Favorable winds over Japan carrying radioactivity out to sea
If there is going to be a major nuclear disaster with massive release of radioactivity into the atmosphere from Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, today would be the best day meteorologically for this to occur. The low pressure system that brought rain and several inches of snow to Japan yesterday has moved northeastwards out to sea, and high pressure is building in. The clockwise flow of air around the high pressure system approaching Japan from the southwest is driving strong northwesterly winds of 10 - 20 mph over the region. These winds will continue through Thursday, and will take radiation particles emitted by the stricken reactors immediately out to sea, without lingering over Japan. Since high pressure systems are regions of sinking air, the radiation will stay close to the ocean surface as the air spirals clockwise over the Pacific. The contaminated air will remain over the ocean for at least five days, which is plenty of time for the radiation to settle out to the surface.
Figure 1. Surface weather map for 8am EDT today, taken from the 6-hour forecast from this morning's 6 UTC run of the GFS model. A high pressure system to the southwest of Japan, in combination with a low pressure system to the northeast are driving strong northwesterly surface winds over the country. Image is from our wundermap with the "Model" layer turned on. The lines are sea-level pressure (blue contours, 4 mb interval) and 1000 to 500 mb thickness (yellow contours, 60 m interval). Thickness is a measure of the temperature of the lower atmosphere, and a thickness of 5400 meters is usually close to where the dividing line between rain and snow occurs.
Thursday night and Friday morning (U.S. time), the high pressure system moves over Japan, allowing winds to weaken and potentially grow calm, increasing the danger of radioactivity building up over regions near and to the north of the nuclear plant. On Friday, the high departs and a moist southwesterly flow of air will affect Japan. These southwesterly winds will blow most of the radiation out to sea, away from Tokyo. Southwesterly winds will continue through Sunday, when the next major low pressure system is expected to bring heavy precipitation to the country. Beginning Thursday night, the sinking airmass over Japan will be replaced a large-scale area of rising air, and any radiation emitted late Thursday through Friday will be carried aloft towards Alaska and eastern Russia by this southwesterly flow of rising air.
Ground-level releases of radioactivity are typically not able to be transported long distances in significant quantities, since most of the material settles to the ground a few kilometers from the source. If there is a major explosion with hot gases that shoots radioactivity several hundred meters high, that would increase the chances for long range transport, since now the ground is farther away, and the particles that start settling out will stay in the air longer before encountering the ground. Additionally, winds are stronger away from ground, due to reduced friction and presence of the jet stream aloft. These stronger winds will transport radioactivity greater distances. I've made trajectory plots for the next three days assuming two possible release altitudes--a surface-based release near 10 meters, which should be the predominant altitude in the current situation, and a higher release altitude of 300 meters, which might occur from an explosion and fire from a Chernobyl-style incident. Given that the radioactivity has to travel 3000 miles to reach Anchorage, Alaska, and 5000 miles to reach California, a very large amount of dilution will occur, along with potential loss due to rain-out. Any radiation at current levels of emission that might reach these places may not even be detectable, much less be a threat to human health. A Chernobyl-level disaster in Japan would certainly be able to produce detectable levels of radiation over North America, but I strongly doubt it would be a significant concern for human health. The Chernobyl disaster only caused dangerous human health impacts within a few hundred miles of the disaster site, and the distance from Japan to North America is ten times farther than that.
Figure 2. Five-day forecast movement of plumes of radioactive air emitted at 10 meters altitude (red line) and 300 meters (blue line) at 18 UTC (2pm EDT) Wednesday, March 16, 2011 from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The plumes spiral clockwise around the high pressure system to the southwest of Japan and stay near the surface. Images created using NOAA's HYSPLIT trajectory model.
Figure 3. Five-day forecast movement of plumes of radioactive air emitted at 10 meters altitude (red line) and 300 meters (blue line) at 18 UTC (2pm EDT) Thursday, March 17, 2011 from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The plumes initially spiral clockwise around the high pressure system to the southwest of Japan and stay near the surface. By Saturday, though, the plumes get caught in a southwesterly flow of air in advance of an approaching low pressure system. Ascending air lifts the plumes to high altitudes, where winds are stronger and rapid long-range transport occurs. Images created using NOAA's HYSPLIT trajectory model.
Figure 4. Five-day forecast movement of plumes of radioactive air emitted at 10 meters altitude (red line) and 300 meters (blue line) at 18 UTC (2pm EDT) Friday, March 18, 2011 from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The plumes get caught in a southwesterly flow of air in advance of an approaching low pressure system. The plume emitted near the surface (red line) stays trapped near the surface, but the plume emitted at 300 meters is lifted to 3.5 km altitude by the rising air associated with the approaching low pressure system. Images created using NOAA's HYSPLIT trajectory model.
Resources
Seven-day weather forecast for Sendai near the Fukushima nuclear plant
The Austrian Weather Service is running trajectory models for Japan.
Current radar loops from the Japan Meteorological Agency
Rare subtropical cyclone forms near Brazil
An unusual low pressure system that came close to becoming a tropical storm is in the South Atlantic, a few hundred miles east of the coast of Brazil. The Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center has officially named the system Subtropical Storm "Arani", but I'm not sure the low would have been named by NHC, since Arani has somewhat of a loose circulation and limited heavy thunderstorm activity. The storm is expected to move slowly eastward out to sea, and does not pose a threat to South America. The latest run of the GFDL model shows little development of Arani, and the storm is now encountering a frontal system, which is bringing 20 - 30 knots of wind shear. It is unlikely that Arani will become a tropical storm. Some runs of the GFDL last weekend were predicting Arani would intensify into a Category 3 hurricane; that's the first time I've even seen such a prediction for a South Atlantic storm. The metsul.com blog has more info on Arani, for those of you who read Portugese.
Figure 5. During the daytime on Tuesday 15 March 2011 at 1820 UTC the TRMM satellite flew over a rare cyclone labeled Arani in the South Atlantic. Arani had the appearance of a tropical cyclone but has been classified as a subtropical cyclone. NOAA's Satellite and Information Service classified Arani as a T1 on the Dvorak intensity scale which would indicate an estimated wind speed of about 29 kt (~33 mph). TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) data were used in the image above to show rainfall near Arani. Image credit: NASA.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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This is the first good news in a long time.
Let's not forget the wild turkeys we've got, they are still nasty Turkeys and aren't going anywhere quickly enough!
yea but i think we will see neutral conditions
Gosh, I feel these all the time. They're nothing like the ones in Cali. snore is correct.
Nope, just life on this planet
Ambassador John V. Roos Speaks to the Press - March 16
U.S. Embassy
March 16, 2011
Tokyo, Japan
By Larry Shaughnessy, CNN Pentagon Producer
March 16, 2011 2:31 p.m. EDT
Washington (CNN) -- Concerned about potential radiation exposure, the U.S. military will not allow troops to get within 50 miles of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said Wednesday.
The exclusion zone matches the area from which the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo is advising American citizens to evacuate, if at all possible.
As a further protective measure, prior to leaving on missions within 70 miles of the reactors, U.S. helicopter crews departing Naval Air Facility Atsugi were first given doses of potassium iodide to help protect their thyroid glands from possible exposure to radiation, Lapan said. The thyroid is particularly vulnerable to some kinds of radiation and the iodide reduces the risk of radiation illness.
Prior to Wednesday's missions, the only air crews that had been given potassium iodide were treated after being exposed to radiation, Lapan said, adding that when a sailor is given iodide is not an across-the-board policy.
"It was situational, based on the circumstances. They decide based on medical personnel who determine whether either afterward the tablets are something they can use as a precaution or if they can be used in a precautionary way," Lapan told reporters at the Pentagon.
Crews returned Wednesday with no sign of exposure, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Navy.
"None of the crews that came back today, including the crews given iodide in advance, showed any levels of contamination," said Lt. Anthony Falvo, a spokesman for the US 7th Fleet in Japan.
The only U.S. military assistance being provided to help Japanese authorities deal with the burning reactors is a pair of fire trucks from U.S. military bases in Japan that have been turned over to the Japanese. Japan has since asked for more pumps and hoses to go with the trucks, and Lapan said they are working to fulfill that request. No U.S. troops are part of the firefighting efforts.
The 7th Fleet now has 14 ships on station in the waters off the coast of Japan, including the USS Cowpens, which just joined the relief effort. A 15th ship, the USS Blue Ridge, is expected to arrive in a day or two.
It's unclear if the air crews who, prior to Wednesday, tested positive for radioactive contamination have been given a clean bill of health and clearance to fly missions again.
"It depends on the nature of the contamination, again if it's surface contamination, that can be taken care of with soap and water and disposing of your clothing, those types of things," Lapan said.
"That's different than ingesting (radioactive material), which is the reason they take the tablets."
Lapan said the Japanese government has not requested that the United States send military troops to help fight the reactor fires, but if a request was made, Washington would consider an exception to the exclusion zone.
"Remember, we're talking about the United States military -- we train and equip all of our people to operate in all kinds of environments. So we know how to measure, we know how to test, we know how to respond, we know how to take precautions," Lapan said.
Now that's disturbing news...it may very well be the harbinger of the end...LOL
Got that feed on both of my websites and it is really a great resource! Thanks Pat...
Turkeys too? Now this is disturbing news
So are you in the Montreal area? I'm definitely curious to know how common it is to have minor earthquakes in the St. Lawrence Rift.
We're just a bunch of geeks here sharing knowledge. Usually, if I find a post boring I don't feel the need to insult the person who posted it with a "snore" comment. It seems unnecessary since I don't think ANYONE has claimed that this earthquake warrants any kind of global concern.
Are you picking on me? I was not the first to put the snore on this, I was just agreeing with the previous snore. This fault is felt all the way down the Eastern Seaboard. It's not new and it's been here a while. More worrisome to me is midwest.
Hardly...Armageddon, the penultimate battle is to be fought at Megiddo (hence Armageddon) in the Jezreel Valley...
1859: More from NRC chair Gregory Jaczko. He told Congress: "We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."
MrMixon...keep it up, I am very interested in what u may find. Glad to know you are a geologist. Wish I were.
So be good for goodness sake!
lol!
That last post, in combination with your avatar is disturbing indeed...
Don't worry. Be happy.
Yeah, mine too...you start talking about the end of the world though, and people tend to get a little
not an advocate of my mom and dads coal burning stove but, YA MAYBE!
Fingers crossed. We'll see...
Your concern for the Midwest is well-founded. The whole reason we're discussing the Montreal earthquake is to explore the question of whether or not it is related to the New Madrid system in the Midwest. So, it seems to me like we're all interested in the same thing.
Staff Report
IAEA Director General to Travel to Japan (16 March 18:50 UTC)
Director General Yukiya Amano announced the following today in Vienna:
"I plan to fly to Japan as soon as possible, hopefully tomorrow, to see the situation for myself and learn from our Japanese counterparts how best the IAEA can help. I will request that the Board of Governors meet upon my return to discuss the situation. My intention is that the first IAEA experts should leave for Japan as soon as possible."
On 15 March, Japan requested the IAEA for assistance in the areas of environmental monitoring and the effects of radiation on human health, asking for IAEA teams of experts to be sent to Japan to assist local experts.
Given the fast-changing situation in Japan, the Director General was unable to announce the itinerary for his trip. He expects to be in Japan for a short amount of time and then return to Vienna.
Japanese Earthquake Update (16 March 14:55 UTC)
Japanese authorities have reported concerns about the condition of the spent nuclear fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 and Unit 4. Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa announced Wednesday that Special Defence Forces helicopters planned to drop water onto Unit 3, and officials are also preparing to spray water into Unit 4 from ground positions, and possibly later into Unit 3. Some debris on the ground from the 14 March explosion at Unit 3 may need to be removed before the spraying can begin.
Would be nice, TY...I did notice there were (2) 2.5's in Arkansas around same time frame of the Ontario 3.7...
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