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I am pleased to post on behalf of Todd that for the category
On-Camera Talent Weather Anchor for the
29th Boston/New England Emmy® Awards,
the winner is... Todd Gross.
Please join me in wishing him heartfelt congratulations for this well deserved honor.
June 4, 2006 - L Nash
This week's question involves May 21's crazy weather. It actually snowed during the downpours in some areas.. at 45 degrees!! How can that happen?
ANSWER: A very cold pool of air moved in above, and thunderstorms erupted at the same time. As you can see by a typical thunderstorm structure to the left, warm air is drawn into the thunderstorm ahead and from the sides of the approaching storm. However, JUST ahead of, and accompanying rain, t
here is a DOWNDRAFT of cold air from above. This often results in what is known as a "microburst" which is a cold rush of air down that spreads out at speeds up to 100mph when hitting the ground causing tornado like damage. This area of the storm is sometimes accompanied by hail, large chunks of ice that are blowing around up and down in the top of the thunderstorm, getting bigger and bigger until they fall as ice out of the cloud. But snow??? Rare, but it happens in the "near winter" season. If the downdraft is strong enough, it will simply accompany huge snowflakes that form which rush down from the cloud and don't have time to melt, even if the temperature near the ground is 45-52 degrees. That is why there is snow on record in places like Rochester, NY in August as an example, and why it snowed in Harvard, Ma. briefly last weekend (5/21) in the Boston area! CLICK ON THE IMAGE, ASIDE FROM THE COLOR, IT IS HAND DRAWN BY WEATHER EXPERT/METEOROLOGIST/PROFESSOR JEFF HABY.
This incredible shot from Newport, RI from our Todd Gross Support team member Barry shows the twin rainbows that graced most of our skies prior to sunset Sunday evening. The storm came in with a bang, but left to the east, and the sunlight shining back on the raindrops as it was setting in the west set off an incredible rainbow display. You see, the raindrops, reflect and refract the light BACK at you, splitting white light into the array of colors that you see...
Clikc on the image for the full impact.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADVERTISE ON TODDGROSS.COM, please email me at toddwx@yahoo.com
Weather Trivia Question:
Why are thunderstorms LESS likely on Cape Cod than in interior
Massachusetts, especially at this time of year? Find out the answer later today.
ANSWER: POSTED FRIDAY NIGHT: Thunderstorms grow from warm air near the ground being significantly warmer than the air above. The cooling seabreezes on the Cape stabilize this scenario, so very often when storms move in the interior, they lose steam, so to speak, when entering southeastern Massachusetts.
LAST WEEK'S WEATHER TRIVIA QUESTION:
When and where was the biggest, fastest, temperature rise in the 48 states
In two minutes: The rise was because of a "downslope" wind off the mountains ---> 49F, Spearfish, S.D., Jan. 22, 1943, from -4F at 7:30 A.M. to +45F at 7:32
A.M. Now that's a rise!
Previous week's weather trivia question was :
What year did we "skip" summer?
ANSWER: 1816
Volcanic ash prevented sunlight from reaching the Earth that year, and much of the world cooled, but it hit New England particularly hard, along with Europe.
From Wikipedia:
In May of 1816, however, frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and in June two large snowstorms in eastern Canada and New England Nearly a foot of snow was observed in Quebec City in early June. In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania.
Rapid, dramatic temperature swings were common, with temperatures
sometimes reverting from normal or above-normal summer temperatures as
high as 95°F (35°C) to near-freezing within hours. Even though farmers
south of New England did succeed in bringing some crops to maturity, maize (corn) and other grain prices rose dramatically. Oats, for example, rose from 12¢ a bushel the previous year to 92¢ a bushel.
LOTS MORE LOCAL INFORMATION ON THIS ON RIC WERME'S WEBSITE
Could it happen again? YES! If a strong volcanic eruption spewed high into the atmosphere, we could skip summer all over again, even with all the Global Warming issues you have heard about time and time again.
From SpaceWeather.Com: THIS WAS LAST NIGHT, SUNDAY NIGHT !!!!!!
PHOTO-OP: MOn May 8th at approximately 0300 UT (11 pm EDT on May 7th), fragment C of dying
comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 passed very close
to the Ring Nebula in Lyra. The view through backyard
telescopes was wonderful, but we had high thin clouds here, unfortunately. Here is a view as publicized on spaceweather.com . Click on this for its magnificence!
Our own John Lanoue shot the comet a day before, you can find his photo at toddgross.com/astrophotography
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January 23 UPDATE: You may recall that the original bomb piece included a link to Brooks Garner's blog and WIS-TV web-weather.. Well, we HAVE heard from him.. Below describes their recent unusual conditions..
Todd,
Thought you might be interested in this:
We're having one heck of wedge today in South Carolina. It's near
freezing in our northern viewing area, and near 65 in our southern
viewing area! It's all thanks to cold air damming, around a stubborn
area of High Pressure in the DelMarVa. As you know, it gets wedged
down the eastern spine of the Apps, into SC. Even though 850 temps
are 9+C, with a 50kt LLJ, the surface has a NNE wind at 5, with a
shallow layer of CHILL! Brrr. We had icing late last week in a
similar situation. The difference was that the air was much dryer
last week. It was just as "warm" (well, "cold") but dews were in the
teens. Last week when it started raining thru that dry air, major
evap. cooling occured, which dropped temps from the low 40s, to the
upper 20s! This go around, we're marginally freezing. (SEE IMAGE BELOW)
It's 67 in Charleston, and 39 in Columbia -- just a one hour drive!!
The mix of orographic lift and associated dry adiabatic cooling, plus
some evap. cooling with somewhat low dews is driving inland temps to
chi-chi-chilllly levels! It's flipflops for the beaches and winter
coats for the Piedmont.
-Brooks
Jan 16, 2007 - The late week event features damaging winds on Saturday following a "bombogenesis" or rapid intensification of a storm. Read more about bombogenesis at Jeff Haby's HabysHints. Learn more about Low Pressure systems At the University of Illinois WW2010 page "Low Pressure Centers".
Read more about storms at NASA's Clouds Generated During Midlatitude Storms
"Categorizing storms according to their sea level pressure patterns is another way of classifying storms. By plotting central sea level pressure against time a pressure profile can be created. All storms do not conform to the same sea level pressure pattern throughout its life. Some storms can be classified as classical storms. These are storms where their pressure profiles are "V" shaped or have a dip pattern in pressure. Oscillating storms are those with insignificant pressure changes, while ascending storms increase in pressure over time. Descending storms are those that decrease over time in pressure only."
Also possibly of interest given the anomalous season thus far:
Northern Hemisphere Winter Surface Temperature Predictions based on Land-Atmosphere Fall Anomalies
CONTRIBUTION
CLICK on map to view Station Details
CLICK on map to view Station Details
