Midwest heat wave generates a heat index of 131° in Iowa; Bret no threat
A unusually intense, long-lasting, and widespread heat wave with high humidities continues to plague the Central U.S. The heat index--how hot the air feels when factoring in both the temperature and the humidity--exceeded 100°F in twelve states on Monday and thirteen on Sunday, with the dangerous heat extending from Texas northwards to North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. At least thirteen deaths are being blamed on the heat in the Midwest. The heat index hit a remarkable 131°F at Knoxville, Iowa on Monday, and a heat index in excess of 120° was recorded at numerous locations in Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois.
Figure 1. Predicted maximum heat index for Thursday, July 21, 2011. Portions of 33 states are predicted to have a heat index in excess of 100°F. Image credit: NOAA.
A 1-in-7-year heat wave coming for the Eastern U.S.
The extreme heat will shift slowly eastwards this week, peaking in Chicago on Wednesday, Detroit and Pittsburgh on Thursday, and New York City and the mid-Atlantic states on Friday. Temperatures near 100°F are expected in Detroit on Thursday and New York City on Friday. Detroit has hit 100°F 18 different years in its 137-year record, and New York City 22 years out of the past 140 years, so this heat wave is expected to be about a 1 in 7 year event. While that makes it a notable heat wave, the most remarkable feature of this July 2011 U.S. heat wave is the humidity that has accompanied the heat. A heat index over 130°F, such as was observed yesterday in Iowa, is very rare in the U.S., and extremely dangerous. According to Christopher C. Burt, wunderground's weather historian, the only place in the world where a heat index over 130°F is common is along the shores of the Red Sea in the Middle East. A major reason for the remarkably high humidities accompanying the July 2011 Midwest heat wave is the record flooding the region experienced over the past three months. As pointed out by wunderground's climate change blogger Dr. Ricky Rood in his latest post, with hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland still inundated by flood waters, and soils saturated over much of the Upper Midwest, there has been plenty of water available to evaporate into the air and cause remarkably high humdities. This makes for a very dangerous situation, as the human body is not able to cool itself as efficiently when the humidity is high. The extreme heat will last through Sunday in the mid-Atlantic, but should end on Monday, when a cold front is expected to sweep across the region. However, the latest models suggest the heat will re-amplify over the Midwest next week.
Figure 2. Tropical Storm Bret at peak intensity, at 5:15 pm EDT on Monday, July 18, 2011. At the time, Bret was building an eyewall and had begun to clear out an eye. Image credit: NASA/GSFC.
Tropical Storm Bret weakens
Tropical Storm Bret enjoyed a brief burst of intensification yesterday afternoon that brought the storm's winds up to 65 mph. However, Bret has sucked in a lot of dry air today, and is now a much weaker storm with winds of just 50 mph. Satellite imagery shows that Bret has not improved in organization this morning, thanks to dry air to the northwest that has been blown into the storm's core by upper-level northwesterly winds. Wind shear is a high 20 - 25 knots, and is expected to remain in the high range for the next three days. The combination of high wind shear and dry air nearby should act to keep Bret from strengthening, and the storm should slowly decay as it heads out to sea over the next few days. Bret is not a threat to any land areas.
None of the reliable models predict tropical cyclone development over the remainder of the Atlantic through July 26.
Weakened Typhoon Ma-on nearing Japan
Typhoon Ma-on has weakened to minimal Category 1 typhoon with 75 mph winds, and is battering a large swath of the south coast of Japan with tropical storm-force winds, as the storm slides northeast along the coast. Ma-on is expected to turn eastwards out to sea by Wednesday, and is not likely to bring tropical storm-force winds to the troubled Fukushima Nuclear Plant.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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I agree. Why? Because that kind of a well-defined low-level center can't be formed unless convection was over or at least partially over the center for a portion of its life before getting sheared, which implies it had the "organized convection over the center" checkbox ticked before. Those kinds of systems, if not classified by the time they look like that, generally could have been classified before they looked like that.
Now the NHC could at any time decide it is no longer attached to the front......
I agree, taxpayers don't need to be footing the bill for NASA anymore
That CANT be right,, as Im hearing the Globe is cooling rapidly.
So you don't see it making a track like Dean did in '07?
They did that with Bret. At some point they decided that the boundary it was attached to was no longer a front. That point was when they classified it as a tropical depression.
Once again nice job Levi. Interesting potential setup with the high over CONUS with Hurricane Allen time frame analog being the best matched as depicted by the model.
Link
Do you think 99L should of been designate as an invest earlier, as it was developing and not how it is now?
I didn't say that at all. There is a lot of future business in near-space, and private companies need to deal with that. But neither SpaceX nor Boeing nor Rockwell nor ULA have any profit-based imperative to, say, explore Neptune or the Oort Cloud or interstellar space; that is, and should remain, the purview of NASA and other equivalent governmental entities elsewhere.
Invests have no criteria. They are subjective taggings for systems that the NHC would like special model data and microwave passes for.
No clue on the season. August and September are the main months so up until now this is expected by not having much going on. Things change on a dime very quickly in the weather world especially in the tropics.
Because at this point is is very unlikely to develop anytime soon. It is far too broad and is interacting with dry air. Once it gets near the Caribbean, west of 60W, it could become more likely to develop under more favorable/moist conditions. At that point, it may get a circle, but we'll have to see. We have a while to watch it evolve before it gets all the way across.
Yes and no. Yes, I'm looking forward to private companies doing all the work for the ISS now that NASA has shown everyone how to do it. Yes, I'm looking forward to NASA's new innovations for working on Deep Space exploration. (The new plasma engines are really going to revolutionize travel - instead of 6 months to Mars it could be done in 3 weeks.....)
My no's - They thought about building a better outpost than what the Russians did.....hence why you needed a "truck" to bring it up. We were the only ones with enough money, resources, and tech to make it happen. When you are the only trucking company around, you have to get things done. Just think of the amount of tech we had to create just to make a returnable vehicle and the science that has been done on the ISS....wouldn't have happened without the "truck"!
No, I don't like the idea of missing out on the Moon. Yeah, we've been there before and I get that you want to put your sights on farther out, but there are plenty of things we could learn about living on the Moon that would be applicable to deeper space.
Both presidents were correct in changing NASA's mission. Innovation and exploration are part of the agency, not "trucking".
So did the NHC miss the mark on this one, should of tagged it earlier?
No that's my point. There is no "should have tagged." There are no criteria, and thus we can't say that the NHC was wrong in not tagging it an invest. There is no such thing.
agree soon it reaches that area then it willl form also if the euro and cmc pans out right fl could see a coulple of more going the same way . wait watch and see mode for this could be a fl season for tc imo the way things will be setting up
ok, Chillax mate!
A system doesn't need to have a "clothed" COC for it to be designated
Tropical Storm Bret ; Invest 99L ; Hurricane Dora
Comment, and if you have any questions, ask, and i will make an attempt to reply.
So, Tropical Storm Bret is still hanging on? He's really persistent, and it will be interesting to see what happens with shear beginning to weaken tomorrow. Maybe he'll surprise us, he's impresses us so far. Satellite shows it may be on its decline now.
Invest 99L is unofficially a tropical depression, and has been one since yesterday afternoon. Whether or not it is declared is up to the National Hurricane Center, although they do at least show some interest to it.
Lastly, I'm a bit concerned about this wave in the central Atlantic. It is large and broad right now, but models have been on and off with development, and as Levi said in his video, unless timing is perfect, this could be a threat to the USA, specifically, Florida. Of course, development is no guarantee.
Great post. The catl wave seems to be supplying most of its energy from the ITCZ,when do you think it will be leaving it? When it does and if it is able to sustain itself i think we will having something to watch.
2.5 to 2.82
*echo* *Echo* *echo*
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