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).