Caribbean disturbance slow to develop; 5 EF-5 tornadoes this year confirmed
The tropical disturbance (Invest 93L) that crossed over Florida on Wednesday, bringing welcome rains of 1 - 3 inches, is now a naked swirl of low clouds over the central Gulf of Mexico. The disturbance is embedded in a large area of dry air associated with an upper level low pressure system, and this dry air is discouraging development. 93L is also moving into a region of moderate wind shear of 10 - 20 knots, and NHC is giving 93L a 0% chance of developing into a tropical depression before the storm makes landfall in Mexico south of Brownsville on Saturday. There are a few heavy thunderstorms trying to fire up near the center of 93L's fairly well-formed circulation, but I don't think this storm is going to bring more than 1 - 2 inches of rain to the coast on Saturday.
Figure 1. Morning satellite image of the Central Caribbean disturbance.
Central Caribbean disturbance 94L
Disorganized heavy thunderstorm activity continues in the region between Central America and Jamaica. Wind shear has fallen to the moderate range, 10 - 20 knots, and is predicted to continue to fall over the next two days. This should allow the disturbance, dubbed Invest 94L by NHC on Friday afternoon, to increase in organization, though it will take many days for it to approach tropical depression status, since it is so large and poorly organized. The last two runs of the NOGAPS model have developed the disturbance into a tropical depression or storm by early next week, with the system moving northwards into Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and eastern Cuba. The other major models do not show the disturbance developing during the coming week. NHC is giving the disturbance a 10% of developing into a tropical depression by Sunday. A surge of moisture accompanying a tropical wave may aid development when the wave arrives in the Western Caribbean on Sunday. Water temperatures in the Central Caribbean are about 1°C above average, 29°C, which is plenty warm enough to support development of a tropical storm. Residents of Jamaica, eastern Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic should anticipate the possibility that heavy rains of 2 - 4 inches may affect them today through Sunday.
Five EF-5 tornadoes confirmed in 2011
The National Weather Service in Oklahoma City announced Wednesday that the violent tornado that hit Binger, El Reno, Peidmont, and Guthrie, Oklahoma on May 24, killing nine people, was an EF-5 with winds greater than 210 mph. The rating was given based on measurements made by a University of Oklahoma portable "Doppler on wheels" radar. The long track, large wedge tornado caused extensive damage, with well built houses cleanly swept from their foundation and trees debarked. This tornado brings the total number of EF-5 tornadoes this year to five, tying 2011 with 1953 for 2nd place for greatest number of these top-end tornadoes in one year. Only 1974 (six) had more. The EF-5 tornadoes of 2011:
1) The April 27, 2011 Neshoba/Kemper/Winston/Noxubee Counties, Mississippi tornado (3 killed, 29 mile path length.)
2) The April 27, 2011 Smithville, Mississippi tornado (22 killed, 15 mile path length.)
3) The April 27, 2011 Hackleburg, Alabama tornado (71 killed, 25 mile path length.)
4) The May 22, 2011 Joplin Missouri tornado (138 killed, 14 mile path length.)
5) The May 24, 2011 Binger-El Reno-Peidmont-Guthrie, Oklahoma tornado. (9 killed, 75 mile path length.)
Figure 2. Aerial view of damage from the May 22, 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado. Image credit: Wikipedia.
A few other remarkable statistics on the tornado season of 2011, compiled from NOAA's official press release and Wikipedia's excellent tornado pages:
- The April 25 - 28 tornado outbreak, with 330 tornadoes, was the largest tornado outbreak of three days or less duration on record. The previous record was 148 tornadoes, set during the April 3 - 4, 1974 Super Outbreak.
- For April 27, 186 tornadoes have been confirmed. This is the largest 1-day tornado total on record, beating the 148 recorded in 24 hours on April 3 - 4, 1974.
- The April 14 - 16 tornado outbreak, with 162 confirmed tornadoes, ranks as the fourth largest tornado outbreak of three days or less duration on record.
- The May 21 - 26 tornado outbreak, with 158 confirmed tornadoes, ranks as the 5th largest 6-day or shorter tornado outbreak on record. A May 2003 6-day outbreak had 289 tornadoes, and a May 2004 6-day outbreak had 229 tornadoes. The year 2011 now has three of the top five tornado outbreaks on record.
- April confirmed tornado total was 683, making it the busiest tornado month on record. The previous record was 542 tornadoes, set in May 2003. The previous April record was 267 tornadoes, which occurred in April 1974. The 30-year average for April tornadoes is 135.
- If the three deaths in Massachusetts from Wednesday's tornadoes are confirmed, this year's tornado death toll will be 522, beating 1953 as the deadliest tornado year since modern tornado records began. That year, 519 people died, and three heavily populated cities received direct hits by violent tornadoes. Waco, Texas (114 killed), Flint, Michigan (115 killed), and Worcester, Massachusetts (90 killed) all were hit by violent F-4 or F-5 tornadoes. A similar bad tornado year occurred in 1936, when violent tornadoes hit Tupelo Mississippi (216 killed), and Gainesville, Georgia (203 killed.) During that time period, the tornado death rate per million people was 60 - 70 times as great as in the year 2000 (Figure 4), implying that this year's tornadoes would have killed many thousands of people had we not had our modern tornado modern warning system.
- The May 22, 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado killed 138 people and injured 1150, making it the deadliest U.S. tornado since 1947, and 8th deadliest in history. The $1 - $3 billion estimate of insured damage makes it the most expensive tornado in history.
- Damage from the April 25 - 28 super tornado outbreak was estimated at $3.5 - $6 billion, making it the most expensive tornado outbreak of all-time.
- The tornado that hit Springfield, Massachusetts on June 1 was at least an EF-3 with 136 - 165 mph winds. It was only the 9th EF-3 or stronger tornado to hit Massachusetts since 1950, and the third deadliest, with three deaths.
- The year 2011 now ranks in 3rd place behind 1974 and 1965 for highest number of strong to violent EF-3, EF-4, and EF-5 tornadoes (Figure 3.)
Figure 3. Number of strong to violent EF-3, EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes from 1950 to 2011. The year 2011 now ranks in 3rd place behind 1974 and 1965. There is not a decades-long increasing trend in the numbers of these most dangerous of tornadoes. Image credit: NOAA/National Climatic Data Center (updated using stats for 2008 - 2011 from Wikipedia.)
Figure 4. Death rate per million people per year in U.S., 1875-2000. Thin line with dots is raw rate, curved thick line is death rate, filtered by 3-point median and 5-point running mean filter, and straight solid lines are least squares fit to filtered death rate for 1875-1925 and 1925-2000. Dashed lines are estimates of 10th and 90th percentile death rates from 1925-2000. The death rate fell from 8 per million to .12 per million between 1940 and 2000. Image credit: A Brief History of Deaths from Tornadoes in the United States, Harold Brooks and Charles Doswell III.
Joplin tornado the 7th U.S. billion-dollar weather disaster of 2011
The Joplin tornado is the 7th U.S. weather disaster of 2011 costing more than a billion dollars. With a major flooding disaster coming on the Missouri River, and hurricane season still to come, 2011 has an excellent chance of beating 2008's record of nine billion-dollar weather disasters. The billion dollar weather disasters of 2011 so far:
1) 2011 Groundhog Day's blizzard ($1- $4 billion)
2) April 3 -5 Southeast U.S. severe weather outbreak ($2 billion)
3) April 8 - 11 severe weather outbreak ($2.25 billion)
4) April 25 - 28 super tornado outbreak ($3.5 - $6 billion)
5) Mississippi River flood of 2011 ($9 billion)
6) Texas drought ($1.2 billion)
7) Joplin tornado ($1 - $3 billion)
Figure 5. River flood outlook for the U.S. Image credit: NOAA.
The next U.S. billion-dollar weather disaster: a Missouri River flood?
A great 100-year flood has arrived along the Missouri River and its tributaries from Montana to Nebraska. Record spring rains, combined with snow melt from record or near-record winter and spring snows, brought the Missouri River at Williston, North Dakota to 27.9' yesterday, just an inch short of the highest crest on record (28.0' on 4/01/1912.) Tributaries to the Missouri, such as the Souris River in North Dakota and the North Platte River in Nebraska, are already flooding at all-time record heights. With warm summer temperatures and additional rainfall expected over much of the area during the coming week, snow melt and rain runoff will swell area rivers even further, creating a damaging 100-year flood. Wunderground weather historian Christopher C. Burt has the details in his latest post, and I will be writing more on this latest epic flood next week.
I'll have a new post on Monday, or earlier if the Caribbean disturbance shows significant development.
Jeff Masters
Here it is turning into a monster.
Reader Comments
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Via CaneFever.
Have fun! LOL.
Link
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
200 PM EDT FRI JUN 3 2011
FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC...CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO...
1. THE SURFACE CIRCULATION ASSOCIATED WITH A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE
CENTERED A COUPLE HUNDRED MILES SOUTH OF JAMAICA HAS BECOME A
LITTLE BETTER DEFINED TODAY. UPPER-LEVEL WINDS APPEAR TO BE
DIMINISHING OVER THE SYSTEM...BUT A LARGE AREA OF DRY AIR IS BEING
DRAWN INTO THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE CIRCULATION. THERE IS A LOW
CHANCE...20 PERCENT...OF THIS SYSTEM BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE
DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS. HEAVY RAINS COULD STILL CAUSE FLASH
FLOODING AND MUD SLIDES OVER PORTIONS OF HAITI...THE DOMINICAN
REPUBLIC...JAMAICA...AND EXTREME SOUTHEASTERN CUBA OVER THE NEXT
DAY OR TWO AS THE LOW REMAINS NEARLY STATIONARY OVER THE WEST-
CENTRAL CARIBBEAN SEA.
2. A SMALL AREA OF LOW PRESSURE LOCATED OVER THE WESTERN GULF OF MEXICO
ABOUT 275 MILES EAST-SOUTHEAST BROWNSVILLE TEXAS IS PRODUCING
LIMITED SHOWER AND THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY. ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS
ARE NOT CONDUCIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT...AND THERE IS A LOW CHANCE...
NEAR 0 PERCENT...OF THIS SYSTEM BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE DURING
THE NEXT 48 HOURS AS IT MOVES GENERALLY NORTHWESTWARD AT ABOUT 10
TO 15 MPH.
ELSEWHERE...TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE
NEXT 48 HOURS.
$$
FORECASTER BERG
NNNN
a)under 20%
b)20%
c)30%
d)40%
e)50%
f)60+%
Poll on when Invest 93L becomes TS Arlene:
a)Tonight
b)Tomorrow
c)Sunday
d)Monday
e)Tuesday or later
f)Never
And with D-min on its way.
Ok so there is a pond.
We are investigating the duck rumor :O)
(Festivus for da rest of us)
:)
COMMONLY USED ABBREVIATIONS
.AOI:area of interest
.C:celsius
.CAT:category
.CDO:central dense overcast
.EWRC:eye wall replacement cycle
.GMT:greenwich mean time
.INV:invest
.IR:infra-red
.ITCZ:intertropical convergence zone
.KTS:knots
.MB:millibars
.MSLP:minimum sea level pressure
.MWS:maximum wind speed
.NHC:National Hurricane Centre
.RMW:radius of maximum winds
.SST:sea surface temperature
.STS:subtropical storm
.SAL:sahara air layer
.TCFA:Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert
.TC:tropical cyclone
.TD:tropical depression
.TS:tropical storm
.UTC:universal time
.VIS:visible sat image
.WV:water vapour sat image
.Z:zulu time
well here in West Bay it 1007.4 & droping ENE-NE @ 13 Gust 15 mph nearly overcast
Link
Seriously, it looks like high pressure will be holding strong now into Mid June, the pattern is very much like what occurs in sub-tropical deserts, strong controlling high pressure which leads to just hot and windy weather continuously...
At the very least, the wet season will need to be above normal to crack this bad of a drought, if we don't get a seriously rain pattern going by July then Florida is in big trouble, its wild life will suffer from excess fire and drought, it already is really bad now.
so what do you do job wise
I guess I will have to change jobs then.
Hummmm?
Tumbleweed rustler?
We are still DUCK HUNTING.
LIC# 94L
ok cool
Hailing taxis!
you just might, soon Florida will be known more for tumble weeds and cactus rather than swamps and wet lands if things keep going the way they are.
Now you know how we felt a few days ago here in Richmond VA. Now the temps here are in the upper 70s, beautiful, couldn't ask for a better way to end the work week after a stretch of very hot and humid weather this week. Heat indexes peaked at 105 on Wednesday.
-1000
Gette betterrrr organizedddddd
You all are talking about 93L? The one in the GOM? That will not develop. As for 94L a strong possibility of it becoming a TD over the next week or so.
Wow, don't think that will happen though.
Hi there
The pressure here is 1008.7 and falling with winds out of the N to NNE at 15 MPH. These numbers show that
both the wind and pressure fields are expanding as the low center is about 250 miles to the ESE of us.It could get quite interesting if the high holds overhead.
TROPICAL ATLANTIC MODELS GFS/NOGAPS/UKMET
Link
select tropical atlantic then select gfs then select warfighter then select Surface (10 meter) Wind Barbs, Streamlines, Isotachs [kts] then hit animate see for yourself
if u get a warning about cert invalid its ok its a navy model site
Hey. Here's the 48 hour look....
Shear is 20 knots plus very close to that side of the low and probably accounts for the lopsided convection signature at this time.
the gfs and nogaps have been predicting storms off NC/SC/VA coasts..that area right now is prime picking for home grown storms..
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