August 2017 Observations & Discussion Thread

[RedSky]

.01" another almost sure thing two day event fails to produce.

 

[NortheastPAWx]

Looks like more rain trying to spread into S NJ.

[Rjay]

1 hour ago, jm1220 said:

Would you look at that-another light shower here. Might already be ending. 

had a few downpours here again tonight. 

[JerseyWx]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

No middle ground here for the 2010's summers with either very wet or very dry. 2010...dry...2011-2014 record rainfall...2015-2017...very dry.

Agreed.  I guess it's just another extreme of the 2000's and 2010's.

4 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

You guys do good stuff.  I learned my lesson and stopped using fertilizer and pesticides years ago- organic soil + compost + mulch is far more sustainable and better for retaining nutrients.

 

Yeah, it's amazing how much the rain can do like ForestHill said.  Very lush vegetation this year all around.

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, JerseyWx said:

Agreed.  I guess it's just another extreme of the 2000's and 2010's.

Yeah, it's amazing how much the rain can do like ForestHill said.  Very lush vegetation this year all around.

I guess for a few months we got to experience something close to what a (sub)tropical rain forest is like.

[LibertyBell]

4 hours ago, ForestHillWx said:

My brother in law(s); wife's uncle hate clover. I'm trying to convert them. Clover is vital in a healthy lawn. It pulls nitrogen into the roots and distributes it in the soil. 

But the rain is key. Speaking of which, it's raining again. 

haha I love clover in my food- I guess it's an acquired taste!

[LibertyBell]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

The average summer rainfall at ISP is 11.68". But this decade has seen the most extreme variation between top wettest and driest summers.

 

 

So a bit under 4" per month on average.  Funny thing is the last three summers according to that chart have been drier than the really hot summers we had early on in the decade.

[RedSky]

Clear skies anybody seeing anything good with the Perseids? Not the best of conditions tracking out to the local field with the wet surface and weeds.

 

[LibertyBell]

2 minutes ago, RedSky said:

Clear skies anybody seeing anything good with the Perseids? Not the best of conditions tracking out to the local field with the wet surface and weeds.

 

 

2 minutes ago, RedSky said:

Clear skies anybody seeing anything good with the Perseids? Not the best of conditions tracking out to the local field with the wet surface and weeds.

 

I'm about to go outside in like 15 min.

[Juliancolton]

6 minutes ago, RedSky said:

Clear skies anybody seeing anything good with the Perseids? Not the best of conditions tracking out to the local field with the wet surface and weeds.

 

I'm still clouded out here... was hoping for clearing by midnight but it could be another hour or two, judging by the GOES-16 IR loop. Probably going to throw in the towel and turn in for the night.

[nzucker]

7 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

You also have to worry about methane leaks (and methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2) and man-made earthquakes when it comes to the process.  Personally, I favor nuclear way way more than "natural gas"  BTW "natural gas" is as much of a misnomer as "corn sugar" was in describing high fructose corn syrup.  A euphemism designed to make it more palatable than it really is.

BTW speaking of asthma, big city pollution from all the traffic is one of the biggest reasons for asthma.  I saw a Stanford study that showed how airborne pollutants which are prevalent in and near big cities can cross the blood-brain barrier and affect the brains of developing fetuses, resulting in conditions like autism.  Studies show a 65% environmental 35% genetic connection, according to the CDC.  This is entirely separate from the problems of packing so many people into such a small area, which leads to stress, anxiety, lack of sleep and pill-popping culture.

 

I actually think the threat of nuclear power plants is well overstated...the large-scale, low probability doomsday events dominate everyone's mind: the nuclear meltdown, the terrorist attack at a nuclear facility, a plane crashing into a reactor or a containment dome. Meanwhile, these events are like .0001% likely while climate change is 100% happening and deadly, but people shout more about nuclear than coal (and certainly more than natural gas). Since Three Mile Island (which happened 40 years ago in 1979) and the many reforms that came after it, there hasn't been a single major nuclear accident in the United States, which pretty much speaks for itself. Meanwhile, how much have coal-fired plants contributed to climate change, asthma, and other respiratory illness?

Natural gas does burn pretty clean, and while methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas, it is also present in much smaller quantities. So I do see some role for methane, but it should be fazed out. 

Urban air pollution is one of the main reasons that hybrid cars and cars with stop-start technology (engine is killed automatically when car comes to a light or long stop) are becoming more popular. These technologies don't save much gas on the highway but have a huge impact on urban air pollution. The air in NYC is so much healthier than it was a couple of generations ago, though still problematic in many areas. 

Heavy rains in the Bronx last night. High of 77F today, well below normal for August. 

[LibertyBell]

1 minute ago, nzucker said:

I actually think the threat of nuclear power plants is well overstated...the large-scale, low probability doomsday events dominate everyone's mind: the nuclear meltdown, the terrorist attack at a nuclear facility, a plane crashing into a reactor or a containment dome. Meanwhile, these events are like .0001% likely while climate change is 100% happening and deadly, but people shout more about nuclear than coal (and certainly more than natural gas). Since Three Mile Island (which happened 40 years ago in 1979) and the many reforms that came after it, there hasn't been a single major nuclear accident in the United States, which pretty much speaks for itself. Meanwhile, how much have coal-fired plants contributed to climate change, asthma, and other respiratory illness?

Natural gas does burn pretty clean, and while methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas, it is also present in much smaller quantities. So I do see some role for methane, but it should be fazed out. 

Urban air pollution is one of the main reasons that hybrid cars and cars with stop-start technology (engine is killed automatically when car comes to a light or long stop) are becoming more popular. These technologies don't save much gas on the highway but have a huge impact on urban air pollution. The air in NYC is so much healthier than it was a couple of generations ago, though still problematic in many areas. 

Heavy rains in the Bronx last night. High of 77F today, well below normal for August. 

Hey Nate, any good news on the meteor shower?

 I just went outside, it's quite foggy but I can still see stars (three bright ones in a triangle overhead.) 

Kinda weird to be able to see stars even with fog, if there was no fog I'd probably be seeing thousands of stars!

[nzucker]

Just now, LibertyBell said:

Hey Nate, any good news on the meteor shower?

 I just went outside, it's quite foggy but I can still see stars (three bright ones in a triangle overhead.) 

Kinda weird to be able to see stars even with fog, if there was no fog I'd probably be seeing thousands of stars!

I'm about to turn in for the night. There is a lot of light pollution here in the Bronx so I doubt I'd really see much. And yeah, it's still a bit foggy/cloudy around the area which also obscures the view. I should be at my house in the Poconos...very little light pollution there at 1600' in the Endless Mountains/Northern Wayne County.

[LibertyBell]

1 minute ago, nzucker said:

I'm about to turn in for the night. There is a lot of light pollution here in the Bronx so I doubt I'd really see much. And yeah, it's still a bit foggy/cloudy around the area which also obscures the view. I should be at my house in the Poconos...very little light pollution there at 1600' in the Endless Mountains/Northern Wayne County.

It's foggy here in the Poconos too but you can see the three brightest stars for some reason lol.  It's probably the summer triangle- Altair, Vega and Deneb.  If there are any meteors to be seen as bright or brighter than them, they can make it through the fog, nothing dimmer than that.

 

I agree with you about nuclear fission being the better bridge fuel, I hope we live long enough for controllable fusion though, that'll be the real ticket to the future.

 

[nzucker]

If you believe the 00z GFS, the heat never arrives. Big rains with the stalled front as the warmth to the Southwest tries to blast in Days 8-10, then the ridge builds north of us and the tropical threat arrives...the trough that follows the hurricane has a much more fall-like airmass moving across the Canadian Praires. Maybe sneak in 1-2 days of 90F around 8/20-8/25 before the tropical event.

But if that tropical threat dies, then a more substantial ridge could build into the area.

Wednesday is very marginal for 90F as 850s are 15-16C. Probably will add one more 90-degree day at EWR/PHL/TTN, but not Central Park.

 

[LibertyBell]

58 minutes ago, nzucker said:

I'm pretty young, 29, and I assume you are too, so I think we'll see a lot of positive changes in the energy infrastructure in our lifetimes. The problem is, we've already emitted enough carbon to produce like 2C of global warming. So I think geoengineering has to be part of the strategy to control climate change as well as the reduction in fossil fuel use and related conservation measures and alternative energies (wind, solar). Also, the actual adoption of these new technologies lags their development by many years...even as electric cars become the standard, there will still be gasoline cars on the road for 15-20 more years since not everyone will just buy a new car. 

Transportation must be improved...Tesla's promise to build a high speed circuit train along the I-95 corrdor is promising, but that's pretty far away from actually happening. More realistic measures in the area would include the Queens-Brooklyn Streetcar DiBlasio has pitched, the extension of the 2nd Avenue subway to 125th Street, and congestion taxes/congestion zones. These are all things that can happen in the next 5 years. 

While Trump is trying to revive coal (which won't happen...the construction of any new ports for coal processing and shipment is blocked by environmental action in the Pac Northwest), Chile is increasingly going green:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/how-chile-is-embracing-renewable-energy

I'm 43 so I hope to see fusion before I get to retirement age.  Coal is a complete nonstarter, I actually converted to solar and there's no reason to turn back.

I like geo-engineering but I really hope it doesn't cause more issues (like more light pollution).  We are building wind farms off the coast of Long Island.  Hydroelectric is big around here too.  I'm pretty disappointed with Canada though and their allowance of dirty oil from pipelines up in the Tar Sands of Alberta- Obama had stopped these pipeline projects but they look to be starting up again.  There is far more money and job growth in solar than there is in any fossil fuel.  The air pollution problem becomes worse when there's stagnant air, like in the summer, on those "air quality alert" days.

On the meteor shower front.....

I just saw a few through the fog and high clouds.  One really bright one that actually seemed to be under the clouds haha.  I would stay outside longer (back when I was a teen I would be outside looking for these from about 1 am to 5 am) but there's like one patch of sky that's somewhat clear (right overhead fortunately) while the rest of the sky is enshrouded by clouds.  The patch of clear sky where I saw the meteors is near the W of Cassiopeia.  This would have been a really good shower without these low clouds, fog and now the moon which is starting to rise over the tree tops around here.

I love Chile, one of the most beautiful places on Earth. They could probably set up a lot of solar panels in the Atacama region- it never rains there.

 

[LibertyBell]

38 minutes ago, nzucker said:

If you believe the 00z GFS, the heat never arrives. Big rains with the stalled front as the warmth to the Southwest tries to blast in Days 8-10, then the ridge builds north of us and the tropical threat arrives...the trough that follows the hurricane has a much more fall-like airmass moving across the Canadian Praires. Maybe sneak in 1-2 days of 90F around 8/20-8/25 before the tropical event.

But if that tropical threat dies, then a more substantial ridge could build into the area.

Wednesday is very marginal for 90F as 850s are 15-16C. Probably will add one more 90-degree day at EWR/PHL/TTN, but not Central Park.

 

How does it look for the SE for the total eclipse?  Specifically for the area between Nashville, TN and Charleston, SC.  If there is a tropical threat around 8/20, typically once those move NE of the area, we get a few days of heat as a ridge builds in.

 

[SnoSki14]

The most interesting weather for the next couple of weeks will probably be in the tropics. Most major models show a system near the east in about 10 days. 

 

[tim]

...still a lot of low clouds out here with a muggy temp. of 70*...waiting for the drier air and 

clearing skies..should be a good beach day but there is a 'high risk' of rip currents on ELI with

wave heights to 5'..

[nzucker]

4 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

How does it look for the SE for the total eclipse?  Specifically for the area between Nashville, TN and Charleston, SC.  If there is a tropical threat around 8/20, typically once those move NE of the area, we get a few days of heat as a ridge builds in.

 

Not good on the 6z. The tropical system is already near the Bahamas/Florida by 8/20, and there is widespread cloud cover and rain ahead of it, sort of like a PRE. Almost all of the Southeast from FL to the Carolinas and TN has rain showers, so the eclipse viewing would be limited. 

And you are right about Chile, beautiful country. I studied in Valdivia in 2009 and traveled all around the south. I particularly liked Conguillo National Park and Vincente Perez Rosales National Park in the Lakes/Araucaria region. Rosales gives you an excellent view of the perenially snow-covered Monte Tronador (11,453') on the Argentine border.

Other places I enjoyed were the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago, Valparaiso and seeing Pablo Neruda's house, and the Three Rivers landscape around Valdivia...the Coastal Range is underappreciated because everyone thinks of the Andes', but they were all snowcovered too and I saw a sunset near Santiago with both ranges having light reflected off the snow.

Chiloe was great too, sheep farms and old churches painted wacky colors and a verdant green landscape of rolling hills.

[CIK62]

4 minutes ago, nzucker said:

 

The most interesting weather for the next couple of weeks will

 

This

[CIK62]

Next 8 days increases to +4degs.  (Avg. = 74).

[bluewave]

3 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

The most interesting weather for the next couple of weeks will probably be in the tropics. Most major models show a system near the east in about 10 days. 

 

It looks like any system that does develop will struggle like 99L just did. Notice how the stability across the Tropical Atlantic is well below normal. So these easterly waves look good coming off the African Coast and they lose there strength once they reach the more stable air.

 

 

 

 

[MJO812]

2 minutes ago, bluewave said:

It looks like any system that does develop will struggle like 99L just did. Notice how the stability across the Tropical Atlantic is well below normal. So these easterly waves look good coming off the African Coast and they lose there strength once they reach the more stable air. 

 

 

 

 

We shall see but it's way out there so who knows what will happen. At least all the models show the tropics becoming active.

[bluewave]

19 minutes ago, Snow88 said:

We shall see but it's way out there so who knows what will happen. At least all the models show the tropics becoming active.

The long range GFS showed 99L deepening to a major hurricane before it backed way off. The Euro came later but backed off the closer we got. 

GFS long range forecast for Tomorrow

 

 

[Brian5671]

4300+ days without a major cane hit (cat 3) on the US coast more than double the previous record.  

[SACRUS]

Tropics look to be heating up soon!  Heres  what fuel any future system has o work wih

 

 

 

 

 

[SACRUS]

 

Aside from tropical systems/or hung up fronts the  overall period starting 8/17 into the end of Aug looks above to at times potentially much above normal. Heights look to to rise middle part of this week 8/16 - 8/18 before another unsettled weekend, then 8/21 - 8/25 look for some late season heat potential.  Tropics the caveat.

 

[psv88]

82. Mosquitoes are biting today

[JerseyWx]

15 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Same old story this summer. The closer we get, the less impressive the heat, thunderstorm, heavy rain, and  tropical potential turns out to be. With the late August average of 83/67, above normal isn't that impressive.

We've also seen this happen in the Winter, but it's been an exceptionally consistent pattern this Summer.  Things just seem to mellow out.