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: