The Weather Burreau
A blog by Justin Reid
Welcome to The Weather Burreau, a blog of nothing but atomspheric science and weather culture.
Recent Signinficant Weather Events:
Tropical Storm and Front Fusion Rain Event
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With a major drought occuring and not much rain abound, where is the source of rain to finally drench our area with much-needed rainfall? The answer lies in a rare type of gullywasher, in which a tropical system fuses with a cold front or a stationary front (front that doesn't move very fast). These two systems combined, can create enough rain to at least cut the drought deficit in half.
This is the image of Hurricane Humberto's landfall in Southeastern Texas. The fastest-devolped hurricane in recorded history, this storm combined with a cold front to form a tropical system-front gullywasher. The setup is rare and it finally began to chip away the recent drought.
This is an image of a computer model called the North American Model (NAM). This portion of the NAM model measures the amount of twist in at the mid-levels of the atmosphere. The amount of twist is called vorticity and the red areas of increased voriticy is where the rain or thunderstorm activity will form (except in low moisture situations). The model discribes Humberto (red area near west Mississippi) fusing with a cold front and extending to the northeast into our area as a line of amorphous orange and yellow vorticity blobs. This is the type of situation, in which heavy amounts of rainfall could result; a tropical-storm and front fusion gullywasher.
This is precipation forecast for the event from 8:00 AM EDT Friday to 8:00 PM EDT Saturday. Though the preciptation dropped slightly since this forecast analysis, heavy rain was almost a definite possibility.
As the storm formed, it was as intense as predicted. Some areas recieved close to 4 inches of rainfall in the northern part of the state. Some sunlight poked out of the storm's major cloud deck, and the resulting heating spawned many tornadoes in northeastern North carolina and northwestern South Carolina. At my home, my electronic rain guage measured 1.10 inches of rainfall. The image above is one of the few images depicting a frontal-tropical storm fusion event and such valuable storms can give beneficial rainfall to an area suffering from a major drought situation.
My Electronic Rain Guage (Also Known as A Tipping Bucket Rain Guage)
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About the Author
My name is Justin Reid and I have been interested in the Atmospheric Sciences since I was 5 years old. I have photographed more than 500 images of atmospheric phenomena. I am also Skywarn Storm Spotter for the National Weather Service and I have interned at our local National Weather Service Forecast Office. I also have a home weather station, from which I have taken records since 2006. I am also planning to join a hydrology network by the end of this year.
Image Taken By Justin Reid
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Blog Created 9/16/2007, NAM image courtesy of WeatherUnderground, other sattelite images and precip estimates courtesy of HPC, NOAA and The National Weather Service. All other images and web design by Justin Reid. Rainfall measurement made at 35.5 N Lat. and 81.14 W Lon. at Justin Reid's weather station.
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