Interesting forecast shaping up for tomorrow evening. Somewhat strong trough will move into OK tomorrow bringing with i the chance for significant severe weather to central and eastern OK and continuing eastward overnight.
The more certain portion of the forecast is the later period late Sunday night when it appears probable that a severe MCS/squall line will tear up parts MO, AR, LA again. I think its likely as more time will allow for more moisture to advect northward in what amounts to me to be an odd linkage between a pre-existing low level jet well east of the effects of the trough and the trough. The apparent phasing of the two will occur later sunday evening. These highly dynamic environments lead to some interesting MCSs.
The early part of the threat in central OK is less certain. To me, at the moment, the most interesting part of the forecast is that the features of interest appear to slow down before entering it the Plains, then speed up once they do. This makes for a confusing scenario. The prominent features I see this morning are the dryline in western OK, the dryline warm front intersection in NW OK, and the rather strong 700 hPa cold advection over the dryline all at 00 UTC. Now, I have no idea what to expect in this type of slow then fast large scale regime. This fact alone adds uncertainty for my limited experience of significant severe weather in OK during Feb.
What is not clear is if the cold advection aloft will be enough to remove the cap, and if the instability will be large enough to be realized. We just had some rain followed by cold temperatures, and soil water fractions are high apparently. The last 10 and 30 day rainfall maps show that western OK is dry and eastern OK has seen around 2+ inches. So it is possible that strong sensible heating will take place on Sunday in areas that are drier ahead of the dryline. Will this actually matter? I will tell you on Monday.
The other major issue is how the dryline and shear align. At the moment the mean wind for sunday evening appears to be from the SW and the dryline is oriented more north-south. This angle difference will allow storms to move off the dryline. The shear vector should also orient itself across the dryline but the magnitude of that angle will be very important to storm mode.
I guess my inclination at this moment are that all the necessary ingredients can be found, it will be a matter of how they come together and when that will occur and for how long. For now, at least, it is important to get that moisture screaming northward. I could use a good storm chase.
A lot will change. But I think there is a chance for supercells. I am uncertain where convective initiation will occur, and where severe storms will get going, and what that initial mode will be. I will evaluate the Short range ensemble Forecast (SREF) when the 15z run becomes available later this afternoon. Really this is just me getting my thoughts ramped up ... otherwise known as situational awareness.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Trying not to lose
http://www.spacenews.com/policy/110208-house-earth-science-funds-manned-spaceflight.html
The point of the article is a bunch of lawmakers who want to reorient NASA back to human spaceflight. They will do this by taking climate monitoring funding, referred to in the article as global warming funding, away.
I believe a policy like this does 3 things: gives lawmakers the power to control research directions (even if only on this one particular goal), it hurts the climate monitoring via satellite initiatives that we sorely need, and it presumes to send humans back to the moon via, I assume, the constellation program.
I don't think the moon is a good goal and I really like that commercial space transport and delivery is making significant accomplishments via SpaceX and Orbital Technologies. This is good but not great news, since I doubt these companies will profit much. I think we need to think big like Mars. The challenges Mars poses are grand. Materials science, engineering, biochemistry, chemistry, biology, psychology, psychiatry, nanotechnology, etc will all need to be utilized in a major way. It could be the sputnik moment. Of course, the obvious problem is that a Mars trip is one way, right now. And that is why the moon is the next "best" thing.
The satellite issue is important since both weather and climate rely on satellite monitoring. Satellite development is long and expensive but it pays in science even though it costs a ton. The most exciting in my mind is soil moisture which the US has not been able to do, but the Europeans have. Why does NASA do satellites and climate monitoring? Because its a natural fit. They build them, launch them, and monitor them. No other agency is qualified to do that.
The controlling of research dollars and directions by lawmakers ...well...I don't care to comment on that at the moment. These are people trying to save jobs at home to guarantee continued employment for their constituents. But really it aligns with their re-election priorities and that's why it makes more sense to them. The status quo is desirable for jobs and who can blame them. Keep what you have so you don't have to risk asking for money for new job development in your region. especially in a floundering economy.
I don't really have a good sense that this budget stuff will help without a reorganization of our goals ... both public and private. I like slogans like "win the future" because really what we have been doing is trying not to lose. We need high risk high reward activities and they cost money. It will take money and the will to take big risks. But trying not to lose is not working.
The point of the article is a bunch of lawmakers who want to reorient NASA back to human spaceflight. They will do this by taking climate monitoring funding, referred to in the article as global warming funding, away.
I believe a policy like this does 3 things: gives lawmakers the power to control research directions (even if only on this one particular goal), it hurts the climate monitoring via satellite initiatives that we sorely need, and it presumes to send humans back to the moon via, I assume, the constellation program.
I don't think the moon is a good goal and I really like that commercial space transport and delivery is making significant accomplishments via SpaceX and Orbital Technologies. This is good but not great news, since I doubt these companies will profit much. I think we need to think big like Mars. The challenges Mars poses are grand. Materials science, engineering, biochemistry, chemistry, biology, psychology, psychiatry, nanotechnology, etc will all need to be utilized in a major way. It could be the sputnik moment. Of course, the obvious problem is that a Mars trip is one way, right now. And that is why the moon is the next "best" thing.
The satellite issue is important since both weather and climate rely on satellite monitoring. Satellite development is long and expensive but it pays in science even though it costs a ton. The most exciting in my mind is soil moisture which the US has not been able to do, but the Europeans have. Why does NASA do satellites and climate monitoring? Because its a natural fit. They build them, launch them, and monitor them. No other agency is qualified to do that.
The controlling of research dollars and directions by lawmakers ...well...I don't care to comment on that at the moment. These are people trying to save jobs at home to guarantee continued employment for their constituents. But really it aligns with their re-election priorities and that's why it makes more sense to them. The status quo is desirable for jobs and who can blame them. Keep what you have so you don't have to risk asking for money for new job development in your region. especially in a floundering economy.
I don't really have a good sense that this budget stuff will help without a reorganization of our goals ... both public and private. I like slogans like "win the future" because really what we have been doing is trying not to lose. We need high risk high reward activities and they cost money. It will take money and the will to take big risks. But trying not to lose is not working.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Meteorological data
UPDATE: Remember when I said there are some missing data? Yeah. Only for the case I want to analyze. The exact 16 hours I most wanted. Funny that the operational data that is saved all over the place has more observations than the archived ASOS data at NCDC. Redundancy is an important part of data archival.
I am analyzing a particular case and have been looking at the unique observations that the Oklahoma mesonet collects. I want to add to this huge data source. Therein lies the issue. Merging data sets is quite a task. Of course the fancier one gets, the more trouble there is.
Recently the NWS added many stations to its list of archived, 1 and 5 minute ASOS data. It is a decent dataset even if it is spatially sparse. The issue is the format. Now regular hourly and special observations get transmitted in METAR format. There is a nice decoder written for GEMPAK which processes this data. I would say it is awesome but it is suitable. What makes it better is that it retains the whole METAR data string for subsequent data mining. This ensures that some of the metadata (+TSGRFC, PRSFR, etc) are not lost.
However, the potential research quality dataset currently being archived at NCDC undergoes no quality control and the files can have transmission problems. It also suffers because if the data are not relayed in time, the data is lost. Thus one must process the data and visually inspect for issues. I did this many years ago as part of my PhD training for the BAMEX field project and it was a nightmare to write code to process the 1 minute data. I ended up having multiple Fortran codes to deal with some of the transmission problems, formatting problems or missing data.
The five minute data are stored in METAR format, but not exactly METAR form. I would think someone could process the minute data into a quality 5 minute data set with a decent, readable format and provide some measure of quality control. (I will share my code which reads the data. ) This could be an interesting data set. As it is now it is difficult to work with, but not impossible. I heard that the community was trying to organize a network of networks for surface data. I hope they succeed and I hope they model whatever they do with the successful components of the Oklahoma Mesonet, MesoWest, and the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.
I am analyzing a particular case and have been looking at the unique observations that the Oklahoma mesonet collects. I want to add to this huge data source. Therein lies the issue. Merging data sets is quite a task. Of course the fancier one gets, the more trouble there is.
Recently the NWS added many stations to its list of archived, 1 and 5 minute ASOS data. It is a decent dataset even if it is spatially sparse. The issue is the format. Now regular hourly and special observations get transmitted in METAR format. There is a nice decoder written for GEMPAK which processes this data. I would say it is awesome but it is suitable. What makes it better is that it retains the whole METAR data string for subsequent data mining. This ensures that some of the metadata (+TSGRFC, PRSFR, etc) are not lost.
However, the potential research quality dataset currently being archived at NCDC undergoes no quality control and the files can have transmission problems. It also suffers because if the data are not relayed in time, the data is lost. Thus one must process the data and visually inspect for issues. I did this many years ago as part of my PhD training for the BAMEX field project and it was a nightmare to write code to process the 1 minute data. I ended up having multiple Fortran codes to deal with some of the transmission problems, formatting problems or missing data.
The five minute data are stored in METAR format, but not exactly METAR form. I would think someone could process the minute data into a quality 5 minute data set with a decent, readable format and provide some measure of quality control. (I will share my code which reads the data. ) This could be an interesting data set. As it is now it is difficult to work with, but not impossible. I heard that the community was trying to organize a network of networks for surface data. I hope they succeed and I hope they model whatever they do with the successful components of the Oklahoma Mesonet, MesoWest, and the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Brief Comment on Climate Change
I read this today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/opinion/07krugman.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y
I think Krugman makes a good point. It is one I have written about before.
Let me say that I don't know if "crisis" is the correct word to use. Higher prices, sure, but not relative to 2007. Economies are more sensitive to weather, absolutely. And as I blogged a few days ago, under the type of climate change I believe we are in, the variability increases with respect to extremes (floods and droughts, heat waves and cold spells, etc). Whether this increased variability would occur under different climate states or different rates of change of climate states, I don't know.
The point is that this type of global weather impact can not only be disruptive and expensive, it points out how vulnerable we are to climate change. This problem will only get worse as more people require more food. Human expansion has also resulted in the fading away of the family farm, and as the current global economic crisis continues more farm subsidies will be on the chopping block as budgets get reigned in. Thus it is the human-earth system that we need to understand. I know first hand that many groups are working on these challenges both academically and through the government.
It will be a while before we know if this is the "first taste" of our vulnerability but I strongly doubt it was. Debate will rage as economic, agricultural, and climate and weather related issues all conspire in various degrees. What is clear is that we remain vulnerable. Technology may have helped in the last 90 years, but it won't save us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/opinion/07krugman.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y
I think Krugman makes a good point. It is one I have written about before.
Let me say that I don't know if "crisis" is the correct word to use. Higher prices, sure, but not relative to 2007. Economies are more sensitive to weather, absolutely. And as I blogged a few days ago, under the type of climate change I believe we are in, the variability increases with respect to extremes (floods and droughts, heat waves and cold spells, etc). Whether this increased variability would occur under different climate states or different rates of change of climate states, I don't know.
The point is that this type of global weather impact can not only be disruptive and expensive, it points out how vulnerable we are to climate change. This problem will only get worse as more people require more food. Human expansion has also resulted in the fading away of the family farm, and as the current global economic crisis continues more farm subsidies will be on the chopping block as budgets get reigned in. Thus it is the human-earth system that we need to understand. I know first hand that many groups are working on these challenges both academically and through the government.
It will be a while before we know if this is the "first taste" of our vulnerability but I strongly doubt it was. Debate will rage as economic, agricultural, and climate and weather related issues all conspire in various degrees. What is clear is that we remain vulnerable. Technology may have helped in the last 90 years, but it won't save us.
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