Oswego County Hit By Hail

An unexpected hail report came in from the north country as scattered showers and thunderstorms moved through the region on the 21st:

4/21/09:


More severe weather is expected throughout the next few days as a couple of fronts make their way through NY. Parts of NY saw thunderstorms overnight last night, and more are entering western NY and pushing east tonight.

I will be waiting patiently, camera at the ready.

My Research From the 2009 NESC

I've finally gotten around to uploading a .pdf of my 2009 NESC presentation. The link will likely change after my web space from SUNY Albany is taken away, but I will put it up on there for now. I should really find a more permanent place to put that stuff...

The research has a synoptic scale analysis, as well as a closer look into the mesoscale features of the case studies. This is mostly preliminary research, and more cases could be added in the future. I will probably not continue this research, as I have seen others working on similar situations involving elevated convection, such as Nolan Atkins and Todd Lanouette, who, are working on bow echo storms. They've already come up with some great conclusions about elevated convection that further research on my part would only back up their findings, and not provide a significant contribution to the scientific community.

A Comparison of Cold Season Non-severe Wind Storms and Severe Wind Outbreaks in New York State

NOTE: The "which is which?" slides are animations that do not work on the PDF, so you may disregard those two slides. They merely show the similarity between the radar signatures of surface and elevated convection.

Thunderstorms And Severe Weather May Push Into The Northeast

Over the next few days, an upper-level trough will work its way out of the southern Great plains and push northeast through the Midwest. It's looking like NY will see two bursts of precipitation associated with this trough tomorrow and Tuesday. The first one will be along an occluded front of a weakening system that is currently centered over the southern Great Plains. The most southern parts of NY could hear some rumbles of thunder from elevated convection with this first line of storms as it pushes through tomorrow evening. Both the GFS and NAM are in excellent agreement as to the timing and amount of precipitation associated with this line of storms.

As this storm lifts out of the upper-level trough, another system will dig into the trough, briefly intensifying it Tuesday before the trough lifts off to the northeast. This could provide southern and eastern NY with a brief period in the warm sector of the low pressure system, which could fuel some decent thunderstorms. A few of these storms may produce small hail and gusty (but non-severe) winds.

Tomorrow:


Tuesday:


But all of this is nothing compared to what we have coming up.

Over the weekend, we're looking at the first real chance for good severe weather in NY. A strong ridge will be in place over the eastern US during the week, and will provide a nice southerly flow in the latter part of the week. This will help draw Gulf moisture and warm temperatures into NY ahead of an upper-level trough, which will be digging down from central Canada. This trough is progged by the GFS to bottom-out just to the west of NY. The GFS may be a little bold with the strength of the instability at this point and time, but high temperatures this weekend are forecast to be a bit warmer than the GFS indicates (as the GFS trends towards climo this far out), so it could also be underplaying some aspects of the instability as well.

Based on the GFS forecast, it looks like a line of storms oriented SW-NE will push east along a cold front through NY Sunday afternoon, providing strong winds and some hail. This is definitely THE storm to track through the upcoming week. Hopefully it will pan out!

Sunday afternoon:

Amazing Sounding: Corpus Christi

Get a napkin ready to wipe the drool off of your face after you see these soundings:





You don't see stuff like this very often!

Researching The 2006 Marcellus, NY Tornado

Not much in the way of exciting weather is going on this week. Hopefully we'll see a more favorable environment for storms in the Northeast somewhere around the end of April.

For one of my classes, I have decided to do a case study of the F0 tornado that struck my hometown of Marcellus, NY back in 2006. I will post the paper here when it is done.

For those of you wondering why I haven't put up my research from earlier this year up, it is because I forgot to. I'll put a research tab on the left-hand link area and throw the powerpoint and other stuff in there.

It looks like I may be going to NCSU in the fall, so I will probably not have any more NY pictures to post after the move. However, I will keep updating this site and adding on to it, and I will probably also start another blog that is more general and caters to me having to move around a bit over the next several years. This blog has been going for about a year now (1 year anniversary is April 19th, yay us!), and I have learned a lot from doing it. I hope that people other than myself have found this site to be useful in one way or another.

Brushfire Leads To 6-Alarm Blaze On Staten Island

Around 1:00pm local time, a brush fire broke out on Staten Island. It has quickly grown into a 6-Alarm fire, and is threatening homes and infrastructure. One home is completely engulfed in fire, and other houses are at risk of becoming ablaze as strong winds push the smoke and ash southeastward.

Here is a radar from earlier today, with the smoke plume clearly visible to the southeast of Staten Island:


Links with early reports on the fire:
http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/brush_fire_on_staten_island_ca.html
http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/97273/crews-battle-massive-brush-fire-on-staten-island/Default.aspx

More news on the brush fire as it develops. Fellow blogger Mark McIntyre is within three-minute walking distance from his house to the intense fires, and he will have some eyewitness information for us soon.

Dry Northeast Starting To See Drought Conditions Arise

Since the start of the year, NY and the Northeast has seen below-average precipitation amounts, and it's starting to show. Below average monthly precipitation totals have been recorded throughout most of NY since January, and the next week looks like it will only add to the deficit, as a series of high pressure systems keep rain out of the Northeast.



While drought conditions are still relatively minor, a couple more months of prolonged dry weather could see these conditions rapidly deteriorate, which does not bode well for farmers as planting season for many crops is just around the corner.

To keep up with the drought conditions in the Northeast, you can visit the following link:
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/DM_northeast.htm