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Jesse Ferrell
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Jesse Ferrell: RadarPlus
Hurricane Ida Vs. Buoys, Oil Platforms
UPDATE (9 PM): Ida is coming onshore as we speak. A station at Pilot's Pass, Louisiana gusted to 64 knots around 4:30 pm. Shell's "Mars" Platform #42363 updated to show sustained winds of 60.2 knots at 3 PM (and it...
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Posted on November 9, 2009 9:30 AM
UPDATE: Check out pics of a possible funnel cloud in NYC here. UPDATE: The word on the Jersey action from the storms yesterday: "Severe storms ripped through northern and central New Jersey yesterday, injuring four men -- one critically --...
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Posted on July 26, 2009 9:27 PM
Here are some radar views of the Subtropical (our name) storm off the east coast and making landfall on Long Island (I'm guessing) overnight. First, from AccuWeather.com MapSpace™: "OFF THE COAST" (CLICK TO ENLARGE) "LANDFALL" (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Next, from...
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Posted on July 24, 2009 10:47 AM
A thunderstorm last night that moved slowly near Concord, North Carolina (northeast of Charlotte, near where I grew up actually) dropped a lot of rain. WSOC has a video showing flooding damage to a home in Concord. The amount is...
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Posted on July 23, 2009 5:33 PM
That was one big supercell thunderstorm that tracked through southern South Dakota and northern Nebraska Monday evening... strong enough to have an obvious "hook echo" on AccuWeather.com MapSpace™, which doesn't usually show hook echoes due to averaging of data for...
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Posted on July 14, 2009 7:36 PM
UPDATE: Here is an article where the tornado is described by local residents and the NWS estimates that it touched down for "only about 10 to 15 seconds." UPDATE: The NWS has a new web page up on the storm...
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Posted on July 12, 2009 10:16 AM
UPDATE: One of my blog readers asked if the meteor was caught by the U.S. Government's NEXRAD radars. The short answer is: Probably not. I've saved off the radar loops here if you want to download* them. You can see...
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Posted on July 7, 2009 10:34 AM
UPDATE: I just talked to the owner of a house across the road from where I was taking the rainbow pictures. Apparently the second lightning strike in the video below hit his deck. Pictures and account forthcoming. Map at the...
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Posted on June 29, 2009 10:30 AM
UPDATE: Here is some raw video of the flooding and wind damage: UPDATED 4 PM CENTRAL: The storms have finally faded out after dropping as much as 4.7" of rain in the metro area. Doppler Precip image updated below. ORIGINAL...
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Posted on June 24, 2009 3:07 PM
Blog reader Steve Kowalewski left a Comment on my blog last night saying: "We had some incredible rain last night in Landisburg, PA. I measured 9.25 inches with lots of debris and flooding around the western half of the county....
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Posted on May 29, 2009 8:31 AM
The second video here (near the end) showing storm clouds and heavy flooding in Raleigh, NC caught my eye this morning because I lived there from 1995 to 1997. Some of my best storm chases (be they hurricane or thunderstorm)...
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Posted on May 6, 2009 9:34 AM
The "coastal Election storm" did more than spoil some democratic votes yesterday in North Carolina and Virginia yesterday. It also provided fairly impressive winds and waves at Buoy #41025 (Diamond Shoals, just off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC). Below...
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Posted on November 5, 2008 8:04 AM
Today's storm in the Plains is what I would call "attractive" - a nice cyclonic shape and flow to it. Up to 10 inches of snow fell in the Colorado mountains, with a few inches in Nebraska and South Dakota....
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Posted on October 23, 2008 12:58 PM
UPDATE: The tide is continuing to roll across Highway 12 on the Outer Banks and if I'm reading this tide table correct, we've got about 5 hours left until high tide, so that webcam could get a lot more interesting....
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Posted on September 24, 2008 10:26 AM
UPDATE: 11:30 PM and the eyewall is moving through Galveston... probably will be daylight before we'll really know what happened... media reports being added to "J's Breaking Weather News" at right. Of greatest concern this hour: 20,000 people stayed on...
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Posted on September 12, 2008 4:06 PM
What could only be described as a "relentless" thunderstorm occurred last night here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map], as a result of a frontal system coming through. In fact, a long line of storms traversed...
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Posted on September 9, 2008 9:39 AM
It's clear this morning that Gustav was not Katrina. But it could have been, and another will come, so the question from residents is: Is it worth it to rebuild New Orleans? the Associated Press has an article about this...
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Posted on September 2, 2008 10:32 AM
UPDATE: 3:30 PM: The levees are still holding, despite hours of overwash. Mayor Ray Nagin says "we're not out of the woods yet." Considering how close we may have come to calamity here with a Category 2 storm causing the...
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Posted on September 1, 2008 8:14 AM
UPDATE (9 PM): Gustav is looking a little better on satellite now and TWC is talking that it may hit as a major Category 3, because NOAA's hurricane hunters have reported dropping pressure. Tonight, keep an eye on PSTL1, a...
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Posted on August 31, 2008 5:48 PM
UPDATE (10:45 AM): Waves are now over 30 feet at the buoy, which is just to the Northeast of Gustav's eye. UPDATE: I added comments on Mayor Nagin's questionable speech below. Over 1,000,000 (1 million) people are estimated to have...
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Posted on August 31, 2008 7:56 AM
A report from the Cuban met office has showed wind gusts of 139 mph on the Isle of Youth [Google Map] and 211 mph at Pinar del Rio [Google Map]. I find the latter report suspect because the max sustained...
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Posted on August 30, 2008 7:11 PM
A couple of thunderstorms passed near my house here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map] yesterday afternoon. I didn't see much out of them, just one faint lightning bolt and a few cloud pics. If I...
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Posted on August 8, 2008 2:40 PM
Just a note for our RadarPlus users that you now have access to a longer, 72-hour local (single-site) Radar Archive (including Storm Tracks) and a 3-month Regional Radar archive. Platinum RadarPlus users have been upgraded from the 4-Hour PredictiveRadar to...
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Posted on July 26, 2008 7:00 AM
Hurricane Dolly is approaching land this morning. A buoy in the Gulf is reporting waves over 22 feet and the weather station at Brownsville,TX has gusted to 60 mph. Here are some images of the storm via AccuWeather.com RadarPlus, our...
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Posted on July 23, 2008 9:56 AM
UPDATE: I uploaded* a radar loop here. ORIGINAL POST: Heavy thunderstorms are sitting over some areas in eastern North Carolina this afternoon, dropping nearly 5 inches of rain per hour (fortunately, they have only been sitting over the same areas...
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Posted on July 22, 2008 3:02 PM
We had a decent line of severe thunderstorms come through State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map] Sunday afternoon. You can see my pics of the storm (and sunset afterwards) on the Photo Gallery: I got a pretty...
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Posted on July 21, 2008 2:32 PM
Here are the latest views from Tropical Depression #3, off the Carolina coast this Saturday morning, courtesy the WRF initialization on AccuWeather.com RadarPlus. The Wrightsville Beach Pier gusted to 39 knots earlier this morning and the live webcams there (one...
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Posted on July 19, 2008 10:36 AM
UPDATE: Comments from Joe Lundberg and NHC added to the bottom of this entry. ORIGINAL ENTRY: Here's a look at the surface wind pattern (WRF Initialization) from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus at 10:30 AM. Note the existence of strong, possibly tropical storm-force...
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Posted on July 18, 2008 10:39 AM
We've got a beaut of a supercell thunderstorm moving through New York state this morning. Here is a movie from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus: var novideoads="please"; DOWNLOAD* HI-RES VERSION Check out the number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes from AccuWeather.com LightningPlus (2-hour strikes...
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Posted on July 17, 2008 11:03 AM
UPDATE: It was the warmest June EVER at another station in Austin, see the bottom of this entry. And as to the radar signatures - they were likely BATS, not birds... my mistake... see this new entry for more info....
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Posted on July 15, 2008 1:05 PM
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A RAINBOW MOVE? Rainbows move along the landscape over time, as the angle of the sun changes, and they also appear/disappear as rain moves through them. Usually they aren't around long enough to record these features,...
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Posted on July 12, 2008 2:38 PM
Blog reader Darryl dropped me an email this morning to say: Today's weather reports for Charlotte (in the Observer, anyway) are showing zero precipitation for yesterday, when we had 4 hours of the worst thunderstorms I can remember in my...
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Posted on July 9, 2008 3:15 PM
I was trying last week to think of a recent situation where the street-level ability in AccuWeather.com RadarPlus allowed me to help forecast for my family. Today was such a day. Mid-afternoon, the kids were called out of the local...
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Posted on July 7, 2008 4:17 PM
I observed some great thunderstorm Outflow Boundaries (what? ) today in South Florida. Below is a loop from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus; you can download* a higher res movie here and fast forward it to watch the boundary blow away the ground...
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Posted on July 1, 2008 4:29 PM
UPDATE: Questions about why the warning was not received, and links to radar loops, are below. ORIGINAL REPORT: Breaking news... a deadly tornado outbreak Wednesday evening has killed five people... one (according to the StormMatrix) was in Soldier, Kansas [Google...
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Posted on June 12, 2008 8:16 AM
UPDATE: Videos of the actual tornado and damage that it caused are now available in this new blog entry. ORIGINAL REPORT: In this video blog below, using Google Earth and AccuWeather.com RadarPlus I take a look at the supercell thunderstorm...
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Posted on June 7, 2008 8:43 PM
On this Sunday here are a few incredible photos of the tornado damage from the Plains this weekend. Also below is a video showing a unique aerial view of a tornado destroying a pig farm (see also ground photo below)....
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Posted on May 25, 2008 8:56 AM
A tragic Mother's Day Eve 2008 featured a very deadly tornado outbreak, bringing the yearly death toll from tornadoes to near 100, with over 20 people killed and 40 tornado reports received yesterday on the StormMatrix. Download this KML FILE...
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Posted on May 11, 2008 1:56 PM
UPDATE: As of 11 PM, 30 tornadoes have been reported. According to our Wichita office... "As of 9:30 PM, there is a report (via stormtrack.org) of 5 fatalities in Pitcher, OK as well as 3 fatalities in southwest Missouri. This...
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Posted on May 10, 2008 11:49 PM
UPDATE: CLICK HERE FOR MORE MORE PHOTOS, VIDEOS, & PANORAMAS FROM THIS STORM An unusually strong severe thunderstorm hit State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map] yesterday. In fact I can't remember a more impressive storm in April....
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Posted on April 27, 2008 2:27 PM
AccuWeather.com RadarPlus clearly shows our deepening storm this morning in Tennessee, with winds spiraling inward and deep blues indicating low pressure. Heavy rain is draped from Maine to West Virginia, then down to the Florida panhandle, where heavy storms abound....
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Posted on March 4, 2008 1:39 PM
UPDATE: Chris Burt [JessePedia], Author of "Extreme Weather" , wrote in to say that large snowflakes are indeed quite rare and he believes this is the first video documentation of them. He asked if I measured their drop spots to...
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Posted on February 22, 2008 3:48 PM
UPDATE: Here are the latest (3 PM Central) snowfall amounts, highest per state as reported by The NWS [JessePedia] and our SnowMatrix. A new shot from RadarPlus is shown at right.SNOW:Hays, KS: 13.5"Ellston, IA: 8.0"Dayton, OH: 6.0" (SnowMatrix)Pawnee City, NE:...
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Posted on December 15, 2007 2:08 PM
BREAKING NEWS: "SATELLITE IMAGES AND SURFACE OBSERVATIONS INDICATE THAT THE TROPICAL WAVE AND ASSOCIATED LOW PRESSURE AREA LOCATED ABOUT 250 MILES EAST OF THE WINDWARD ISLANDS COULD BE DEVELOPING INTO A TROPICAL DEPRESSION" (NHC).UPDATE THU. EVENING: Blog reader Donny tipped...
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Posted on August 30, 2007 12:39 AM
Blog reader Michael wrote in with an interesting story from Saturday night's storms in southern New York State. It seems he had a wooden *inside* door buckled and cracked by the storm. The outside door to the same room was...
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Posted on August 26, 2007 7:39 PM
In the previous entry I quoted a blog reader as saying that his ears "popped" during the Chicago storms last night (Johnathan just put some excellent damage pictures online, by the way). To investigate why this happens, I've presented some...
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Posted on August 24, 2007 11:56 PM
As Henry (PREMIUM | PRO) pointed out to me earlier, there's a sharp temperature contrast in Pennsylvania today, with the southwest near 90 degrees while the Central area remains in the 60s. But why? In these video blogs, I explain,...
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Posted on August 23, 2007 4:57 PM
Locations in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania suffered through a 4-hour thunderstorm Saturday and I've got some interesting radar clips showing multiple outflow boundaries (which we discussed during the Phoenix Dust Storm last month) interacting to increase the storm's intensity. A severe...
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Posted on June 3, 2007 8:00 PM
The video blog below explains the upsloping thunderstorms that were taking place this afternon in the Appalachians.NOTE: THE VIDEO ABOVE MAY BE PRECEDED BY ADVERTISEMENTS ON AD-SUPPORTED SITESSTUFF FROM THE VIDEO, AND MORE...- Close-up radar, lightning strikes at peak of...
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Posted on May 23, 2007 11:02 PM
UPDATE: 5/17 7 AM: I woke up in the middle of the night last night and wondered if maybe the "appendage" which gets wrapped into the Greensburg supercell and tornado was an outflow boundary (see Phoenix Dust Storm blog for...
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Posted on May 16, 2007 11:46 PM
UPDATE: News5 has impressive aerial video of the dust storm. ORIGINAL POST 5 PM MST: A dust storm is threatening Phoenix at 5 PM Mountain Time and I've caught it on AccuWeather.com RadarPlus. Fox News showed live webcam footage of...
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Posted on May 8, 2007 11:08 PM
STORMS APPROACH GREENSBURG (UPPER RIGHT) - Enlarge | Download MovieGreensburg, Kansas, which was devastated by a mile-wide tornado last night (see previous blogs), is being approached by more severe storms this Saturday afternoon. At 2:30 PM Central time, an unbroken...
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Posted on May 5, 2007 7:30 PM
In the video blog below, Google Earth and AccuWeather.com RadarPlus take us in-depth with last night's large tornado in Greensburg, Kansas. It was the most impressive tornado I have seen on radar in many years.- DOWNLOAD RADAR MOVIES FROM THE...
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Posted on May 5, 2007 7:20 PM
A total of 65 tornado reports were filed with the NWS yesterday during the massive severe weather outbreak, and one storm proved deadly near Elmwood, Oklahoma according to CNN. Some raw radar animations from RadarPlus are now available and more...
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Posted on March 29, 2007 12:32 PM
Real quick, here's a technicolor update, a shot of the storm at 6:30 PM:CLICK TO ENLARGEMassive storms are tearing through Alabama this hour. Notice their intensity on the image above, then check out the radar images below from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus,...
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Posted on February 13, 2007 11:51 PM
The storm is very impressive this morning on a number of levels. Here is an image showing wind arrows, pressure (colors), satellite and winter radar. This image is from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus.GET INVOLVED! ENTER YOUR SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ONLINE with the SnowMatrix!...
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Posted on February 13, 2007 3:41 PM
There was another early-season snow-caused pileup on I-80 north of AccuWeather HQ yesterday. I say "another" because I blogged a very similar situation which unfolded this time of year in 2004, when as many as 70 vehicles crashed, killing six....
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Posted on December 8, 2006 1:19 PM
Today's storm in the Northeast has kept its heaviest rain offshore thus far, but New England will get a good dousing by Tuesday. The storm is moving excruciatingly slow, in fact thus far today it seems nearly stationary, but this...
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Posted on November 13, 2006 5:10 PM
NOTE: This blog entry has been superceded by a newer article.UPDATE: As of 7 PM Central time, 9 tornadoes have been reported in Kansas. Guadeloupe Pass, Texas reported winds of 61 mph gusting to 73 at 1 pm today before...
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Posted on September 21, 2006 8:14 PM
Severe storms last night in Michigan cut power for 290,000 customers and lightning killed one woman in Detroit, according to MLive.com. Click below for a radar loop of the storm.RADAR LOOP | ZOOMED RADAR LOOPNow, I'm sure somebody's going to...
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Posted on July 18, 2006 4:46 PM
A tornado was sighted Wednesday afternoon over the Hudson river just north of New York City. WCBS has video of the funnel and debris on a webcam, and you can see photos and video at NY1.com, BuffaloNews.com.First, a radar shot...
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Posted on July 13, 2006 1:17 PM
At some point in meteorology, a weather weenie coined the term "popup thunderstorms" to describe the isolated thunderstorms that quickly begin, apropos nothing, on summer days. At some point, this term changed to "popcorn storms" (probably because visible satellite loops...
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Posted on May 30, 2006 4:06 PM
A derecho (bow echo)* has just moved off the coast of Texas this morning. It has peppered the eastern part of the state with 36,000 lightning strikes (8,000 positive strokes and 28,000 negative strokes)** in the past two hours alone....
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Posted on April 21, 2006 1:30 PM
As expected, storms are breaking out along the dry line in the southern Plains early this afternoon.What is a dry line? It is a demarcation (a "front," of sorts) which marks the difference between very dry air (to its west)...
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Posted on March 30, 2006 6:04 PM
The tornado sirens in Columbus, Georgia blared Wednesday afternoon, but there was no tornado (see article). What happened?A sheriff's deputy saw some low-hanging clouds that he believed were a funnel cloud, and sounded the alarm. Better safe than sorry, he...
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Posted on February 24, 2006 2:24 PM
UPDATE: The National Weather Service has issued a statement here, describing two F1 and one F2 tornado tracks.RELATED LINK: FUJITA TORNADO SCALE BEING REPLACEDNews articles from the Associated Press report that a severe thunderstorm hit New Orleans around 2:30 this...
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Posted on February 2, 2006 2:09 PM
The NWS reports today that a landspout hit Newton, Kansas on Saturday.A landspout (wikipedia) is essentially a weak tornado that forms over land without a thunderstorm (not unlike their sisters, waterspouts which form over water). At right is a radar...
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Posted on January 29, 2006 9:43 PM
Tonight I want to show you a graph of the weather conditions at my house today in Central Pennsylvania, when we had a major storm front pass through.Our normal weather was turned upside down. Why did the temperature rise all...
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Posted on November 16, 2005 11:19 PM
The image below, snapped about 5 p.m., shows yesterday's storm in all its glory. This image is from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus, a service that I oversee which gives users an advanced interactive weather data application on the web. You can download...
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Posted on November 16, 2005 8:59 PM
The image below from RadarPlus shows some real nastiness in Katrina's eyewall -- strong rotation and even a momentary tornadic signature (or TVS, the red triangle). Now, bear in mind, the tornado detection algorithms may not work as well with...
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Posted on August 25, 2005 7:52 PM
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc or AccuWeather.com.
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