Texas' Texas-sized drought and heat wave is setting new records, as August temperatures regularly topping 100° continue to impact most of the state. The high temperature hit 102° at the Houston Intercontinental Airport yesterday, a record for the date, and the 16th consecutive day of 100°+ heat. The 16-day streak is a new record. The previous record was 14 straight days, ending on July 19, 1980.
The low temperature yesterday morning at Dallas/Fort Worth International was 86°--the all-time highest minimum temperature recorded there. This is the 4th time this summer Dallas has had an 86° minimum temperature, with the other dates being July 26, August 3, and August 4. Prior to this year, the hottest minimum temperature ever recorded in Dallas was 85° on September 1, 1939 (which they also matched this summer on July 25, August 7, and again this morning.) Thus Dallas has matched or exceeded their all-time hottest minimum temperature from previous years seven times this year. It's extremely rare for a station with a long observation history spanning more than fifty years to break an all-time record seven times in one year; if anyone can find an example of this in the past, I'd love to hear about it. The National Climatic Data Center records page is a good place to look. Dallas has had 40 days with a minimum temperature of 80° or higher this year, breaking the previous record of 39 days, set in 1998. Dallas had a streak of 40 straight days with a maximum temperature above 100° which ended August 10, good for 2nd place all-time, next to a 42-day streak in 1980.
Figure 1. The amount of rain needed to break the Texas drought is in excess of 15 inches (purple colors) over most of the state. This year's drought is officially Texas' worst one-year drought on record. Image credit: NOAA/NWS.
According to the National Climatic Data Center, twelve other major airports set or tied their all-time high minimum temperature two or more times this summer: San Angelo, TX (four times); Lake Charles, LA (three times); Bristol, TN; Indianapolis, IN; Trenton, NJ; Newark, NJ; West Palm Beach, FL; Shreveport, LA; Beckley, WV; Texarkana, AR; Lake Charles, LA; Lubbock, TX; plus, Fort Worth Meacham Field. This year's total of fourteen airports that broke their all-time high minimum temperature multiple times this summer is similar to last year's total of ten sites. Most notable last year was West Palm Beach, Florida, which tied it's all-time high minimum temperature of 83° five times in 2010.
Fifteen major airports have tied or broken their all-time highest temperature multiple times this summer: Tyler, TX (three times); Tallahassee, FL (three times); Fort Smith, AR; Harrison, AR; Tulsa, OK; McAlester, OK; Longview, TX; and Oklahoma City, OK, Ypsilanti, MI; Altoona, PA; Dubois, PA; Salisbury, MD; Raton, NM; Amarillo, TX; and Dalhart, TX. For comparison, only three stations broke their all-time maximum temperature record multiple times in 2010: Wilmington, DE; Norfolk, VA; and Richmond, VA.
Figure 2. Morning satellite image of Invest 93L.
Caribbean disturbance 93L
A westward-moving tropical wave in the Central Caribbean a few hundred miles south of Hispaniola, Invest 93L, has increased in organization overnight, building up a modest amount of heavy thunderstorms. Low-level spiral bands have begun to form on all sides of the storm this morning. There are currently no signs of a surface circulation, though there is plenty of large-scale rotation apparent on satellite imagery. Dry air surrounds 93L and has infiltrated the center of the disturbance, giving 93L a doughnut-like appearance. However, the disturbance is steadily moistening its environment and is under low wind shear of 5 - 10 knots, so this dry air should gradually mix out today and allow 93L to continue to organize. There is a hurricane hunter mission scheduled for this afternoon at 2pm EDT to see if a tropical depression is forming.
93L will bring heavy rain showers to southern Haiti this afternoon and to Jamaica tonight. By Thursday, 93L's forward motion will slow to 10 - 15 mph, and the storm will bring heavy rains to Northern Honduras and Northeast Nicaragua. These rains will spread to Belize and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula by Saturday. The latest SHIPS model forecast shows wind shear remaining in the low range and the atmosphere steadily moistening as 93L enters the Western Caribbean on Thursday. All of the models agree that the ridge of high pressure steering 93L to the west will remain strong, forcing the storm into a landfall Friday in Northeast Nicaragua or Northeast Honduras. It is possible that 93L will have time to intensify into a Category 1 hurricane before then, though landfall as a tropical storm would be more likely, given the dry air that 93L needs to overcome. Regardless of development, the storm will bring very heavy rains of 4 - 8 inches or more to Nicaragua and Honduras. These rains are likely to cause dangerous flash flooding and mudslides. NHC gave 93L a 30% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Friday morning in their 8am outlook; I'd put these odds at 50% now, given the continued increase in organization seen on satellite images.
Figure 3. Morning satellite image of the tropical wave 500 miles west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands.
Elsewhere in the tropics
A tropical wave near 14°N 34°W, about 500 miles west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa, is moving westward near 15 - 20 mph. This wave has little heavy thunderstorm activity associated with it due to dry air, but an impressive amount of large-scale spin is obvious in visible satellite loops. This wave is expected to arrive in the Lesser Antilles Islands by Saturday. Three of our four reliable models for predicting tropical storm genesis predict that this wave could develop into a tropical depression sometime Friday through Sunday. A west-northwest track through the Northeast Caribbean bringing the storm near Puerto Rico by Sunday or Monday is favored by most of the models.
Jeff Masters
This fire destroyed 15 homes and burned about 30 acres. Was nothuge, but was in a populated area.
Business is slow here this summer.
Lake Houston is dangerously low as well. They will be draining 12inches of water to ease the water shortage in Houston
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Randy Bynon, August 14, 2011
Dropsonde SysOp/AVAPS PM, 53rd WRS "Hurricane Hunters", USAFR
Looks Elongated to me.
Thanks for saying what so many of us feel. You did it perfectly....Luv ya, Grothar...:))
But I want it to be a td NOW!!! LOL
OK, I forgot, you post some good stuff, too! :)
00ZECMWF 240hrs
Unless the buoy is south of the center, then how would it suggest otherwise?
Ok, I understand that, and agree. I, for one, appreciate the efforts of all the people that post the helpful info on here, it is what keeps me coming back, even tho sometimes it gets kind of crazy in the blog. So, for all those that feel unappreciated, there are lots of people like me who are thankful, we just don't post comments very often.
Yes, thanks Grother. That did need to be said!
whats the mb on that last one..numbers are small..tia!
Well remember my initial reason for being skeptical of 93L developing until it got into the Caribbean was that it had no circulation after coming off of Africa. The models jumped all over it but all it was was a blob, with nothing underneath. However, our new wave is a large, well-defined circulation, very similar to what Don and Emily were prior to their birth. Such a feature, once it gains moisture and moves over warmer water, has the potential to gradually develop down the road, just as Don and Emily did.
Your next question may be whether conditions support it getting stronger than Don and Emily. While it's hard to know how conditions will be around the system in 6 days, a key point is that we will have the MJO in our basin, enhancing upward motion, rather than inhibiting it as it did with Don and Emily. It's also simply a couple weeks later in the season, which means that overall, the atmosphere is more supportive of tropical cyclones. Much will also depend on whether the wave interacts with the bigger Caribbean islands like Hispaniola, and we saw what that did to Don and Emily. It nearly killed both of them.
1008.2 mb
(~ 29.77 inHg)
Never mind, lol. The ECMWF pulled a bait and switch, the 240 hour frame just updated and is right in line with the GFS.
Coordinates: 14.9667N 73.6833W
Acft. Static Air Press: 977.0 mb (~ 28.85 inHg)
Acft. Geopotential Hgt: 320 meters (~ 1,050 feet)
Extrap. Sfc. Press: 1013.7 mb (~ 29.93 inHg)
D-value: -
Flt. Lvl. Wind (30s): From 114° at 16 knots (From the ESE at ~ 18.4 mph)
Air Temp: 23.0°C (~ 73.4°F)
Dew Pt: -8.6°C (~ 16.5°F)
Peak (10s) Flt. Lvl. Wind: 16 knots (~ 18.4 mph)
SFMR Peak (10s) Sfc. Wind: -
SFMR Rain Rate: -
We have seen periods of much greater temp changes in the last 2,000 years then we are seeing now. Someone has been lying to you. The Romans grew grapes in the UK, Greenland was once green, there were villages in the high Alps.
The temps we have today are not out of the ordinary. The sea level we have to day is not out of the ordinary.
AGW depends on a feed back mechanism, Hot Spots, that despite years of searching has not once, not one single time been found to exist. For those interested AGW admits that small increases in CO2 will not cause runaway warming all by itself. But the CO2 will cause local hot spots in the tropical atmosphere. A hot spot in warming due to water vapor action which is a much more potent warming gas then CO2. So without the hot spots, and no one has ever found one, there is no AGW and no runaway warming.
In order to be science a theory has to be predictable and verifiable. AGW fails at both, the predicted warming has not happened and the mechanism claimed to do the warming has not been verified.
What I find amusing is that every summer the AGW people point to record heat someplace on the Earth and say "See GLOBAL WARMING!". But every winter when people like me point to record cold we get told "it's just weather". lol, too funny.
Go back and look again. The 240hr frame must have been a previous run.
See what did you got Gro mad. Go take a nap now and things will get better. I never want to get you mad at me. your ok Gro
Its just me maybe,,but Im gonna go with NOAA on Climate Change.
Plus I dont ski.
Lol...They haven't even made it to where winds would change significantly.
+1000000
I doubt there is any circulation below 14.8 N
AAAHH. That's too far out! (How you doing PP?)
Transmitted: 17th day of the month at 16:59Z
Aircraft: Air Force Aircraft (Last 3 digits of the tail number are 305)
Mission: Non-Tasked Mission, possibly not tropical (flight in the North Atlantic basin)
Mission Identifier: 110817151600305 (2 digit year/2 digit month/2 digit day/6 digit mission start time/Last 3 digits of aircraft tail number)
Date Mission Started: August 17th in '11
Time Mission Started: 15:16:00Z
Observation Number: 04
Part A...
Date: Near the closest hour of 17Z on the 17th day of the month
Highest Mandatory Level For Which Wind Was Reported: 400mb
Coordinates: 27.3N 93.2W
Location: 200 miles (322 km) to the SSE (164°) from Beaumont, TX, USA.
Marsden Square: 082 (About)
Level Geo. Height Air Temp. Dew Point Wind Direction Wind Speed
1018mb (30.06 inHg) Sea Level (Surface) 29.6°C (85.3°F) Approximately 23°C (73°F) 335° (from the NNW) 6 knots (7 mph)
1000mb 162m (531 ft) 28.0°C (82.4°F) Approximately 22°C (72°F) 10° (from the N) 3 knots (3 mph)
925mb 850m (2,789 ft) 24.2°C (75.6°F) Approximately 15°C (59°F) 150° (from the SSE) 5 knots (6 mph)
850mb 1,585m (5,200 ft) 18.8°C (65.8°F) Approximately 14°C (57°F) 125° (from the SE) 9 knots (10 mph)
700mb 3,227m (10,587 ft) 9.8°C (49.6°F) Approximately -4°C (25°F) 80° (from the E) 18 knots (21 mph)
500mb 5,950m (19,521 ft) -4.5°C (23.9°F) Approximately -34°C (-29°F) 65° (from the ENE) 3 knots (3 mph)
400mb 7,660m (25,131 ft) -16.5°C (2.3°F) Approximately -22°C (-8°F) 50° (from the NE) 14 knots (16 mph)
Information About Radiosonde:
- Launch Time: 16:32Z
- About Sonde: A descending radiosonde tracked automatically by satellite navigation with no solar or infrared correction.
Remarks Section...
Splash Location: 27.31N 93.21W
Splash Time: 16:42Z
Release Location: 27.31N 93.18W
Release Time: 16:32:16Z
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Climatic Data Center
Many lines of scientific evidence show the Earth's climate is changing. This page presents the latest information from several independent measures of observed climate change that illustrate an overwhelmingly compelling story of a planet that is undergoing global warming. It is worth noting that increasing global temperature is only one element of observed global climate change. Precipitation patterns are also changing; storms and other extremes are changing as well.
------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------
How do we know the Earth's climate is warming?
Thousands of land and ocean temperature measurements are recorded each day around the globe. This includes measurements from climate reference stations, weather stations, ships, buoys and autonomous gliders in the oceans. These surface measurements are also supplemented with satellite measurements. These measurements are processed, examined for random and systematic errors, and then finally combined to produce a time series of global average temperature change.
A number of agencies around the world have produced datasets of global-scale changes in surface temperature using different techniques to process the data and remove measurement errors that could lead to false interpretations of temperature trends.
The warming trend that is apparent in all of the independent methods of calculating global temperature change is also confirmed by other independent observations, such as the melting of mountain glaciers on every continent, reductions in the extent of snow cover, earlier blooming of plants in spring, a shorter ice season on lakes and rivers, ocean heat content, reduced arctic sea ice, and rising sea levels.
Simulated global temperature in experiments that include human influences (pink line), and model experiments that included only natural factors (blue line). The black line is observed temperature change.
That's what I was thinking as well because the system appears to be just beginning to wind up.
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