I chuckled when I found out that an MCC (Mesoscale Convective Complex) is called a CCM (Complexo Convectivo de Mesoescala) south of the Equator, but this week's storm is no joke there. They had a heck of an MCC in Brazil earlier this week; I recognized the satellite signature of the large, circular, nocturnal complex of thunderstorms (like we often get in the Plains and Midwest of the U.S. during the Spring) on the MetSul Blog. Scott from CIMSS pulled a great animation of it:

Scott says:

"The MCC exhibited unusually cold IR brightness temperature values, as low as -89º C (dark purple)... this satellite signature indicates that severe convective storms have a high potential for producing damaging winds, large hail, or tornadoes. There were media reports of a tornado and hail in parts of Uruguay."

It's Spring down there of course (and Reed Timmer from Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers" is going there chasing in late December). This is a week that will go down in history for the country with severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, flooding and a freak wave (cool movie) that was originally reported as a tsunami. Over 500,000 lost power and 5 were killed according to this article. If you look at the URLs below you can get a feel for the severity of this week's weather with incredible photos (some of this is in Portuguese, you can translate it through Google Translate but it gets problematic).

- The MetSul Blog (photos, newspaper front pages, meteorological analysis)
- Storm and Flooding Photos & News

Blog reader Fernando A. contributed links to this article.

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I tweeted on Tuesday an ABC News article talking about how the historic* flooding last month in Atlanta, Georgia will delay the availability of Eggo Waffles until the middle of 2010.

A new article I read today clarifies things though, saying that, the plant was scheduled to reopen (from a sanitizing due to listeria) just before the floods. While the parking lot flooded, dirty water may have not entered the building at that time. Presumably because of the putrid conditions following the flood, Kellogg's voluntarily redid all the cleaning, which has considerably delayed the plant being ready to go back into production:

"In late September, as Kellogg was ready to reopen the plant, heavy rains hit Atlanta. Flood water filled the Eggo plant parking lot, Garrison said, but did not appear to enter the plant. Still, he said, "Kellogg wanted time to do their hygienic restoration over again."

We also issued a news story today with a similar clarification, after getting Comments from Facebook users about where waffle shortages are (Indiana & Virginia) and are not (Pennsylvania and Georgia) showing up so far.

I'm not 100% sure of the location of the plant... this article lists the location as "south of I-20 and west of I-285 near Thornton Road" which is presumably the Kelloggs plant listed at 5601 Bucknell Dr SW (google map and link to Street View photo below).

So how did the plant fare when you look at a total rainfall map? It's probably not relevant because the whole city of Atlanta got doused, and it depended more on what river or creek you were near, as to how much flooding you got. But for the record based on the map above I have placed an "X" at the approximate location of the plant on this NWS image showing 7-day rainfall (obtained from here). As you can see, it was well within the 6-9 inches range (as was most of the city):

*How historic was the rainfall? This NWS statement says:

"THE GREATEST AMOUNT WAS 16.7 INCHES JUST WEST OF DOUGLASVILLE. IT HAS BEEN DETERMINED THE CHANCES OF 10 INCHES OR MORE OCCURRING AT ANY GIVEN POINT ARE LESS THAN ONE HUNDRETH OF ONE PERCENT. THIS MEANS THE ODDS ARE 1 IN 10000 OR MORE OF RECURRENCE IN ANY GIVEN YEAR...OR A 10000 YEAR RAIN EVENT."

What this means (I think) is that, on average, it will be more than another 10,000 years before they see that much rainfall in Douglasville again (peace of mind for the residents, I am sure). That is... unless of course Climate Change is Increasing Extreme Precipitation Events (cue evil music).

The USGS says that some river stages (which depend on the rain in a larger area) in the area were on the order of 100 to 500-year floods, which means that their crests were the highest in USGS-recorded history. Twenty river gauges were destroyed by the high water! You can see graphs from all the gauges here.

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UPDATE: Thanks for the Comments; Check out Joe's Comment below - when that video goes up I'll add it here.

AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] asked me to post his thoughts on the recent court ruling faulting the Army Corps of Engineers for the flooding at New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Because all of Joe's blogs are on our subscription Pro site he was unable to post this publicly without doing it here. I haven't researched this topic enough to have an opinion myself, though if you post a (rational) Comment I will forward all Comments to Joe, and, should he respond, I will post responses here.

DISCLAIMER: (Just like when I rant...) These are the opinions of Joe Bastardi and may not reflect those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com.

GOVERNMENT TO BLAME FOR KATRINA FLOODING? HOW ABOUT BUILDING MUCH OF CITY NEAR OR BELOW SEA LEVEL SURROUNDED BY 86-DEGREE WATER?

The ruling that shoddy management by the Army Corp of engineers of a navigation channel seems to me to be a classic case of simply trying to find one cause for something that has multiple causes.

Here, look at this article.

Now let me, since it was on national TV on Friday p.m. before Katrina that I told people to get out of New Orleans, weigh in on this.

1) Katrina was not because of global warming. If you want to play that card, then explain why it weakened from a 5 to a 3 before landfall, something that may have happened multiple times in seasons like 1915-1916 as we didn't have constant recon then. So no global warming finger.

2) The city is lucky to be alive in the first place. Someone has got to say it, and out of respect for what happened there, I have kept my mouth shut except in talks I give, but face it, you build a city near or under sea level, and surround it with water that can support Category 3, 4 or 5 hurricanes, what do you expect to happen? The dirty little secret that no one wants to address but I will, is New Orleans was lucky. The attack by Katrina was not a full frontal assault, but a pincer movement that spared the city the prime devastation. Push water back west to the north of the city, then have the northwest wind blast it back in. However, if you get the track of the 1947 hurricane and it's as strong as Katrina, then the city would be devastated probably beyond repair. I don't know if people understand that. The track from the east-southeast hitting NORTH of the mouth of the Mississippi and moving right over the town would push the 20- to 30-foot surge, not 9-12 feet like Katrina, back through lakes Bourne and Pontchartrain with the full fury of the storm passing directly over the city.

3) The toughest thing to say, the populace itself. However, look how many of us are NOT awake to what is going on today in anything. We go about our daily lives and say, "well I can't do anything about that, so why try to find out what is really going on?" And this is the case there. I was in New Orleans in May 2005 and make no mistake about it, I LOVE NEW ORLEANS. In fact, The Howl at the Moon Piano Bar may be one of the most enjoyable places I have ever been at (the piano players play for tips, which are jacked up through the roof by people bidding on songs that have their state featured. So when Texans and Oklahomans go at it, a song will be played that will fetch a $100 tip, and then the opposing state will bid $105. It's fun to watch, but since we have state taxes in Pennsylvania, I never have bid). But upon moseying up to the bar for an adult beverage, I asked the bartender for the best local drink.. So he said, "that would be a hurricane." I said, "Will you give it to me New Orleans style?" He said, "You wouldn't like that, it would be too weak. We don't have strong hurricanes here in New Orleans."

Now you may say, how can you judge by that? But most of the people there did not understand what was going to happen with Katrina because they had forgotten Betsy, and Camille the Category 5 was not bad there. Even Lili, which the director of the hurricane center had said would be the strongest storm ever to hit Louisiana, and given their history, that would be like saying the Phillies would sweep the Yankees in four games, all of them shutouts, fell apart rapidly in the 12 hours before. So the mentality was such that people did not think this could be the problem that had people blasting me on blogs for causing panic it turned out to be. Part of that had to be with local officials, not the federal government, which I feel has been given a bum rap on this matter.

And of course that dove tails into the idea that putting faith OR BLAME on the government is not what living free is all about.

Now let's issue another ruling on the army corps of engineers. Since we are going to "blame" them for Katrina, let us also say that up until Katrina, they did a good enough job with that navigation channel to help bring more commerce to New Orleans.

But folks, and I pray I am wrong, you haven't seen what can happen to New Orleans in a worst case, which has happened twice on the Mississippi coast. And when, not if, it does, it's not global warming or poor management that does, but nature simply reminding man that she, not man, has the final say on issues of nature.

Thanks for reading. Ciao for now.

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It's been a heck of a week in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Canada. During the storm on Monday night, Crystal Mountain, Washington gusted to 115 mph; over 20,000 lost power in the Seattle area. Over 10 inches of rain fell at one location in Washington according to AccuWeather.com's Ken Clark. Today a second storm is powering through the area with similar, though generally lighter, wind gusts. Winds are even gusting in the 60's all the way down into California.

WINDS AT CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN THIS WEEK

Further north, Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort (the Official Alpine Skiing Venue for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games) is breaking its November snow record. According to this article and our own Brett Anderson, they were getting close to the record yesterday but according to the Whistler website this morning: "418cms have fallen so far, smashing our record for all time snowiest November!" They also say they measured 56 cm (22 in.) in the last 24 hours and 250 cm (98 inches or over 8 feet!) this week.

Offshore, 20-foot waves have been common off the Washington and B.C. coasts this week, with waves measured over 30 feet at Buoy #46050 20 miles off the coast of Oregon Monday night.

Here's a list of the highest wind gusts I saw this morning:

Hurricane Ridge, WA: 107 mph*
Crystal Mountain, WA: 85 mph
Mt. Hebo, OR: 72 mph
Toke Point, WA: 74 mph*
Lopez Village, WA: 72 mph

*Unofficial; data looks a little funny but based on nearby stations I think these obs are OK

And here's a list from earlier this week:

WASHINGTON:

Crystal Mountain: 115 mph
Mount Baker: 88 mph
Tokeland: 71 mph

OREGON:

Waldport, OR: 95 mph
Garibaldi, OR: 89 mph
Joseph, OR: 88 mph
Pacific City, OR: 82 mph
Near Tillamook, OR: 82 mph
Cape Foulweather, OR: 81 mph

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With holidays coming up, the song "Over The River" starts playing in my head... but why did the "horse" have to "know the way through... drifting snow" in a Boston suburb for Thanksgiving? It turns out that most Holiday lore was invented in the 1800s during a climatic event known as "The Little Ice Age" when pre-holiday snow was common in the populated areas of New England and Europe. I've dusted off a blog entry that I wrote in 2006 and have refreshed it with larger graphics and corrected links.

Read on to find out the meteorological significance of these holiday gems:

"Over the River and Through the Woods" (1840s)
- November snow was typical then in Boston

Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" (1840s)
- December snow was typical then in London

"Twas the Night Before Christmas" (1820s)
- December snow was typical then in New York City
- Reindeer (Arctic animals) aren't found at this latitude anymore

The Song "A White Christmas" (1942)
- Was done later but they were "dreaming" about stories their grandparents told them

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