Two New Weather Announcements..

One good and one maybe not so good.

First, the definite good......especially as it pertains to gardening. From a PhD's weather blog: "A break in Texas' drought coming
One other area we need to watch later this week is the Gulf of Mexico. A significant shift in the atmospheric circulation is predicted for the region, with the ridge of high pressure that has brought Texas its record heat and drought predicted to shift eastwards and allow a flow of moist, tropical air into the state. A low pressure region is forecast to develop in the Gulf near the coast of Texas on Wednesday or Thursday, and this low will need to be watched for tropical development. The shift in the large scale weather pattern does not signal a permanent end to the Texas drought, but it should bring welcome rains and cooler temperatures to the Lone Star state beginning on Thursday. This will be a relief to the residents of Austin, where the temperature topped out at 112°F yesterday--the hottest day in Austin's recorded history, tied with September 5, 2000. By Labor Day, hot and dry weather will settle back in over the state, but the new ridge of high pressure will be weaker, and temperatures will not be as hot as this week's."

So, for Texas!

Now, the not so good. A new tropical depression has been assigned in the Atlantic. TD12 is way far out to know with any certainty where it will go. Some models have it turning north on the east of Bermuda, never affecting the US or Canada. And, others have it taking a similar track as Irene.

Do you believe in fate? If you do, you may find this fun fact entertaining. TD12 will become Katia. Yes, another that starts with "K." But, that's not the only relationship with the retired Katrina. Katia is also the storm name picked to replace Katrina in the rotation when Katrina was retired 6 years ago. Hmmmmm, definitely worth watching if only for the potential irony.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote: From a PhD's weather blog: "A break in Texas' drought coming

So, for Texas!

+1

BackyardBirdGardner wrote: A new tropical depression has been assigned in the Atlantic. TD12 is way far out to know with any certainty where it will go. Some models have it turning north on the east of Bermuda, never affecting the US or Canada. And, others have it taking a similar track as Irene.

Been watching this one! It's a ways out yet. Fingers crossed!

Heard all about this on one of my favorite morning shows. I kinda suspect this one will be a gulf storm as well, just a feeling. As for the cooler temps, it's raining right now, chickens are all out in it. It's a nice slow drizzle, exactly what we need, I mean what happens when you spray a terra cotta pot with water, it runs off, and that is exactly what our soil is, baked clay.

and another tidbit, today is the anniversary of Katrina's landfall in Louisiana...

Thank you for the heads up!

I love the fact that we are all a bunch of weather watchers here! Kind of goes hand-in-hand with gardening.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:I love the fact that we are all a bunch of weather watchers here! Kind of goes hand-in-hand with gardening.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:I love the fact that we are all a bunch of weather watchers here! Kind of goes hand-in-hand with gardening.

I could see you becoming the SFG News Anchor person here. Love your very informative post.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:I love the fact that we are all a bunch of weather watchers here! Kind of goes hand-in-hand with gardening.

AprilakaCCIL wrote:

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:I love the fact that we are all a bunch of weather watchers here! Kind of goes hand-in-hand with gardening.

I could see you becoming the SFG News Anchor person here. Love your very informative post.

Nah.....I have a face for radio. (In before Boffer)

Something is brewing below the Gulf as I type, it may very well turn into a tropical storm if it goes into the Gulf as water temps are in the 90's. Also, Katia has been named, they still have no idea where she will go, but she is suspected to be a hurricane late Wed night, early Thur morning.

FarmerValerie wrote:Something is brewing below the Gulf as I type, it may very well turn into a tropical storm if it goes into the Gulf as water temps are in the 90's. Also, Katia has been named, they still have no idea where she will go, but she is suspected to be a hurricane late Wed night, early Thur morning.

The timeframe to watch is the next 2-9 days for the Gulf. If the trough spins out from it's tail, you may see the ridge over Cuba degrade a bit, allowing that low to spin up an move northwest.

If you all remember awhile back I was talking about how the ridge over Texas is really strong and it's weak point was on the north side. Therefore, anything coming from the south may bounce off it and stay south. That was the case with two storms, most recently the one that hit Belize. However, now the ridge is building strongly on it's northeast side (affecting us again in STL Wed-Fri). This means the weak point is now the south. If that low develops and the ridge weakens from the south, the low will slide up into Texas.....which is what they are currently thinking. This may also serve to break the ridge completely...finally. As it slides north, this time of year, it runs out of direct heating from the sun and starts reaching an equilibrium with the surrounding air masses. Again, this is what is "supposed" to happen.

However, they are also predicting another ridge to build again over Texas in a week or two. But, it won't be as strong. And, it shouldn't be as long-lasting.

Fall is almost here. Hold on just a few more weeks and summer will start to show it's signs of fading away.......albeit slowly. I'm more worried about the quick jump into fall/winter we may have because of all this intense heat. But, that's another story for another day....just my initial feeling.

Oh, and there is a small possibility the low in the Gulf will get named. I don't know what "L" will be, but a quick google search would turn up the list pretty fast.

Another little update for you Texans and hurricane watchers...

If the developing low over the Gulf spins up quickly (and the Gulf waters are so warm it may), the name will be Lee. This is important to TS Katia's development and westward progression.

1- If Lee spins up, two things can happen. a) Lee can drift west and sneak under the ridge of high pressure in the 4-corners region (the ridge that's plagued Texas) and affect southern Texas and northern Mexico. b) Lee can drift north towards New Orleans causing the 4-corners ridge to build back down to the coast, blocking Lee, and allowing a system over the PNW in 2 days to cruise across the Great Lakes. This will create a "void" over Tennessee and eject Lee over eastern TN and northern GA. So, who wants rain? It's likely going one way or the other.

2- If Lee is still here in a week, Katia misses the coast of USA. She likely travels a path between Cape Hatteras and Bermuda. Why? Because Lee's outflow (the spirally clouds) will head southeast over Cuba or the Yucatan. This will build a ridge over Cuba and block Katia's westward progression; therefore, sending her north and out to sea.


OK, may I really dork out on your for a bit?

Can we think of humankind and it's relation to Mother Nature? Can we humans get over ourselves for just a second and realize that while we may affect nature in a minute way, we are still her slave? Look what I've been describing over the past week. Folks, 25 years ago we would have never believed a small system in the Gulf of Alaska could be the determining factor to whether Katia (a storm we couldn't even see coming 25 years ago with any accuracy) made landfall or missed. But, it's true. And, the potential Lee is yet another variable, if still hanging around. These all occur thousands of miles apart, yet interact very significantly. So, when Al Gore or the media tries to make you buy a certain product, while smartly beneficial, don't believe the hyperpropoganda (yes, I just made up a word). Our efforts aren't saving the Earth as much as gov't/big business would have us think. If Mother Nature wanted us to go away, she could do it with the tiniest flick of her finger......at any moment.

This is no political diatribe. Choose the side most comfortable with you and be passionate about it. This is more about man's inherent arrogance and the fact that all this tropical discussion is designed to EDUCATE and HUMBLE him so that he can maybe prolong his existence a few tens of thousands of years more.

LOL...and if I need to, I can tie it all into gardening and SFG. But, I think y'all know me well enough that you don't doubt my SFG passion, either.

Our local news showed two possible paths for "Lee" last night, they were the "most likely" possible paths. One path was similar to Rita's, which pretty much hit the TX/LA border and rode it up for a while, then curved east. The other was landing in near Houston, and heading West, not NW, just plain West. That may be what you said BBG, or at least similar, I'm just now starting my second cup of coffee, if I repeated you I'm sorry. I just wanted to add what our local guy said, and this channel is good, they are usually right on, and when they err the err on the side of caution, giving us the worse case senerio, telling us that it may not be likely to be that bad, which I like. Thing is we are on the hurricane evac route, and many who evacuate come here and end up getting hit by what's left, as we did during Rita, and we did get power outages from Ike. I'll admit, the remnants of Rita spooked me, we have a tree in our front yard that lost a limb in our "Great Ice Storm" of Christmas 2000/2001 (Ice on Christmas Eve, Snow on New Year's Eve). The guy next door said he cut this limb for the guy that owned the property then and counted 150 rings. It's an oak tree, and the power company has trimmed (cut really) one side of the tree because the power lines run next to it, so if it does ever fall, it's falling on our property, and on our front trailer (storage & my sewing room/office) and even touching the back trailer. This tree was moving during Rita, and it was scary. Okay, I'll shut up for now, I'm just rambling now anyway.

I've seen trees like that around here, too. The main thing is to pay attention to the direction the wind is usually coming from to guess about any impending danger. However, during a tropical system, the wind depends more on the path of the storm than any "prevailing" conditions.....but you already knew that.

I'll be checking my stuff again this morning.....as I have some down time with work being that it's so freaking dry here now, too. I may pop a quick thing in here, but I doubt much has changed since I've gone into depth the past two days and things are still a few days from really developing.

The side that is non existant is facing due west, the back side faces due east. The winds would come from the south, blowing the tree toward our neighbor, but it's the root system that I factor in. Not much going on on the side facing west, as there is a ditch at the base, then a road, so most of the roots go east, with the rest going north & south. I realize this thing has a massive tap root, but as with the Arch, this tree has been seen swaying in these storms as it's not uncommon for the winds to still be "swirling" somewhat when they get here. Most of our winds come from the west, so the tree is used to holding up that way, but as in the NE this weekend, winds coming from a different direction are what downed a lot of them, add to that it's D-R-Y here and most rain we get will just run off (unless we get a nice drizzle or two like we did the other day) and it's not good.

Personally, I would be more worried in saturated situations. Dry stuff, even during a rain, takes a huge requirement of wind to topple a tree. The tree has to snap because the soil is still firmly holding it in place. Tornadoes and microbursts can do that.

I would worry about prolonged tropical events, too. The saturated soils towards the end of an event combined with the switching in wind direction could also do it. But, rest assured, it will still take a freak thing to get that old tree. If that branch was 150 years old, the roots are still there. Obviously, they don't go away because the branches above them did. As long as the tree doesn't show signs of disease, it will likely take a whopper of some kind to get him.

Long story short, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I used to have an oak in my front yard, too. If it fell, it could have hit any of 6 houses. It survived multiple icing events and "big windys." I saw a storm blow through that literally bent a Bradford Pear (about 20 feet tall) over in half until it was flapping on top of a parked car. My oak barely moved. Wind gusts were likely 60 mph+ to do that. Granted, that's no tropical event, but it's about the worst we get without a direct hit from a tornado.

Here is a cool link to a story that explains our weather this year, country wide, to some extent. http://news.yahoo.com/atmospheric-forces-conspire-2011-wild-123803807.html

However, one thing to note that drives me nuts about the media. You simply CANNOT compare severe events by price tag when you are comparing historically. Inflation has made sure we aren't comparing apples to apples. Camille, from what I've read, ranks right up there with Andrew and Katrina, but you will never see that because it's pricetag is so far down the list. It's not Camille's fault she came through in '69-ish when the average home was about $20,000 and the average salaries were under that same number. And, don't even get me started on the Galveston event near the turn of the 20th century.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote: As long as the tree doesn't show signs of disease, it will likely take a whopper of some kind to get him.

OOPS, I forgot to mention this one, it does, on the west side, where that limb used to be.

I guess we can make this 3 announcements now, just kidding BBG, I'm not trying to steal your thunder, just did not have time to start an new thread or locate one to put this in, even though I'll share it again.





Here it is, the Farmer's Almanac winter2011/2012 prediction.

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather/2011/08/29/2012-us-winter-forecast/

Toss that into another thread if you can. My reasoning is that people interested in winter weather may not be watching our little tropical discussions thinking they don't relate.

The place I can think of is the "pre-winter discussion" thread. That may revive a little chatter over there, too.

As for today's update, things pretty much look to be the same.

Katia looks like she will curve out to sea and be a non-event for the CONUS (Continental US). I think you can also include Canada into the CONUS mix, except possibly the maritimes. Bermuda may need to watch Katia, though.

Lee may never gain a name so I should probably stop calling it that. But, either way, we know I'm talking about the Gulf. The idea is to keep that system spinning around in the western and northern gulf because of it being pulled in two different directions as the ridge builds back into Texas. Coastal LA and TX may see some showery stuff (in a week mind you) while the storm sits and spins in the Gulf, but I don't see a high likelihood of a landfalling storm. Let's just hope TX gets some rain! The system likely ejects over MS/AL and up through the mid-Atlantic region. What this will provide in terms of significant rain is unknown at the time.

So, that's the jist of things right now.

I'll do that in a bit, I just needed to toss it in so I would not forget, I'll look up that thread.

Most trees are the responsibility of the owner. If your neighbors tree falls and destroys your sewing room, etc. then your neighbors ins. co must cover it. You might want to ask if he is insured!

Your tree falling on his stuff is your responsibility.

If it's on city property(not just a right of way) then they pay.



The weather is fine here. Irene took the humidity with her.

Jo

littlejo wrote:Most trees are the responsibility of the owner. If your neighbors tree falls and destroys your sewing room, etc. then your neighbors ins. co must cover it. You might want to ask if he is insured!

Your tree falling on his stuff is your responsibility.

If it's on city property(not just a right of way) then they pay.



The weather is fine here. Irene took the humidity with her.

Jo

Check with your insurance agent and state. This is NOT true in Missouri. If the tree falls, it is the responsibility of the land on which it lies. If MY tree falls on my neighbor's house, the only part I am responsible for is the part still on my property. The only reason I am responsible is if the tree had been "neglected." Neglected typically means dead/diseased and not removed.

Jo, my tree, my yard, my house, and we live in the country. So it's our responsibility.

Well, since this is where we've been discussing Katia and potential Lee, I will give you today's update. I don't think you'll like it....

Katia is being influenced by dry air already. She won't likely become much more than a minimal Cat3 hurricane, at best. Also, Bermuda better watch her. It looks like her track is headed toward the island, or just west, and then up into the Canadian Maritimes as a tropical storm. A miss for the east CONUS.

Now, Lee. I'm calling him Lee again because my belief is that we will see significant development in the Gulf. If you remember, the two solutions I offered were one heading southwest into extreme southern Texas and northern Mexico. The other was ejecting northeast across LA/MS/AL and up into TN. Even though the models are equally split, I like the latter solution right now.

Hurricanes like low pressure systems. There is nothing to the southwest of the Gulf to "attract" anything. There is also a building ridge back from the 4-corners and into Mexico....blocking Lee. Lee will have little choice but to move northeast and get drawn into one of two passing shortwaves.

Best case, in about 4 days, Lee moves across the US and dissapates quickly with the first passing shortwave system.

Worst case, and this I think deserves merit, Lee sits and spins for a week plus. Over such warm waters, Lee will likely make a couple of loops around and around in the northern Gulf. Lee will be a gigantic tease for Texas drought sufferers. Sort of like the drunk college girl you "thought" liked you, but turns out she just thinks you're a good friend.

If the latter happens, Lee will be picked up by the second shortwave....as a Cat2+ hurricane....making landfall near New Orleans. That would bring more rain across the Appalachians and into the mid-Atlantic and perhaps the Northeast as they recover from Irene. None of this is wanted.

Don't get alarmed, though. That is worst case. And, it's not likely at this point. The former solution is where I'm headed. I just wanted a disclaimer out there in case I appear to change my mind and start sounding the alarm. Just put that possibility in the backs of your minds up there.

Anyway, it's always a developing situation when we are talking 8 days into the future. So, don't put any merit into my words....yet. Just remember that Katia is no threat to the US and Lee is going to be with us for awhile before any landfall happens whatsoever.