Christmas weather books and Storm Chaser book review
Storm Chaser: A Photographer's Journey ($23.10 from Amazon) takes the reader on a spectacular photographic journey through the U.S., documenting four seasons of our beautiful and violent weather. Author Jim Reed makes a business of weather photography, and has spent over 15 years chasing storms and documenting their awesome beauty and violent destructive power. The 191-page book would make a perfect Christmas coffee table book for that weather enthusiast (yourself?) in the family, and has great photos of tornadoes, hurricanes, hailstorms, blizzards, sunsets, and lightning. The book is mostly photos, but there are several riveting stories Reed tells. Most captivating is the story of his encounter with Category 4 Hurricane Charley as it pounded Punta Gorda, Florida in 2004. Reed miscalculated his time needed to get to shelter, and got caught in his vehicle on the road in the eyewall. Luckily, his videotaped farewell for mother and friends done during the height of the storm was not needed, as he was able to find shelter during the 4-minute passage of the eye. Reed also braved Hurricane Katrina from the beach front, and tells an abbreviated version of his dramatic encounter with the hurricane from Gulfport, Mississippi. I also recommend Hurricane Katrina Through the Eyes of Storm Chasers ($14.96 from Amazon) to read the full tale of his Katrina experience.
Storm Chaser: A Photographer's Journey has a few flaws. The quality of the writing is not quite as high as that of my favorite storm chaser book, the now dated 1996 Warren Faidley book, Storm Chaser: In pursuit of untamed skies (no longer in print, but available used). Reed's text doesn't match up with the photos presented on the pages in places, and he makes a number of unwarranted connections between global warming and extreme weather events. For example, he blames the June 22, 2003 fall of volley ball-sized hailstones in Aurora, Kansas on global warming. No single weather event can be attributed to climate change--all we can say is that the probabilities of some extreme weather events have increased. For example, the incidence of extreme precipitation events (the heaviest 1% of rain storms) has increased 20% over the U.S. in recent decades. No scientific papers have been published showing a link between tornadoes or hailstorms and climate change. That quibble aside, I heartily recommend Storm Chaser: A Photographer's Journey. The photos are fantastic. Three and a half stars out of four.
Best weather books published in 2007
Weather Photography:
Storm Chaser: A Photographer's Journey ($23.10 from Amazon).
Climate change:
Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming by Chris Mooney ($17.16 from Amazon). See the realclimate.org review. I'll be posting a review of my own at some point.
General Weather:
Extreme Weather: A Guide and Record Book by Christopher Burt ($17.13 from Amazon). I hope to review this book soon.
Hurricanes:
Hurricane Almanac by Bryan Norcross ($11.04 from Amazon). See my review of the book.
Tornadoes:
Storm Warning: the Story of a Killer Tornado by Nancy Mathis ($16.32 from Amazon). See my review of the book.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Wrong.
The folowing morning. The national weather service issued a winter weather advisory for the mountains. (The mountains got hardly nothing) East the temps were around 31. Sleet covered the ground.
This has been a similar pattern lately.
Morning sleet/freezing rain- Either not predicted or a 20% chance. Schools have to run on delays or close because the roads are not treated in the morning.
Also, I here the met here saying Alberta clippers do this alot.(Move fast and produce little) But this last one wasnt a clipper I dont think.Very little moisture with dry cold air.
Last winter we had nothing.This winter has already beat last year.(I dont even think it is even winter though.)Im pretty lucky this light moisture has been coming here around 2 to 7AM to get ice to close schools.
The Dvorak technique is a method using enhanced Infrared and/or visible satellite imagery to quantitatively estimate the intensity of a tropical system. Cloud patterns in satellite imagery normally show an indication of cyclogenesis before the storm reaches tropical storm intensity. Indications of continued development and/or weakening can also be found in the cloud features. Using these features, the pattern formed by the clouds of a tropical cyclone, expected systematic development, and a series of rules, an intensity analysis and forecast can be made. This information is then standardized into an intensity code. Link
A few more on the Subject here: Link
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As of 0000 AM UTC, Tropical Depression [996 hPa] located near 14.5S 82.0E or 2820 kms south-southwest of the coast of Reunion has 10 min sustained winds of 30 knots with gusts up to 45 knots. The depression is reported as moving south-southwest at 7 knots.
Dvorak Intensity: T2.5
Gale Warning Area
=====================
40 NM radius from the center
100 NM from the center in southern semi-circle
Forecast and Intensity
========================
12 HRS: 16.8S 82.3E - 30 knots (Depression Tropicale)
24 HRS: 18.2S 83.3E - 30 knots (Depression Tropicale)
Additional Information
======================
Location of the low level circulation center is estimated according to AMSU Microwave imagery at 2028z, which still shows a moderate northeasterly vertical wind shear. To be exact, the system has temporarily reached the moderate tropical storm intensity last night. (WINDSAT Imagery at 0031z, Where we estimate Dvorak intensity of 3.0), but mainly due to its persistant vertical wind shear it has rapidly weakened to its actual stage of tropical depression.
It should remain on the eastern part of th basin and track globally southward then southeastward before becoming extratropical over cooler sea surface temperature of less than 26C south of 20 south (20ºS).
A good read by Max here,..
The early days of the Dvorak Technique at the National Hurricane Center
Max Mayfield, NOAA/NWS/NCEP/NHC, Miami, FL
The application of satellite derived location and intensity estimates using the Dvorak Technique at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in the 1970s and 1980s will be discussed. Examples of successes as well as limitations will be shown by one of the first Dvorak analysts at the NHC. Link
Year of global cooling
By David Deming - Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.
Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.
South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.
Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg , South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.
Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.
In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.
Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.
Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don't seem so awful when you're in the cold and dark.
If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.
Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.
David Deming is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.
Dvorak pattern recognition decision tree
Link
A scientific look at global climate changes.
Welcome to the Weather Underground's new Climate Change page!
We're just getting started, so keep checking back over the next few months for new additions.
Link
Although I did check CIMSS ADT and it says CDO
be careful when comparing ur results with ADT. For example...CDO patterns can only be assigned using Visible imagery but yet they are using infrared imagery and is maybe becuz their estimates where derived digitally.. Just read and u will see.
Where do I find the yellow center plot thing that you have on your dvorak image?
Its called the cloud system center or CSC. That there was put there to help persons performing the dvorak intensity tecnhique. Its not mines. The site is on WU Tropical front page. But if u would like to find it on ur own...its the focal point of cloud bands or the geometrical center and when all that fails u can use the geographic center or remote sensing..like quikscat, microwave, radar, etc.
1/2 is 0.5
1 is 1.0
1 1/2 1.5
All the rest techniques are clear cut as it easy to indentify a cyclone that is sheared, one that has a CDO, and one that has an eye.
Anyways....Gnight all
165. lindenii 12:59 AM GMT on December 20, 2007
Article published Dec 19, 2007
Year of global cooling
That article is crap... that is like saying that the heat wave in August and other heat waves this year are proof of global warming.
*********
And to quote David Deming... geophysicist, adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma
"If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.
Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo."
Thanks go to MichaelSTL, for proving the professors' point so well.
Monday, December 10, 2007 9:55 AM
By: Philip V. Brennan
As much of the U.S. is being blasted by vicious ice storms, a blockbuster report published in a prestigious scientific journal insists that the evidence shows that climate warming is both natural and unstoppable and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant.
Writing in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society, professor David H. Douglass (of the University of Rochester), professor John R. Christy (of the University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson and professor S. Fred Singer (of the University of Virginia) report that observed patterns of temperature changes ("fingerprints") over the last 30 years disagree with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability.
The conclusion is that climate change is "unstoppable" and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.
According to Dr. Douglass: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”
One of his co-authors, Dr. John Christy, added: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater.
"We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”
And the third co-author, Dr. S. Fred Singer, said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals.
"The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere.
"In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface and thus the climate.
"Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless — but very costly."
© 2007 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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Comment...
Current weather models are seriously flawed as the 2007 Hurricane season proved so conclusively. Yes the 'number' of storms was there...only problem was...the ACE was way out of kilter. Until scientists can reconcile the disconnect, depending on models is foolhardy at best and very unscientific.
That said, I bet that you think that this map (from NOAA's CDC) is fake and a blatant lie and that the yellow/red areas should be colored blue/purple...
A fake and blatant lie? Not at all.
It is simply one small piece of a great big puzzle.
Notice, however, the little word 'reanalysis' and all those other slippery words like 'smoothed by'. All those words are traces of potential tampering with the interpreation through the use of possibly flawed modeling. Which is why it is but one small piece of the puzzle.
Great decision there, Mike. ;)
Also, it looks as if severe weather might impact my area tonight into this morning, although judging by the current conditions and the mesoscale discussion just released from the SPC, I'm not expecting much in the way of any severe weather down here (I live in Ascension Parish, Louisiana). However, if all the ingredients come into play when the sun comes up down here, then I would imagine some of the storms could reach the severe category, especially with dewpoints in the low to mid 60s.
Eastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana needs to look out though. If anyone here lives in those areas, be prepared for a possible weather watch, along with some possibly damaging winds and some hail.
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As of 0600 AM UTC, Tropical Disturbance, Ex Celina [999 hPa] located near 22.1S 55.5E or 75 kms south of the coast of Reunion has 10 min sustained winds of 25 knots with gusts up to 35 knots. The former depression is reported as moving west-northwest at 10 knots.
Dvorak Intensity: T2.0
Gale Force Winds
================
30 NM radius from the center
90 NM from the center in southern semi-circle
Additional Information
======================
This weak intensity system is tracking south of Reunion Island. The track is west-northwestward over the last hours due to the rebuilding subtropical high pressures. It should keep an intensity close to its actual stage during the next days in a neutral environment with strongest winds located in the southern semi-circle.
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TROPICAL CYCLONE 05R ALERT NUMBER EIGHT - ISSUED AT 6:00 AM UTC
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As of 0600 AM UTC, Tropical Depression [996 hPa] located near 16.0S 82.8E or 2895 kms east of the coast of Reunion has 10 min sustained winds of 30 knots with gusts up to 45 knots. The depression is reported as moving south-southeast at 6 knots.
Dvorak Intensity: T2.5
Gale Warning Area
=====================
30 NM radius from the center
90 NM from the center in southern semi-circle
Forecast and Intensity
========================
12 HRS: 17.0S 84.2E - 30 knots (Depression Tropicale)
24 HRS: 18.0S 85.7E - 25 knots (Perturbation Tropicale)
Additional Information
======================
The system has tracked south-southeastward over the last hours. Environment is not favorable for intensification and the system should keep on tracking towards the southern latitudes becoming extratropical. Strong winds mainly exist in the southern semi-circle due to the gradient with the subtropical ridge.
Atlantic View of Madeira Island, Portugal
There's a saying, "One swallow doth not a summer make".
In the midst of all the cheering and booing, we need to remember that global warming is a MACRO trend whose effects are to be measured in the centuries, not the annums, as the writer of that article posted by lin (165. lindenii 8:00 PM EST on December 19, 2007) seems to suggest. I don't think an increase in hurricanes or cold snaps in any given year can reasonably be considered evidence for OR against global warming. Lin's article also shows a fearfully ethnocentric US bias as well as some potentially faulty reasoning; telling me that no storms hit the US, for example, is not evidence that global warming isn't occuring.
I'd love someone to prove that GW isn't taking place. However, I'm not any likelier to believe GW antagonists who are talking foolishness than I am to believe GW proponents who are talking foolishness.
Great shots! Especially the Miranda one with the storm clouds . . .
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