August "Ughust" 2024 Obs/Disco

[Damage In Tolland]

Wonder if Ernesto indirectly had anything to do with this event? 

[Patrick-02540]

  On 8/19/2024 at 12:06 PM, CoastalWx said:

Is it me or does that area of CT get prone to heavy rain events. I feel like several 4-7” events have occurred there over last 5 years. 

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Not sure about the numbers, but this area has been in the news quite a bit with weather events.  July 5th this year, 3" in this area in 90 minutes.  We had a few 4" events in summer of 2021.  Later in September 2021 a State Trooper was killed as he and his cruiser were flushed down a flooded river in Woodbury after Ida dumped on us.  And on May 15, 2018, three tornadoes ripped through and crippled the Southbury, Oxford, Bethany, Seymour, Hamden area.

[Modfan2]

  On 8/19/2024 at 12:29 PM, Patrick-02540 said:

Not sure about the numbers, but this area has been in the news quite a bit with weather events.  July 5th this year, 3" in this area in 90 minutes.  We had a few 4" events in summer of 2021.  Later in September 2021 a State Trooper was killed as he and his cruiser were flushed down a flooded river in Woodbury after Ida dumped on us.  And on May 15, 2018, three tornadoes ripped through and crippled the Southbury, Oxford, Bethany, Seymour, Hamden area.

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I mean the Atlantic sitting just to our south so definitely a source area to pull moisture from, just need the right storm Or dynamics like yesterday that taps into it.

[Sey-Mour Snow]

  On 8/19/2024 at 12:06 PM, CoastalWx said:

Is it me or does that area of CT get prone to heavy rain events. I feel like several 4-7” events have occurred there over last 5 years. 

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Since I built my house in 2018 there have been several 4-7”+ events in this area. This one was the worst. I think what made it so bad was the 8-14” swath was so extensive (almost 50 miles long). and centered on the Housantonic, not to mention the prolonged 2-3” per hour rates.  All the local main attractions shops and restaurants that we go to have been severely affected. 
 

 

[NittanyWx]

  On 8/19/2024 at 12:47 PM, Modfan2 said:

I mean the Atlantic sitting just to our south so definitely a source area to pull moisture from, just need the right storm Or dynamics like yesterday that taps into it.

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Sure, but this is more about advection of extreme PWAT's into the region  This seems to be a recurring theme of the past 5-7 years.

[FXWX]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:07 PM, NittanyWx said:

Sure, but this is more about advection of extreme PWAT's into the region  This seems to be a recurring theme of the past 5-7 years.

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Yes... Yes... Yes!!!

[powderfreak]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:07 PM, NittanyWx said:

Sure, but this is more about advection of extreme PWAT's into the region  This seems to be a recurring theme of the past 5-7 years.

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Thats what we’ve been saying up in VT too… can’t keep pumping climo max PWATS into the mountains and not expect the occasional devastating flash flood event.

[40/70 Benchmark]

  On 8/19/2024 at 12:29 PM, Damage In Tolland said:

Wonder if Ernesto indirectly had anything to do with this event? 

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It defintely ensured there was plenty of moisture to the south...

[CoastalWx]

I think PWATS were about 1.7 to 1-8" or so? OKX was like 1.37" but they were a little east in the drier air. ALB was 1.8". It does look like it was close to 2" in SW CT which is fairly high.  

[weatherwiz]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:26 PM, CoastalWx said:

I think PWATS were about 1.7 to 1-8" or so? OKX was like 1.37" but they were a little east in the drier air. ALB was 1.8". It does look like it was close to 2" in SW CT which is fairly high.  

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I wonder if there are any charts on the Iowa State site for this but I'd be curious to see occurrence of PWAT thresholds per year. I would have to think this past decade we've been running quite high in the occurrence of PWAT events up around 2''. It seems like every rain event we get now PWATS are surging to around 2''. 

[dendrite]

Do we have any official reports yet over the state 24hr record?

[CoastalWx]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:36 PM, weatherwiz said:

I wonder if there are any charts on the Iowa State site for this but I'd be curious to see occurrence of PWAT thresholds per year. I would have to think this past decade we've been running quite high in the occurrence of PWAT events up around 2''. It seems like every rain event we get now PWATS are surging to around 2''. 

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You can look at SPC Climatology page to get an idea too. Definitely was juiced yesterday overall.

[mreaves]

  On 8/19/2024 at 12:29 PM, Damage In Tolland said:

Wonder if Ernesto indirectly had anything to do with this event? 

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I sort of was wondering the same thing. 

[CoastalWx]

I'm not sure if Ernesto had any effect since it was so far east. This was a juicy atmosphere ahead of a trough. Only this time you had a stalled WF with a weak low helping to focus moisture in a narrow area. 

[weatherwiz]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:37 PM, CoastalWx said:

You can look at SPC Climatology page to get an idea too. Definitely was juiced yesterday overall.

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ahhh right, I was thinking about checking that. Would be much easier to do that actually. But also to your earlier post which a few other have chimed in on, the number of heavy rain/flooding events across that corridor the last like 8 years has been insane. There has to be something happening on a mesoscale or microscale level. Could there maybe be some sort of coastal (or I guess Sound) enhancement going on as a result of the warmer waters over the Sound these last several years?

[WxWatcher007]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:41 PM, CoastalWx said:

I'm not sure if Ernesto had any effect since it was so far east. This was a juicy atmosphere ahead of a trough. Only this time you had a stalled WF with a weak low helping to focus moisture in a narrow area. 

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Agree. I don’t think Ernesto had any real influence given its distance and position well to our east. Different story if it were south or west of us, but here imo it’s exactly what you said. 

[CoastalWx]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:44 PM, weatherwiz said:

ahhh right, I was thinking about checking that. Would be much easier to do that actually. But also to your earlier post which a few other have chimed in on, the number of heavy rain/flooding events across that corridor the last like 8 years has been insane. There has to be something happening on a mesoscale or microscale level. Could there maybe be some sort of coastal (or I guess Sound) enhancement going on as a result of the warmer waters over the Sound these last several years?

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Well I think it's more about being bad luck ground zone due to warm season low tracks. I think that is just luck driven.  However, warmer waters will help enhance the threat by providing the fuel. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:41 PM, CoastalWx said:

I'm not sure if Ernesto had any effect since it was so far east. This was a juicy atmosphere ahead of a trough. Only this time you had a stalled WF with a weak low helping to focus moisture in a narrow area. 

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Yea, indirect...the airmass along with it.

[weatherwiz]

  On 8/19/2024 at 1:48 PM, CoastalWx said:

Well I think it's more about being bad luck ground zone due to warm season low tracks. I think that more is just luck driven.  However, warmer waters will help enhance the threat by providing the fuel. 

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Yeah it very well may be just bad luck overall but its still pretty interesting. Reminds me a bit of the western New York ordeal where you have several tornado tracks which are eerie similar...some where the start/end points are nearly identical. 

But what you're saying about the warm season low tracks makes a ton of sense. Historically, we've seen plenty of these setups where due to the low track, we don't really drive the warm front northwards through New England, it tends to get hung up around the coast...so add the extra fuel to interact with that boundary and, viola. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Wow. Surreal damage just down the hill from me. Friends had to be evacuated on southford rd. 

[weatherwiz]

I saw one of the two individuals who were swept away by the flood waters in Oxford was found dead  

I can't even imagine being caught in a situation where that occurs. The panic that must set in, I mean WTF do you do?

[metagraphica]

Okay, would rather not do a repeat of yesterday over my house instead.  We'll see how the day progresses.  So far doesn't look like it'll have the same training/backbuilding power.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

[CoastalWx]

Wow

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

I wish I could show more but I walked around and you can see how the runoff came off the hills into lower areas formed a river and raged towards downtown. 

[tamarack]

  On 8/19/2024 at 12:06 PM, CoastalWx said:

Is it me or does that area of CT get prone to heavy rain events. I feel like several 4-7” events have occurred there over last 5 years. 

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As predicted by CC models, many places are getting frequent huge rain events.  The Sandy River has 95 years of flow records, and both #2 and #5 came last year - April 1987 still is tops.  And the 6/29/23 localized toad-strangler wrecked many miles of roads in southern Franklin County when 4-6" fell in <2 hours.  The 3 wettest December days here were 18/23, 23/22 and 25/20.  Five of our 12 wettest days came 2020 thru 2023, compared to 7 in our first 22 years here.  (So far, "wettest" day in 2024 is 2.18" on Jan 10, 9" snow followed by lots of RA, only time in 26 winters we had to have our driveway plowed - snowblower would clog every 4-5 feet.  Still time for a biggie this year.)

[Spanks45]

  On 8/19/2024 at 2:19 PM, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

I wish I could show more but I walked around and you can see how the runoff came off the hills into lower areas formed a river and raged towards downtown. 

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I "only" had 6.83" on this side of town, but the flooding was surreal at its height yeaterday afternoon. Soccer field at the end of our cul-de-sac....

[weatherwiz]

Holy ****

[MarkO]

That's an incredible amount of rain for parts of CT and Long Island. Many of the cities and towns around me are having us design stormwater controls by the Cornell extreme precipitation charts, which are much higher than the ones we prreviously used. For example, my local 100 yr/24 hr storm used to be in the 6.4" range, and now it's in the 8.4" range: https://precip.eas.cornell.edu/#/

[Typhoon Tip]

  On 8/19/2024 at 12:06 PM, CoastalWx said:

Is it me or does that area of CT get prone to heavy rain events. I feel like several 4-7” events have occurred there over last 5 years. 

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No...it's not just you.  heh.    and yes to bold.

I suspect ( not that you asked ... ) this is a "region of the continent" emerging problem?  

CT may be preferentially situated within that general dimension, but with the sample size not being very weighty yet, it may just be a CT fractal.  ... VT also scoring.  They're clearly headlining lately up that way, too with an increased frequency, so the distribution may have more than one nodal focus.

I also suspect we have our own "attribution" aspect going on at a general scope.   Time will tell if start seeing these hydro bombs going off outside CT and VT, but the Leominster 9" evening event along interior/Rt 2 thing just last year adds to the argument that there's broader perspective risk concern.  

All regions are susceptible imo.  The ever usable 'just a matter of time' cliche is apropos.  But, one can intuitively see why the CT-VT axis may also be more prone within the larger generality.. 

Wiz' and I were ruminating yesterday that this sort of thing is beyond the scope and capacity of modeling state of the art.  I don't know how you can "see" a 10 to 15" hydro bomb before hand, when all of the mechanical players are under the floor of the model grids ??   It's a f-up circumstance to be in if we are going to be tip toeing blind through a Meteorological minefield.