chance for very heavy rainfall. I myself think the storms hit slightly further south then the GFS suggests, but once again, I don't see this area dodging the rain. Honestly, I just looked at two other models and one has it hitting Florida, the other has it brushing North Carolina and moving out to sea. This is where the science comes in.

Either way you look at it, a hurricane of this strength is not a good thing. We are a bit too far out to try and make guesses at what will happen locally, but if living in a flood prone area, I'd start to prepare now.

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Joplin Update from CBS

Nice to see this story still being covered. Less than three months and the progress really shows.

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Playing With Models

A hurricane is set to hit Myrtle Beach. If you believe the long-range forecast that is. I wouldn't sweat it. Last night the models suggested that two tropical systems would hit the U.S. on the exact same day, one in the Gulf and the other close to New York City. However, keep your guard up.

I forgot how fun it is to play with models. Normally I only use them in the winter. But with the tropics nearing peak activity, I believe I will be take a glance quite often. Much like winter storms, it is way too early to tell what will happen. One thing is certain though, somebody will be getting impacted over the next two weeks. Mark it down.

As for the GFS, it takes the storm virtually directly into Myrtle Beach Wednesday, then up the coast with heavy amounts of rain inland. And when I say Wednesday, I'm talking the one almost two weeks from now. Think something will change by then?

The one intriguing thing about this time of year when it comes to the Atlantic is that these storms tend to ramp up and begin to train. You see one wave come off Africa and begin to organize, than another one, than another one. You could have three storms all moving across the Atlantic together. Taking environmental factors into consideration, it begs to question whether you could actually get two hurricanes to hit the United States within 36-48 hours. Maybe that could be the next Weather Channel's, It Could Happen Tomorrow.

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Wicked Weather

Like I always say, if you don't like the weather here, go somewhere else for a couple weeks and get back to me. Try Dallas, Texas. The lowest temperature they experienced in July was 98, once. Only two other days were below 100. Thought we were dry? They got one hundredth of an inch of rain during the month. In other words, they got nothing. A new month has brought more of the same. In fact, Dallas hit at least 106 during 6 of the first 8 days. Something that happened only once in July. That area of the country is absolutely baking.

Then I saw an article about the Mount Baker highway in Washington which was finally opened up to the visiting center this week. It had been closed since winter because of snowfall. In fact, it was decided that the entire road will not be plowed due to upwards of 30 feet of snow still on the road.

And just today I saw the first predicted snow map for the upcoming season. Normally I would be excited, but since Joe Bastardi and his unusual ability to predict long-range weather left Accuweather, I am hesitant on believing anything. Quite frankly with the way things are going, you should probably expect just about anything. And by anything I mean something more than nothing. Easy to follow, right?

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Not Quite

My last post predicted some pretty unpredictable things. And while I didn't get either right, I can take some comfort in knowing I wasn't far off.

Back on July 16th I said it would hit 90 in Reading every day through the rest of the month. That would have been 15 straight days of 90. Two days failed to hit the mark, leaving me just short. And if it wasn't for that drenching Monday last week, Reading would have been well short of the one inch mark I was looking for.

I take some satisfaction in at least being accurate for Reading, the area I discussed two weeks ago. You see, Allentown went five days in a row without hitting 90 during that span and also ended July with an impressive 3.94 inches of rain. Even Philadelphia missed 90 more than Reading did and finished with half an inch more of rain.

Now that August has begun, the tropics are becoming more active and storms will start to develop quickly. It's safe to say that August will not be as warm as July, nor as dry for Reading at least. And before you know it, the leaves will start to fall and the air will be dry and cool.

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