Weather

[cx]

Texas a big ol' place, Jim. They can't get us all.

[jadnashua]

Yeah, I lived in El Paso for a while both in and out of the Army, but only drove across it twice. The severe weather alert though, seems to cover a very large portion of TX this time.

[cx]

local forecast does have a note at the top, saying "There is a marginal risk of severe weather tonight" in red, but radar shows nothing at all for at least the next six hours. If it contains rain, our aquifers will be happy to see it.

From El Paso to Texarkana is a very long drive, and you still don't really see all the climates of Texas. Fella wants to get a good look at the State, he needs to bring a lunch. Would it be worth the drive? I'd give that a resounding maybe. Are there more scenic and interesting states to see? I'd hafta give that a resounding yes.

But the part in which I reside is one of the easiest climates I've ever dealt with. YMMV

[jadnashua]

Looks like a strong storm front just passed through parts of Texas. Up to a couple of inches of rain in a short time. Must have been a dramatic lightning storm, too!

The worst storm I remember in Texas was one time I was on I25, going south towards Las Cruces and on into El Paso where I was living at the time. I was on a motorcycle. South of Alburquerque, a ways south of me, there was a heavy wall of dark clouds and you could see lightning cascade across that wall for what was probably 100-miles (Alburquerque is fairly high up, and going south towards the Rio Grande valley, it drops off about 4000', so you can see a long ways on a clear day or night). Luckily, when I got into El Paso, the storm had passed, but the roads were running rivers. You could sort of tell where the road was by the power poles and light poles on either side. That part of Texas has lots of storm basins, and there was (and probably still has) one road out near the armory that had a dip to help channel the water away. There was a pole at the bottom of that dip marked off in feet (went to about 30' if I remember correctly), so you could figure out if it was safe to continue. Luckily, I never saw it with more than a small trickle, but that storm, it was probably roaring through. The storm basins around the city were full for a week or two afterwards.

People that don't live in those sorts of areas have no idea how nasty a storm can be. On the road that crosses north of White Sands Missile range, during a storm, it washed away a portion of the road. More than a few people died when they tried to go past. It looked like it was just a little water on top of the road, but the roadway had been washed away...when it's fairly smooth, it can look like it's nothing. There's a memorial sign up on the road in that area, or was...they renamed the road into the post for some of the victims.

It appears that we're coming out of a La Nina, into a Le Nino, where the ocean temperatures in the Pacific get warmer. This tends to cause some more severe weather that shifts around. Sometimes, it makes CA wetter, sometimes it doesn't, but the temperatures do shift towards warmer. Given how warm it has been, this could be a scorcher year. It usually affects the weather in the Gulf and the east coast as well.

[Davy]

We had a line of storms come thru a few hours ago. I heard a few taps of hail on my sky light but was probably only pea size. The weather man said he couldn't rule out a tornado or two but thankfully nothing developed in my area.

[jadnashua]

Bret is a new tropical storm that formed in the eastern equatorial Atlantic in the earliest timeframe of available records. Tropical storms typically form in the Gulf of Mexico this early in the season, as the waters are warmer there. But, the ocean to the east is as warm as typically the end of the summer. There's another tropical depression east of it, that may also develop, or worst case, join up with Brett. So far, it looks like it will stay south of the US, but might hit Puerto Rico.

Those of you in Texas, between the extreme heat and tornados and floods, hope you stay safe.

[cx]

Heat and floods are just business as usual in my part of Texas, Jim. Tornados in the far west and panhandle are pretty normal, too, I think.

I just wish one of your too early tropical storms would bring us some rain.

Then, of course, we could have us one of them there floods.

[John Bridge]

Yeah, the waterline in my pond is going down. Wouldn't mind about five inches.

[ceramictec]

Davy, I dont think either of these storms are going to affect us from looking at the charts.
They have Bret going into Honduras/Nicaragua and invest 93L turning up into the Atlantic.......but you never know!

[jadnashua]

El Niño tends to disrupt the upper easterly winds, making it harder for a hurricane to form, and disrupting them when they get closer to the Gulf...but, that's just a trend...the waters for the last two months have set all-time high records since they started in about 1850 or so. That heat fuels storms. Where they go and how severe the become depends on lots of factors that are still hard to determine with our current understanding of things. So many things are changing, it's hard to keep up and the models are constantly changing as we learn more.

[jadnashua]

A study recently published discussed how hurricanes affect heat in the oceans. The group was in the western Pacific and was able to get measurements at various depths both during relatively calm weather and during a hurricane. The interesting thing was how deep the mixing of the warmer surface waters went down into the depths. It moved a significant amount of heat down deep enough that it could stay captured there for years, and the eventual upwelling of that warmer water reached the surface again often far from the original location where it was deposited. Storing that heat energy deep in the ocean is one reason why the average air temperature versus water temperature helps moderate the change...by moving some of that heat energy deep into the ocean, it moderates the surface temperatures so there is a lag in the CO2 levels rising to the surface temperatures rising...heat gets stored in the waters.

[jadnashua]

As expected, Bret is being somewhat disrupted by the effects of El Niño which produces stronger higher-level winds that can prevent a storm from fully intensifying. But, for the first time in recorded history for a June timeframe, a second tropical storm has formed in the Atlantic Ocean off of Africa. This happens later in the hurricane season, but has never happened while humans have kept records in June twice like this year. Cindy probably won't make it to the Gulf if it goes north as expected, but there's another depression behind it that could be another record for June...time will tell.

It doesn't look like Bret will bring any relief to the heat wave hitting much of Texas and parts of the south, though.

[ceramictec]

Looks like Bret dissipated and Cindy is definitely heading up into the Atlantic and turn into a depression.

[jadnashua]

Last year, an undersea volcano near Tonga erupted and set a few records. At its peak, they counted nearly 2700 lightning flashes per minute and the clouds and ash from the eruption made it 35-miles up into the stratosphere where there normally aren't any clouds or weather as we know it closer to the surface. The hot lava in the deep ocean caused a huge influx of moisture into the atmosphere. That must have been something to see as long as you could stay safe!

The high level winds from El Niño have torn most of Brett apart but it might reenergize as it drifts north and retain its status as a tropical storm. Cindy is running into lower solar as dust from Sahara picks back up as the winds get reestablished. This year has already set records and forecasting will be spotty.

There's another disturbance behind Cindy that bears watching, too.

[jadnashua]

There was a global agreement that became effective in 1989 to help reduce ozone depletion chemicals in the atmosphere that has saved about 99% of it. Previously, there were holes in the ozone layer above each pole, now mostly restricted to a seasonal window over the Antarctic that usually peaks late September and closes again in November.

In 2022, an undersea volcano near Tonga erupted and threw 150 Megatons of water vapor into the stratosphere that is normally quite cold and dry. This created some significant ice crystals that are expected to stick around for up to 10-years. A secondary effect of those crystals is that they trap ozone, preventing it from capturing the UV rays, allowing most of them to make it to the surface. Luckily, there aren't any significant quantities of people living anywhere near that, and the hole isn't in prime season for visitors. But, what's interesting is that here in early August, the ozone hole is rapidly increasing, much earlier than the normal peak's timing and schedule. What that will mean and how big it will get is hard to say, but hopefully, they're right and it returns to its normal size and cycles eventually. The existence of ozone holes may cease to exist if we can prevent the remaining chemicals from being released and the existing ones eventually break down (they're quite persistent, as it's been over 30-years since we, at least theoretically per the agreement, stopped releasing them).