Largest winter storm of the season helping dent Midwest drought
The largest snowstorm of the winter for the Midwest drought region is winding up, and promises to bring more than a foot of snow to portions of Kansas and Nebraska. Rain and snow from the storm--dubbed Winter Storm "Q"--will put a noticeable dent in the Great Drought of 2012 - 2013 over the Midwest. A second storm due to move through the region on Monday will provide a bit of additional help. The twin storms promise to drop more than an inch of rain (or liquid equivalent rain, for regions like Kansas and Nebraska getting heavy snow.) Many areas of the drought region should enjoy their their wettest day in months on Thursday. The core drought region in the Midwest needs 3 - 9 inches of precipitation to end the drought, so the 1" of precipitation expected from the two storms will merely dent the drought, not end it. Still, the economic value of the rain and snow from the two storms is in the billions of dollars. In addition, runoff from the storms will insure that barge traffic on the Mississippi River will be able to operate well into summer. The Mississippi River at St. Louis is currently about 7' above the lowest water level on record, up over six feet from the near record-low levels of early January.
Figure 1. Predicted precipitation for the 5-day period ending Monday, February 25 at 7 pm EST. The core Midwest drought region is expected to get about an inch of precipitation. Since this region needs 3 - 9 inches of precipitation to end the drought, this coming week's rain and snow will take them at least 10% towards that goal. Image credit: NOAA/HPC.
Figure 2. The amount of precipitation needed to bring the contiguous U.S. out of long-term drought conditions (raise the long-term Palmer Drought Severity Index, PDSI, above -0.5) shows that the core drought region in the Midwest needs 3 - 9 inches of precipitation to end the drought. Image credit: NOAA/Climate Prediction Center.
Drought-busting rains coming for Georgia and Alabama; flooding now a concern
Heavy rains last week in Alabama and Georgia helped give that region no areas of exceptional drought for the first time since January 10, 2012. Another 3 - 8 inches of rain is expected during the next five days, which will help bust the multi-year drought that has affected the area. Flash flooding will even be a concern, particularly on Tuesday. However, as noted in the latest NOAA seasonal drought outlook, "any recovery will occur very slowly, as it will take time for any increased rainfall to chip away at the large moisture deficits that have accumulated over the course of a multi-year drought."
Figure 3. NOAA's February 21 Seasonal Drought Outlook calls for drought to persist over at least 60% of the U.S. drought area through the end of May, with new areas of drought developing over the Southwest U.S. and Florida. However, significant improvement is expected in the Southeast and Upper Midwest.
Drought expected to continue into the summer
The area of the contiguous U.S. covered by drought remained unchanged this week at 56%, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report. NOAA's February 21 Seasonal Drought Outlook calls for drought to persist over at least 60% of the U.S. drought area through the end of May, with new areas of drought developing over the Southwest U.S. and Florida; significant improvement is expected in the Southeast and Upper Midwest, though. After Monday's storm, the GFS and European (ECMWF) models predict that the jet stream will return to the pattern it was in for the first six weeks of 2013, meaning that precipitation-bearing storms will continue to miss the Midwest through at least the first week of March. Given that this jet stream pattern has been very persistent for many months, it's a good bet that drought will be a huge concern as we enter summer. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center predicts an increased chance of drier than average conditions over southwestern portions of the drought region during the coming three months. In general, droughts are more likely in the Midwest U.S. when warmer than average ocean temperatures prevail in the tropical Atlantic, with cooler than average ocean temperatures in the tropical Eastern Pacific (La Niña-like conditions.) This is what we have had so far in 2013. The equatorial tropical Pacific was about 0.3°C below average (as of February 18). This is similar to the ocean temperatures seen in the spring of 2012, just before the Great Drought of 2012 began.
Drought links:
My post on Lessons from 2012: Droughts, not Hurricanes, are the Greater Danger discussed how drought is our greatest threat from climate change.
Ricky Rood blogs about the Dust Bowl
Jeff Masters
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Link
IIRC these look really cool in the daytime and make clouds to interesting-looking things.
Too bad it only served to wake up me and the dog.
WOOOOSH.
I only remember one significant gravity wave,
in April 2009 after a rainy period. I remember the new leaves had come out on the trees a few weeks before, and it had rained overnight, (we had maybe 1 or 2 severe thunderstorm warnings) and then around 7-8am, a strong sustained 45-55 mph wind from the northwest blew for what seemed like an hour.
The wind came from the NW GA and S TN mountains, and gusted over 60mph at times. The combination of wet trees and leaves, dense foliage, and moist soils, resulted in numerous downed trees and power lines.
The winds actually ripped away some of the docks from Lake Lanier and tore boats away from their ropes.(quite a mess to fix, one of my friends even had to go recover his boat from the middle of the lake and tow it back to a different dock)
It was awesome to watch, it was like an extended severe thunderstorm, and with all the leaves and trees blowing, it was quite noisy too.
We lost power though, due to stupid pine trees that cant stand up to a 50mph wind gust.
A severe drought leading up to that also had damaged or weakened many tree root systems, aiding in their fall.
I've always wanted to see one again.
Hmm, Pottery, where did you get this from? For sure there is heavy rain in the whole region, yesterday causing havoc in Athens. But despite a quite strange water accident with a bus yesterday (see below) in Istanbul I couldn't find any informations about flooding in Istanbul with a lot of casualties right now on European news (and Twitter as well). But maybe we are just slow ;-)
BTW Site with a collection of very good and quick live webcams from Istanbul (but it's getting dark now)
http://www.ibb.gov.tr/en-US/Organization/Municipa lHistory/Pages/Live_City_View_in_Istanbul.aspx
Edit: That's about the accident in Istanbul, I'm not sure whether someone died (I think nobody).
Turkish Bus Flood Video: Passengers Avoid Drowning By Breaking Windows
The Huffington Post | By Ron Dicker Posted: 02/21/2013 6:56 pm EST | Updated: 02/21/2013 6:56 pm EST
The freak accident unfolded Tuesday afternoon when the bus collided with an 18-wheel truck, then struck a water valve, GMT said. The bus quickly filled with pressurized water as surrounding businesses and homes were evacuated.
FLASH FLOOD WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HONOLULU HI
547 AM HST FRI FEB 22 2013
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN HONOLULU HAS ISSUED A
* FLASH FLOOD WARNING FOR...
THE ISLAND OF OAHU IN HONOLULU COUNTY
* UNTIL 845 AM HST
* AT 542 AM HST...A GAGE ON WAIKANE STREAM SHOWED A RAPID RISE
IN WATER LEVEL FROM HEAVY RAIN NEAR HAUULA...OR ABOUT 16 MILES
NORTH OF HONOLULU. THE AREA OF HEAVY RAIN WAS NEARLY STATIONARY.
* OTHER LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO
PUNALUU AND LAIE.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A FLASH FLOOD WARNING MEANS FLASH FLOODING IS IMMINENT OR OCCURRING
IN STREAMS...ROADS AND LOW LYING AREAS. MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND NOW.
DO NOT CROSS FAST FLOWING OR RISING WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE OR ON FOOT.
TURN AROUND...DON/T DROWN.
&&
THIS WARNING MAY NEED TO BE EXTENDED BEYOND 845 AM HST IF FLASH
FLOODING PERSISTS.
LAT...LON 2158 15811 2168 15790 2142 15770 2139 15797
$$
HOUSTON
BBC News website, today.
OOOOPSS !!
I was looking at related Vids.
It's ATHENS, today. Sorry.
Houston, we have a problem:
I used to work in Bonifay........Take care out there.
Yes, you did --- you used to work with me in Bonifay!
i'm jealous...that's a lot of snow.
fixed
I'm jealous of Wichita getting 14.2", now that is a lot of snow. 1-3" is nothing, but still I have to go out and shovel right now.
O.K. Thank you, I'm relieved for Istanbul :-)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21544991
In Athens unfortunately one young woman died because of a heart attack, when her car was swept away. I don't know whether it's the women on the pic.
Well they might want to revise that, heavy rain with thunderstorms are headed this way, I can already here some pretty loud thunder.
I also think higher QPF should be expanded further south and east. I think we will see more rain than depicted here.
* FLOOD WARNING FOR
THE LEAF NEAR MCLAIN
* FROM MONDAY AFTERNOON UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
* AT 10AM FRIDAY THE STAGE WAS...16.1 FEET
* MINOR FLOODING IS FORECAST
* FLOOD STAGE IS 18 FEET
* FORECAST TO RISE ABOVE FLOOD STAGE BY SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND CONTINUE TO RISE TO
NEAR 18.5 FEET BY MONDAY MORNING.
* AT 18 FEET, CONSIDERABLE LOWLAND AND AGRICULTURAL FLOODING WILL OCCUR.
$$
Lol......Take care.
It sure is! It is already raining here at a pretty good clip with plenty of thunder rumbling in the distance. We probably will get more than expected. The PW map shows the front has progressed a bit further southeast than forecast.
With that said, as another wave of low pressure develops along the front, it shift lift back northwest some later tonight more towards the forecast of heaviest precip. Therefore, I'm not saying the forecast is bust for those areas by any means, their best chance at heavy rain is still yet to come.
However, because the front has initially progressed further southeast, that's good for Tallahassee because rain is going to be heavier here today than expected before the front is expected to focus rain back towards the western panhandle, which is what the models are showing.
Our best chances of all come later this weekend in a couple of events, one later tomorrow into tomorrow night, and another Sunday night into Monday.
Tallahassee NWS (in your building at the Met School) addressed that in their outlook yesterday; possible adjustment for higher pops if the front drifted a little further South.......Looks like it did and we were/are in the warm sector this morning with the moist Gulf flow and fog. Good thing the rain shield has kept the instability down so far.
Yep! They notice forecast errors in the models and get on changes fast, which is good!
Unfortunately the radar is down right now, so we'll have to use the fringes of the one further west, or the one to the north.
The first image shows a EF3 tornado 5 miles to SE from me on April 16, 2011... too close for me!
Yep! You are correct, its been a very stubborn pattern for a long time now.
What happens then as a result is when there is finally enough energy to get fronts through Florida so far this weekend, the frontal system uses most of its energy just eroding the ridge, leaving not much energy left for convective sustenance.
Most of the upper energy need to support strong convective systems will slide northeast to take a path of least resistance around the strong ridge.
3rd image produced a tornado that killed all my friends horses.....really upset her.
But the storm was amazing, I barely escaped the southern part of it to get back home.
And then got missed by every other supercell.
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