Lost of Rain...

On Monday, News Channel 15 (WICD) interviewed me about the recent heavy rains across central Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Iowa. It was a fairly short interview but at least I made it on TV.

The main causes for the heavy spring rains area:
1. Stronger than normal and more amplified jet stream (deeper troughs and stronger ridges). This has made it cool in the west and warm in the east (recent east coast heat wave).
2. A stationary front has been a persistent feature across the Midwest. This front serves as the lifting mechanism the air needs to rise, cool and condense to make clouds and precipitation
3. Strong high pressure over the southeast US and western Atlantic brings what meteorologists call "return flow" to the Midwest, which is southerly winds on the western side of the surface high pressure system that pump moisture rich air from the Gulf of Mexico up into the central states.
4. The above three processes have been a persistent feature in the weather patters for nearly 30 days.

Below are 3 images that show the Doppler radar observed precip amounts (inches), the departure from normal (inches) and the percentage of normal (%). These images report that Champaign - Urbana and surrounding areas have seen over 10 inches of rain which is nearly 500% of the normal amount of rainfall for these last 30 days. Check out this image from the NWS office in Lincoln. The Hydrologic Information Center has also released and interesting article reporting river flooding across the midwest.


NOAA released a report last week that found March-May to be one of the wettest March-May periods on record in the Midwest. At the same time, this years preliminary tornado count is incredibly high and setting records as well! What a fun season!

Parkersburg, IA EF-5 Tornado

This post is way overdue seeing that this tornado was 10 days ago, but on May 25, 2008, an EF-5 tornado ripped through the small town of Parkersburg, IA. This is only the 2nd EF-5 ranked tornado since the new Enhanced Fujita Scale was released in Feb. 2007 and is only the 3rd "5" ranked tornado on both the EF-scale and F-scale since May 3, 1999. Pictures of this tornado are all over the web, but I would like for you to watch these really awesome videos captured by CCTV from a bank. They are pretty amazing. Their YouTube addresses can be found here and here.

2008 Hurricane Season: NOAA New Release

Just today (May 22, 2008) NOAA released its 2008 hurricane season forecast in this news article. The article states that there is a 90% chance of a normal season to above normal season. As a reminder, normal is around 10 named storms (these are tropical cyclones that reach "Tropical Storm" strength (sustained 39 mph winds)) with 6 of those becoming hurricanes (sustained winds of 74 mph or greater) and 2 of those becoming major hurricanes (Cat 3 or greater on the Saffir Simpson scale).

The outlook for 2008 suggests there could be 12-16 named storms, 6-9 hurricanes and 2-5 major hurricanes. The article stresses that this is simply a prediction. Also, this prediction does not tell us how many tropical cyclones will hit U.S. shores (that is impossible to know).



Just for comparison sake, I checked out what Bill Gray at CSU is calling for this hurricane season. His April 2008 forecast suggests 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes. He also suggests that the entire U.S. coastline has an above average risk for being struck compared the the 20th century mean.

Why will the season be so active?
1. We are in the middle of the peak in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (1, 2), which simply means we are in a period where sea surface temperatures and wind speeds are favorable for tropical cyclone development.

2. The moderately strong La Nina what brought cooler weather this winter to the easter half of the US, soaking rains to the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys and a great snow season to the west will also help hurricanes out over the Atlantic this fall. Research has shown that strong vertical wind shear is typically associated El Nino conditions. Strong vertical wind shear is bad for hurricane development because it 1. spreads out the latent heating occurring due to cloud production which needs to be concentrated over for hurricane development and 2. upsets the large-scale vortex of the hurricane. La Nina conditions often produce much weaker vertical wind shear = good for hurricane development.

2008 Tornado Season - well above average

I took a look this morning at the 2008 preliminary tornado reports and the really active season we started off with has continued. Of course the Feb. 5-6 "Super Tuesday" outbreak is the main highlight of the season but I am impressed that the pattern has stayed so active. Below is a graph that has the number of reported tornadoes (y-axis) plotted against date (x-axis). Compare this year to recent years and a 10-year average. This data is provided by the SPC.


So far Missouri leads with 112 reports of tornadoes, with Mississippi following with 109 and Arkansas with 89. Just as a side note, Mississippi isn't considered to be in the traditional tornado alley, yet it leads historically in the number of deaths per state.

Finally, the five most active days, as far as severe weather reports are concerned are as follows (source: SPC):

1	02/05/08	527
2	05/10/08	467
3	01/07/08	333
4	03/04/08	331
5	01/29/08	309

Notice how four of these dates are actually before or during the very early part of "thunderstorm season".

Einstein Letter on God ($404,000)

I came across an interesting article in the NYTimes last week. Einstein wrote a letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind in 1954 briefly describing his religious viewpoints primarily regarding Judaism. The letter reportedly sold for $404,000 to an unidentified buyer.

Although the article suggests Einstein "lost his religion at the age of 12" and that Einstein is clearly "agnostic" and not a proponent of intelligent design, he clearly battled with the idea. Other famous quotes of his make it seem that he recognizes an ultimate designer. For example:

"... We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

A copy of the letter is seen in the image below and the text can be found here.


In the end, he is dead and he has all of his questions answered. I hope he found the "simple equation" that unifies it all. (not to be read sarcastically).

Plug-in Hybrids - the car of tomorrow - for real!

I first heard of the "plug-in hybrid" car about 8 months ago and I have to admit it is a really great idea. A "plug-in hybrid" is a car that has two power systems, one that is completely electric and charged both by regenerative breaking and a standard 110v outlet at home and the other which is a standard gas-electric hybrid engine. Essentially one could charge their car overnight and drive about 40-100 miles on a single charge with zero emissions. If driving requires distances beyond 40-100 miles, the gas-electric hybrid system kicks in and you can drive as long as you have gasoline (e.g., Toyota Prius, Honda Insight etc.). In my opinion this will be the car everyone will want buy by 2010. I will buy one...

Benefits:
1. Incredible gas mileage. Nearly all drivers travel less that 40 miles per day and with the "plug-in hybrid" this could be done with zero emissions with gas mileage approaching infinity.

2. The electric system has fewer moving parts = less wear and tear, easier to maintain and lasts longer.

3. Even if you have to use the car as a traditional hybrid, you will still get outstanding gas mileage (30-70 mpg).

4. They will dramatically reduce our country's need for imported foreign oil. Even though transportation accounts for about 20-30% of our countries use of foreign oil, there will be a lessened dependence on oil from the "tumultuous" regions of our world. Also, people will no longer complain about $125/barrel and $4/gallon prices. This also makes 40 or so years of easily attainable oil last longer (the 40-year estimate made using current know oil supply and current consumption rates - verified by BP's Chief Scientist.)

Drawbacks:
1. There will be a switch on where the energy comes from to move these cars from combustible gasoline (an oil byproduct) to electricity generated mainly from coal/oil burning power plants. Seeing that only a small fraction of our country's power generation comes from nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind and other renewable resources, if there is a major shift to plug-in hybrids or even electric cars, the demand for this power will go up. Seeing that coal is our most abundant fossil fuel (and Illinois has a ridiculous amount of it), we will certainly burn MUCH more of it. THE BAD PART: coal releases twice as much carbon as gasoline!! Ultimately, switching to cars powered by electricity MAY increase the global amounts of CO₂, by switching which fossil fuel we burn to get power. If you are unfamiliar with the effects of increased CO₂ in our atmosphere, please see my presentation on global climate change.

2. What will this mean for the government mandate on ethanol in the current gas supply? Ethanol has already fallen out of the lime light as an alternative to gasoline simply because we can not produce enough of it to make a dent in our needs. It was never a good idea in my opinion... It has made several farmers very rich, but I would sell my ethanol stocks (if I had them...) because prices are sure to fall. Also, if any of you have been to the grocery store lately you will see the effects of the shift in selling of our grains to ethanol vs. food production (although remember that only a small fraction of the corn you see in the fields is for human consumption).

3. How many years will it take for these cars to become the majority on the roads? Will something more dramatic happen before then?

4. How expensive will it be to maintain the battery system?

On a side note, Nissan will be releasing an electric car into the U.S. and Japanese domestic markets in 2010. Below is a pic of the car and here is a link to the article.

Adaptation brings change, proactive measures are futile...

"I'm So Happy" - Miguel Salazar Franco

Miguel has requested that I remove this post.

Cyclone Nargis: Devistation in Myanmar

Nargis, a female Indian name, was an intense Cyclone (hurricane) that tracked up the Bay of Bengal Monday and Tuesday of this week. It turned east and slammed into Myanmar (formerly Burma) packing a 12-foot storm surge and 130 mph winds making it a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

As a side note - the Bay of Bengal played host to the deadliest tropical cyclone in recent history, the Bhola Cyclone of 1970 (Wikipedia has a great summary of this cyclone). Over 500,000 lost their lives in Bangladesh.

As of right now the death toll has climbed to 22,000. This will be the largest hurricane fatality count since Mitch (1) in 1998, which hit Honduras killing some 9000. (To this date, 9000 are still missing in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala.) The U.S. wants to send help, but the ruling government of Myanmar won't allow it right now. Read more in this article from the Telegraph (UK). Watch this NYTimes video. Check out this Timesonline article.

Below are two images. First is a MODIS image of the Cyclone over the Bay of Bengal. The second is the track of the storm.

Iron Man

I decided not to chase on Friday as the best storms were setting up further south than I wanted to drive in one day. Check out the storm reports, over 60 reported tornadoes.

I attended an awards banquet on Saturday, which was very nice. I was awarded the "Outstanding Teacher of Freshman Award" for 2008. It was funny that the Vice Chancellor, who was the main speaker for the event, was in Alaina and I's dance classes. Since we were in a ballroom for the ceremony, I asked the Chancelor to dance, which she wisely declined...

I saw Iron Man yesterday. Great movie. Good casting, great story - a rare combination as of late when it comes to comic book movies. Check out what IMDB has to say about it.

I found this awesome movie that shows flight patterns across the US every day. Amazing how many flights there are.

Finally I get to chase...

Although I am going to have until wait later today to make the final decision, after my last exam I plan on heading down toward Effingham, IL . I'll wait there so I can take 70 E-W or 57 N-S depending on where the best surface moisture is and where the winds best are at the surface. (Although at 6:30AM, when I am making this decision, I am bound to change my location.)I CANT WAIT!!! Be sure to check in on the SPC and watch the radar. Below is the generic NWS graphic for today.

Suffolk, VA Tornado: 200+ injured

Last night (Monday April 28th) there was a nice Supercell that preceded an MCS that passed through Suffolk and Norfolk, VA. Looking at the damage, this was probably an EF-3 (but we will have to wait for the official NWS report to know if the winds were in the 136-165 mph range.) Here is a link to a NYTimes article that talks about it and below is a radar image that I annotated to explain what a radar meteorologist might see when storms like this occur. Looking at the pics of the cars being thrown around in the NYTimes article suggests EF-3 winds (EF-2 tornadoes can't do that).

Greenhouse Gases: Who's Contributing in the US?

Check out this plot provided by "Project Vulcan" at Purdue University. It shows carbon production from power generation facilities in the US. The units are in millions of tonnes of carbon per facility per year. It is interesting to see that California, with nearly 40 million people, produces less than Illinois. Remember though that Illinois has a ridiculous amount of coal that the US wants us to extract and burn (and that we have more nuclear power plants than any other state too...I think), while California gets in energy from many diverse sources - coal being the least of these.

March 2008: Cold for US - Record setting for the world

NOAA released an online article on April 17, 2008 reporting that March 2008 was rather chilly in the US as it was an average of 0.4C below the 20th century mean. Combine that with a record amount of rainfall in the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys and you have a pretty miserable month... However, globally, March 2008 was the warmest March on record!

Below is a map that shows the rank of each state with respect to the wettest and driest months (114 = wettest, 1 = driest). Cape Girardeau, MO has had its wettest month on record at just a bit over 17" of rain (typically Cape Girardeau only receives 45-50" in an average year.

I'm Back! Are electric cars the future of transportation?

With the semester coming to a close I finally have some time to get back to some of my hobbies. I ran across this article today about the eventual mass production of electric cars and probable sales in the US. A car company in Norway (that used to be owned by Ford) is planning on releasing the car into the North American market (as are a few other electric car manufactures).

"The battery-powered Think City will be able to travel up to 110 miles on a single charge, with a top speed of about 65 mph, the company said. It will be priced below $25,000."

Check out the LA Times article:

Plowed...

I had to teach about lake effect snow this morning and right before class i found this clip on the web. I laughed my head off as did my students - click here to have a good laugh.

record year for tornadoes

so far we are at 291 through Feb 14! We should only be at about 60. Also we can add to this 53 more from the Feb 15-18, 2008 winter storm for a grand total of 344. Check out this graph that shows the tornado count for this year compared to recent years and climatology provided by the SPC.

Breathing Room

I finally found some time to post a couple of pics. This semester I have been ridiculously busy and I had to push a few things aside, one of which is this blog. But I found sometime this monday morning to post a couple of fun pics.

The first is from the County Market in Urbana. Read the sign closely.

The second is from the sleet we had early this morning.

Cold Front!!!

Temps toady in C-U will climb into the mid 50s ahead a strong cold front. Around 5PM tonight our temps will take a huge dive in the single digits! The possibility exits for severe storms before the front and snow after - check out this image from the NWS. Here is our local forecast. Watch the radar.

Then again on Thursday night we might get hammered with a winter storm! Whooohooo!

I am still alive

I know I fell of the face of the earth recently but things have been ridiculously busy. I have put in 70 hour weeks for the last 2 weeks and haven't had much time to blog. In the meantime until I can get a bunch of my pictures up (and I have a ton of great ones to show) here is a link to some of the pics I took while I was in New Orleans.

Article on a recent talk I gave at U of I on the use 3-D satellite imagery in the classroom

I was invited last fall to give a talk in the "Brown Bag" seminar series put on by CITES EdTech here at UIUC. They recently wrote an article about my talk and it is available on their main page. The talk was about the classes I teach here at U of I with a special focus on the use of 3-D satellite imagery in my lectures. They have also included a video of my talk. Below is one of the images I showed of the wildfires in California from last year (not in 3-D).

"Texas is the world's seventh biggest polluter "

I got a kick out of this article in the Telegraph (UK)...

"In 2003, Texas pumped 670 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - more than countries including Britain and more than that of California and Pennsylvania, the second and third-ranking US states - put together."

NASA says 2nd warmest (hmm...)

A report released yesterday by NASA's Godard Institute for Space Studies says 2007 was the second warmest on record around the world. I'm not sure why this contradicts with NOAA's report, but here is a link to a pretty interesting video they created about global temperatures. Here is the article where most of the images in this video come from.
Below are two images that show the global temperature change based on a 1951-1980 mean (e.g., what is considered "0" on these graphs). On the left are temperature changes as a function of year and on the right is the 2007 global map of surface temperature anomalies (differences from the 1951-1980 mean)

Sunrise on Cirrus. NOAA - 2007 10th warmest on record

Took this pic this morning while walking into work at about 7:35AM. Last time we'll see the sun today and tomorrow as clouds and snow build in. We will probably see about an inch in C-U but places to our north and west - especially southwestern Wisconsin will see much more. Watch the radar.

In other news... NOAA released a statement today announcing that 2007 was the 10th warmest year on record in the US and 5th warmest world wide. Thats pretty amazing considering that April and December of 2007 were so cold in the US! Check out the article.

Mid January Winter Storm

snowfall totals are expected to reach 7-9" in parts of Iowa, Northern Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Snow should start tomorrow night and last through Thursday. Might see and inch or so in C-U.

Are five limes ever necessary?

Had a great weekend (except that I had to work a lot). Friday night Alaina and I got together with Sarah and Sarah (LP) and Matt for thai before we met up with Mike and Jason to see Juno at the art theater. Juno is awesome by the way. While at dinner, the waiter poured each of us water with a pitched with about 5 lime slices in it. As he poured, none of the lime slices came out until he poured Sarah (LP)'s glass and she got them all. It was funny enough to take a pic.

On Saturday, I started off the say helping a friend pour his driveway at his new house. Then I worked for a while. Around 1PM we headed over to my cousin Melina's to celebrate her 25th b-day. Finally, we celebrated my dad's retirement (which will only last for 2 days) by eating at Alexanders Steakhouse. Saw this sunset from east Urbana. The Illini lost on Sunday but nearly beat Indiana. I think the tide is changing for them. Classes start this week and the I will be in New Orleans next week - so things will be crazy for a while.

150 MPG ... check out this SUV

Watch this CNN video on a new "extreme hybrid" that gets 150 mpg.

India: $2500 car "Nano"

check out this article on the new car released in India earlier this week. It is a $2500, 30 hp, 54 mpg go-cart, and it will sell like crazy.

Another energy solution

Check out this article in the Telegraph (from the UK). Below are a couple of pics of the huge open ocean energy generation facility. This station uses several different energy sources including solar energy, wind energy and turbines that are driven by boiling ammonia. Very cool idea - hope the world is ready to be weened off of oil...

January 7, 2008 - 30 torndoes so far...

Active night across Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Michigan. So far there have been 30 reports of tornadoes and luckily only one injury. Also, Missouri saw baseball sized hail. Below are a couple of animations that show how the severe storms missed C-U (click on the bottom two images to see the animations).

3 Tornado Watches In January

As the system pulls off to the east, storms are firing along the cold front. Watch the current radar. Below is the current watches and warnings map.

So far there have been 5 Tornado reports but no injuries or deaths.

Chasing storms in January?

Well, I am hoping that I might have a chance to get out today to chase some storms! Things look favorable to our south. As a second low begins to develop in western Illinois really late this evening, surface winds will "back" giving rise to a better wind shear profile. Let's hope!
Below is the latest SPC (Storm Prediction Center) convective outlook.

Also, I had a three co-author (1) (2) (3) publications come out this for RICO.

Deep Surface Low Pressure

The major winter storm slamming into the west and dropping feet of snow in the Sierra might set a record for lowest surface pressure in an extra-tropical cyclone (1) (2) (fancy name for low-pressure system) measured in the united states. If it maintains its current central pressure of 958 mb it will break the old record of 960 mb set in March of 1993 (The Storm of the Century (1) (2) (3)). It will also be stronger than "The Perfect Storm" of October 1991.

Although this is deep, extra-tropical cyclones frequently get this strong over the open Northern Atlantic and Pacific but rarely maintain such strength as they move on land. The record for lowest surface pressure in the Atlantic was set by category 5 Hurricane Wilma (1) (2) in 2005 at 882 mb and the record for lowest surface pressure in the Pacific was set by Super typhoon Tip in 1979 at 870 mb (Tip was also largest tropical cyclone ever).

The image below is a map of mean sea level pressure. The deep low-pressure system off the coast of Washington is the current storm that will be bringing 3-6 feet of snow to the Sierra and Cascade Mts. Check out this NWS page for all of the blizzard warnings! With such a deep low-pressure center in the west and a strong 1040 mb high-pressure center in the southeast, C-U will get strong winds out of the south due to the clockwise circulation around the high. This means a huge warm up over the weekend but it will be wet!

Major Winter Storm in the West

Blizzard Warnings Galore!!! Watch the radar and the NWS for updates. If you are interested, follow the current GFS runs as well. I think its great that they are telling people not to drive through the Sierra passes. The really cool thing about it is with a deep trough over the west, the central states will see a nice mid-winter thaw with temps in C-U expected to climb into the 50s this weekend.

Go Illini!

Although the Illini had a tough week, losing at home in basketball to a crappy team and then struggling at the Rose Bowl, I am optimistic that we will bounce back! Got a game tomorrow night against Ohio State, which my cousin Jordan will be going to. I am pretty pumped to show him assembly hall. Hope we shoot as well as we did this night... (see below)

Here is my mom and I enjoying a great game against Loyola (MD).

It's wet

Pretty dull day around here. I am once again the only person at work (3 days in a row). I have no choice though if I want to be prepared for next semester. Below is a pic I took of some of the rain dripping off of the trees outside of my window.

Christmas 2007

Christmas was fantastic! Great time with friends and family. Below are a couple of pics I wanted to pass along (click on the images to see a larger version).

Here is Alaina with our new niece, Lyliann on Christmas day.



Lauryn and I at "Amber Jacks" restaurant.



Grandpa's Flag on Christmas Day.



Sunset on Christmas evening in Chapin, IL.



The Snodgrass'.

WINTER STORM and gusty winds!

After yesterday's major winter storm, which dumped large amounts of snow across Iowa, Missouri and Kansas and brought a 32F temperature drop as the cold front passed through central Illinois, I wonder who is going to have a white Christmas? Below are two maps. The first is a meteogram that monitors temperature, dewpoint temperature, pressure, wind speed and direction and precip type against time for the time period when the front passed through Champaign, IL. We had wind gusts in Springfield, IL up to 57 mph and C-U had wind gusts reaching 51 mph. At one time, the temperature in Jacksonville, IL was 26F, the temperature in Springfield, IL was 36F and the temperature in Decatur, IL was 52F. Pretty impressive cold front! The second in a map made by Intellicast that shows todays snow cover and depth. Monitor snow cover across the US here.

Our Christmas Tree

here is a quick pic of our tree this year.

Undecided on the snow

Model's are still "out to lunch" on the track of the low. Looks like it will be another "wait and see" scenario. Below is the latest NWS graphic.