Monday’s Weather Quiz Answer

 

Golfer Sergio Garcia is nicknamed “El Nino”.

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4:30 Promo

I think we need more fist pumps…

Today Show and Us

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Cold Front Tuesday

 

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Monday’s Weather Quiz

Stormy Case – Football
Sergio Garcia – Golf
Toro Tanaka – Wrestling
Luis Angel Landin – Dynamo Soccer

Here is your chance to win a dozen donuts from Shipley’s and a weather quiz t-shirt. Text in your answer to 88995 before 4pm.

Good luck!

Monday’s Weather Quiz Answer

 

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Leonid Meteor Shower

The Leonid Meteor Shower peaks tonight and tomorrow night. Conditions will be close to ideal because it comes during the New Moon, and we’ll also have clear skies in southeast Texas. Observers normally can see 20 to 30 meteors per hour at the peak, but rates could spike considerably this year.

These meteors started out as tiny specks of dust and debris ejected by Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle during its countless trips around the Sun. Over time, these particles spread out along the comet’s orbit. Every November, Earth passes through this stream of dust.

The particles hit our atmosphere and vaporize because of friction with the air. This produces the streaks of light in the sky we call meteors. If you trace all the shower’s meteor paths backward, they appear to emanate from the constellation Leo the Lion (hence the name Leonid).

Astronomers predict that we should enjoy enhanced meteor rates November 17, most likely between about 12:30 a.m. CST and sunrise. Another rate increase — with numbers reaching 500 meteors per hour for brief periods — may happen later that day, timed well for observers across Asia. The higher rates arise because that’s when Earth passes through the thickest part of the debris trail comet Tempel-Tuttle left behind.

Predicting the number of meteors is akin to predicting the number of snowflakes in a storm. Lucky observers could see hundreds of meteors, but unluckier ones might see only a dozen.

But if you’re not outside you’ll miss the whole show.

How to Observe Meteor Showers

Click image for some helpful tips on viewing the Leonids.

What We Have In Common

Lindsey Kern at Michaelyndon near the Galleria cuts all of our hair.  Owen is the odd one out.  This is a question Lauren and Jennifer get asked a lot, me never. 

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Hotshots@click2houston.com

Photo by: Wayne Gosbee, Jasper

Morning fog at Martin Dies State Park

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All weekend long, we talked about coastal flooding for Brazoria and Galveston counties. The waters get like this from the combination of strong easterly and southerly winds piling the water up along the coast, not from rain.

 

Photo by: Norman Bird, San Luis Pass

These were taken Monday, November 9 at 7 a.m. in the Treasure Island subdivision at San Luis Pass.  Tides started coming in around 10:00 last night.

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Hurricane History

I’ve received a lot of questions asking how rare it is to get a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico this late in hurricane season. I researched the past 50 years and found three storms that made it into the Gulf in November. In 1961, Hurricane Inga hung around in the Bay of Campeche before dying out. In 1980, Hurricane Jeanne almost made it to Brownsville, but with the cooler water temperatures the Gulf of Mexico has this time of year, the storm fell apart before hitting Texas. The last time a hurricane hit a Gulf Coast state was in 1985. Hurricane Kate entered as a category 3 storm and weakened to a cat 1 before making land in the Florida Panhandle. Ida is expected to hit close to where Kate hit 24 years ago.

Ida Headed Toward the Gulf?

Hurricane Ida is along the coast of Nicaragua and will weaken significantly if it stays over land.  The big question is, Will Ida be able to keep its circulation as it moves back into the Caribbean Sea?  It is possible that the mountainous terrain of Central America will rip Ida apart.  Rainfall amounts will range from 5 to 25 inches in parts of Nicaragua.

The Caribbean has been untouched this hurricane season and you can see how much warmer the waters are compared to the Gulf of Mexico.  Along the Gulf coastline, temperatures cool quickly.  In 1980, Hurricane Jeanne went into the Gulf and never made land because the cooler water temperatures killed it.

The hurricane models are in fairly good agreement, at least moving Ida into the Gulf.  The one outlier keeps Ida over land.  The strongest hurricane to ever hit the United States in November was category 3 Kate in 1985.  Kate hit Mexico Beach, Florida, in the panhandle November 21.  Since records have been kept, Texas has never been hit by a November storm.

Click here to track Hurricane Ida’s path.

Tropical Storm Ida in the Caribbean

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Tropical Storm Ida formed Wednesday afternoon in the southwestern Caribbean Sea.  As you can see, the models are all over the place, but it doesn’t look like this storm is going to move much the next five days (unless you buy the BAMS Model, which brings the storm towards Louisiana.)  It’s not rare to get a storm in the Caribbean Sea … we are, after all, still in hurricane season.  But Texas has never had a storm make landfall past October 16, and records have been kept since the 1850s.  So a storm headed this way would be extremely rare.  We’ll keep an eye on it for you.

Trick or Treat Forecast

A “Boo”- tiful weekend and it looks clear and ghool for all of our trick or treaters Saturday night.  Justweather.com has a chilling look at everything Halloween.  Click here for more:

Freaky Forecast

Flash Flood Watch in Effect Unil 7:00pm

Radar image from 7:40 Monday morning.

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JUST WEATHER

Track Lightning Strikes at Justweather.com

 

Lightning Image from 7:30am Monday.

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Just Weather Lightning

to see where lightning is striking.

How Much Rain Did You Get?

 

Photo by: Kenny Whittenburgh, Galveston

Ferry Road and Harborside

To get the exact amount at your house click the image:

Be a Part of the United States Weather Team

The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) organizes volunteers in communities throughout the United States to collect and measure precipitation — rain, hail and snow — in their communities. Citizen volunteers are trained how to measure precipitation using a rain gauge and hail pad, record their data and report their measurements online. Data collected by volunteers complements observations made by the National Weather Service and is used by local meteorologists, researchers, emergency managers, farmers, outdoor enthusiasts, teachers and others.

Sign up to become a Volunteer Observer or Local Volunteer Coordinator with CoCoRaHS Texas to help this network grow. You can volunteer as an individual or as part of a community or school group. All of the training and equipment is provided by the network.  Check out www.cocorahs.org to learn more.

Ask Anthony – What Does a 30% Chance of Rain Mean?

Hello Mr. Yanez.

I am currently a AP Stats student at Cinco Ranch High School, and right now we’re studying probability. Given that statement and the subject of this e-mail you might be able to guess where this is headed.

Exactly what do rain percentages tell us? If there is a 40% chance of rain, does that mean that 40% of the viewing area will receive rain, or that there is a 40% chance that any given location will get rained on?

I asked my teacher if he had any issues with weather men and their probability of rain, and he said that he would like to call one up and ask them to clarify. I’m sort of taking the liberty for him.

Likewise, if there is a 20% chance of rain in the morning and a 20% chance of rain in the afternoon, does that mean the chance of rain the entire day (morning AND afternoon) would be 4%? (.2 x .2 = .04) Or am I over-complicating things?

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and keep up the good work!

~Scott

Hi Scott,

Honestly I hate using percentages in the forecast. If this were an exact science we wouldn’t need to, we would simply say it will rain here and be dry here. Of course we are still limited in what we know about the weather and forecasting so we use percentages to show how likely it is to rain where you live.

This is how I was taught to use probability of precipitation. If I give a 30% chance of rain for Houston I am saying there is a 3 in 10 chance you will get wet. The 30% does not express how much rain will fall or how strong the storms will be if you get them. I have to do that separately.

The impression sometimes is a 20% means it will be light rain or not rain at all and this is simply not true. A 20% chance means it much more likely to be dry but definitely not a guarantee. If there are higher rain chances north or south of Houston I will always make a separate map showing the differences. The National Weather Service in Georgia expressed the math like this:

“The “Probability of Precipitation” (PoP) describes the chance of precipitation occurring at any point you select in the area.

PoP = C x A where “C” = the confidence that precipitation will occur somewhere in the forecast area, and where “A” = the percent of the area that will receive measurable precipitation, if it occurs at all.

So… if the forecaster knows precipitation is sure to occur ( confidence is 100% ), he/she is expressing how much of the area will receive measurable rain. ( PoP = “C” x “A” or “1″ times “.4″ which equals .4 or 40%.)

But, most of the time, the forecaster is expressing a combination of degree of confidence and areal coverage. If the forecaster is only 50% sure that precipitation will occur, and expects that, if it does occur, it will produce measurable rain over about 80 percent of the area, the PoP (chance of rain) is 40%. ( PoP = .5 x .8 which equals .4 or 40%. )

In either event, the correct way to interpret the forecast is: there is a 40 percent chance that rain will occur at any given point in the area.”

The last line is key. There is a four in ten chance you’ll get rain where you live.

I have heard other stations say 30% of the area, or there will be 30% coverage, of rain today. I think expressing the forecast like this is wrong. That forecast is basically stating 70% will be dry. What parts of the area will get rain and who will be dry? What happens if all of us get wet, doesn’t it make the forecast wrong? On a day when there is a 10% or 20% chance of rain and it doesn’t rain at all, it again makes the forecast wrong. Philosophically this explanation doesn’t work for me.

To answer your other question a 20% chance of rain in the morning and a 20% chance of rain at noon does not equal a 40% that day. For example, I make an hour by hour forecast that shows:

9am 20%

Noon 20%

5pm 20%

The chance of rain for the day is 20%.

But if I do this:

9am 20%

Noon 20%

5pm 60%

The chance of rain is 60% for the day, what I am saying is the chances to see early rain is very small but the evening looks like the time it would rain.

By the way, Frank Billingsley doesn’t like using percentages either. In fact, a few years back he got rid of using percentages past day three on the forecast. After hundreds of e-mails from people protesting, he put the percentages back on. People love seeing them even though not everyone knows what they mean.

This isn’t a Rainbow

 

Photo by: James Marcum, Galveston

It’s called a circumhorizon arc.  Cirrus clouds are made up of microscopic ice crystals and float 30,000 feet above us. In the summertime when the sun is very high in the sky, around noon, these clouds will reflect and refract light making what some mistake to be a rainbow.  Most times it won’t even be raining. 

Here is a really good web site that explains and shows other types of halos and arcs:

Atmospheric Optics

The Red Rowdies

The Houston Rockets have tryouts for the most passionate fans. The top 50 receive season tickets. Owen I got to judge the competition.

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Photo by: Rande Delaney, Cut N Shoot

An old barn out here in Cut N Shoot. The sky was really wicked between 5ish until dusk, beautiful but wicked, it had swirling clouds and many colors painted the sky.   The lighting was just amazing.

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Samoan Tsunami

This is the aftermath of the tsunami caused by an 8.0 magnitude earthquake.  This image shows the village of Fagasa.  The brown color shows where the tsunami came ashore and made its way inland.

This image shows the city of Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa after the tsunami.  What once was a city park is now brown with mud while debris floats out in the harbor.

This image shows the propagation of the tsunami across the Pacific Ocean.  The epicenter of the quake was near the Samoan Islands and on this map is where the tsunami is the largest (red and orange).  As the tsunami travels across the ocean it slowly dissipates until reaching the ends of the Pacific.  Due to the large scale of this image, it does not represent the wave height at the Samoan Islands which has been recorded as significantly higher than 100 cm.

Race For The Cure Forecast

An almost perfect forecast for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Saturday morning.  Winds will be out of the northeast 5 to 10 mph with cool temperatures, mostly cloudy skies and dry.  If we get rain Saturday it will come in after noon.

Galveston Water Spout

Photo by: John Beisert, Galveston’s North Jetty

7:30 in the morning he is about 2 miles away from the Water Spout

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Houston Flooding

As a result of the 1929 and 1935 floods, Harris County Flood Control District was founded in 1937 to prevent continued public calamity caused by great floods and to construct improvements to control flood waters.

April 1929 - Gulf Storm moved over Houston and Harris County lasting 14 hours. Many areas had rainfall of 10 inches or more. All of the Bayous where out of their Banks.

May 24-31,1929 - The worst flood that anyone could remember just a month after the flood in April closed the Houston Central Water Plant. The San Jacinto River rose 30 feet above normal. Heavy rains over the heads of the drainage basins of Buffalo and White Oak Bayous caused the highest flood since 1879. One person was killed. Port of Houston was damaged.

 

December 1935 – Downtown flooding

According to the Harris County Flood Control District, damage from the 1935 flood totaled nearly $3 million ($41,414,787.72 in today’s dollars) and killed seven people. Twenty-five blocks of downtown Houston were submerged along with 100 residential blocks.

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Allergy Alert!

 

Click image to see the full report.  Ragweed is off the charts with Mold and Grass Heavy.

Australia’s Dust Storms

Winds sweep millions of tons of red dust from Australia’s drought-ravaged interior and dump it on the coast.  The orange sky looked to many like the city was on fire.

This is the Australia Opera House

A wall of dust stretched from northern Queensland to the southern tip of eastern Australia on the morning of September 23, 2009, when NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image. The dust is thick enough that the land beneath it is not visible. The storm, the worst in 70 years, led to canceled or delayed flights, traffic problems, and health issues.  The concentration of particles in the air reached 15,000 micrograms per cubic meter in New South Wales during the storm.  A normal day sees a particle concentration 10-20 micrograms per cubic meter.

Strong winds blew the dust from the interior to more populated regions along the coast. In this image, the dust rises in plumes from point sources and concentrates in a wall along the front of the storm. The large image shows that some of the point sources are agricultural fields, recognizable by their rectangular shape. Australia has suffered from a multiple-year drought, and much of the dust is coming from fields that have not been planted because of the drought.

The Decade’s Strongest Hurricane

 

This collection of images featuring the strongest hurricane, cyclone, or typhoon from any ocean during each year of the past decade includes storms both famous—or infamous—and obscure.

Of the decade’s most powerful storms, two were in the Atlantic/Caribbean basin, five were in the Pacific north of the equator, and three were in the South Pacific.  This is a satellite image of Damrey:

Storm	Date of image	Maximum Wind Speed km/h (mph)	Minimum Pressure millibars	Basin
Damrey	May 9, 2000	290 (180)	878	Western Pacific
Faxai	December 22, 2001	290 (180)	915	Western Pacific
Zoe	December 28, 2002	285 (177)	890	South Pacific
Maemi	September 10, 2003	280 (174)	910	Western Pacific
Chaba	August 23, 2004	290 (180)	879	Western Pacific
Wilma	October 18, 2005	295 (183)	882	Atlantic/Caribbean
Monica	April 24, 2006	285 (177)	905	South Pacific
Dean	August 18, 2007	280 (174)	907	Atlantic/Caribbean
Jangmi	September 27, 2008	260 (162)	905	Western Pacific
Hamish	March 8, 2009	240 (149)	925	South Pacific

Never heard of Damrey?  There is a reason, it didn’t make land, it harmlessly wandered in the Pacific Ocean. 

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