Severe Storms, Possible Derecho Forecast for U.S. Northeast

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

By Brian K. Sullivan - Jul 26, 2012 11:12 AM ET

Severe thunderstorms accompanied by heavy rain, hail and possibly a derecho windstorm are expected to sweep out of the U.S. Midwest today and into New York City and the Northeast, forecasters said.

“The risk for widespread damaging winds will increase from midday to mid-afternoon from Indiana and Ohio across Pennsylvania, southeast New York, into western Massachusetts and Connecticut,” the U.S. Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said in a severe weather outlook.

A derecho may form as the systems move east. One of the fast-moving systems struck the mid-Atlantic last month, leaving 4.3 million people without power from New Jersey to North Carolina as it unleashed winds of as much as 91 miles (146 kilometers) per hour, as powerful as a Category 1 hurricane. Twenty-four deaths were linked to the storm and its aftermath, according to the Associated Press.

The threat prompted New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to cancel events in Rochester and Syracuse and to go to New York City to help manage storm preparations, according to a statement from his office. The governor activated the State Emergency Operations Center and planned meetings with utility officials.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-26/severe-storms-possible-derecho-forecast-for-u-s-northeast.html

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Looks like Michigan will be spared the severe storms but we sure could use the rain. Did receive a whopping .3in last night...

Stay safe all in way of these storms.

[Pab Sungenis]

1. Just what we need.

"Derecho 2: Electric Boogaloo."

At least this time they can't say we had no warning.

[Botany]

2. “This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level.”

“This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/07/23/120723taco_talk_kolbert#ixzz20z8RK4Qr

The summer of 2012 offers Americans the best chance yet to get their minds around the problem. In late June, just as a sizzling heat wave was settling across much of the country—in Evansville, Indiana, temperatures rose into the triple digits for ten days, reaching as high as a hundred and seven degrees—wildfires raged in Colorado. Hot and extremely dry conditions promoted the flames’ spread. “It’s no exaggeration to say Colorado is burning,” KDVR, the Fox station in Denver, reported. By the time the most destructive blaze was fully contained, almost three weeks later, it had scorched nearly twenty-nine square miles. Meanwhile, a “super derecho”—a long line of thunderstorms—swept from Illinois to the Atlantic Coast, killing at least thirteen people and leaving millions without power.

Referring to the fires, the drought, and the storms, Jonathan Overpeck, a professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona, told the Associated Press, “This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about.” He also noted, “This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level.”

Or, at least, what it looks like right now. One of the most salient—but also, unfortunately, most counterintuitive—aspects of global warming is that it operates on what amounts to a time delay. Behind this summer’s heat are greenhouse gases emitted decades ago. Before many effects of today’s emissions are felt, it will be time for the Summer Olympics of 2048. (Scientists refer to this as the “commitment to warming.”) What’s at stake is where things go from there. It is quite possible that by the end of the century we could, without even really trying, engineer the return of the sort of climate that hasn’t been seen on earth since the Eocene, some fifty million years ago.

Along with the heat and the drought and the super derecho, the country this summer is also enduring a Presidential campaign. So far, the words “climate change” have barely been uttered. This is not an oversight. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have chosen to remain silent on the issue, presumably because they see it as just too big a bummer.

[nichomachus]

3. Why do all the bad weather systems have Spanish names?

I think someone at the Weather Bureau is racist.

[Patiod]

5. Well, there are always haboobs (from the Arabic)

Sandstorms in Phoenix

People there LOVE to say that word (although they hate cleaning out their pools afterward).

[smirkymonkey]

16. Siroccos (an Italian name) are also another weather phenomenon that

involve high, damaging winds. I guess it's a Mediterranian bias in general.

[Cherchez la Femme]

7. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Spanish names seem perfectly logical to me

[SemperEadem]

13. :: applauding wildly ::

well played!!!! ROFLMAO!!

[hedgehog]

11. According to the article I read, the name was chosen to match "tornado"

[maddezmom]

4. Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling

Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling

WASHINGTON — From highways in Texas to nuclear power plants in Illinois, the concrete, steel and sophisticated engineering that undergird the nation’s infrastructure are being taxed to worrisome degrees by heat, drought and vicious storms.

On a single day this month here, a US Airways regional jet became stuck in asphalt that had softened in 100-degree temperatures, and a subway train derailed after the heat stretched the track so far that it kinked — inserting a sharp angle into a stretch that was supposed to be straight. In East Texas, heat and drought have had a startling effect on the clay-rich soils under highways, which “just shrink like crazy,” leading to “horrendous cracking,” said Tom Scullion, senior research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. In Northeastern and Midwestern states, he said, unusually high heat is causing highway sections to expand beyond their design limits, press against each other and “pop up,” creating jarring and even hazardous speed bumps.

Excessive warmth and dryness are threatening other parts of the grid as well. In the Chicago area, a twin-unit nuclear plant had to get special permission to keep operating this month because the pond it uses for cooling water rose to 102 degrees; its license to operate allows it to go only to 100. According to the Midwest Independent System Operator, the grid operator for the region, a different power plant had had to shut because the body of water from which it draws its cooling water had dropped so low that the intake pipe became high and dry; another had to cut back generation because cooling water was too warm.

The frequency of extreme weather is up over the past few years, and people who deal with infrastructure expect that to continue. Leading climate models suggest that weather-sensitive parts of the infrastructure will be seeing many more extreme episodes, along with shifts in weather patterns and rising maximum (and minimum) temperatures.

MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/rise-in-weather-extremes-threatens-infrastructure.html

[liberal N proud]

6. Local weather announcers were already having a stormgasm at 6:00 AM

To hear them tell it, this is going to be the storm of the century, just like the last time we had a thunderstorm.

[Purveyor]

8. Considering the last Derecho left millions without power for days, I think their warnings are

prudent and timely.

[pscot]

10. Prudent and timely

with a strong element of CYA.

[longship]

9. It roared through here last night/this morning

In western MI. Most of the bad stuff went the north of me. But there was lots of lightning, but not too much wind where I am. Storms this morning here, but none were severe.

Stay safe, DUers who are in the path.

[libodem]

12. Yes

Please stay safe, DU'ers.

[Rhiannon12866]

14. It's all over the TV here in NY, tornado and severe storm warnings...

[lindysalsagal]

15. And I just filled up my freezer. Damn.

Got the flashlights et al ready.