The "Cool Down"... October 6th 2012.

As I am browsing Twitter and Facebook, I have been noticing a trend in statuses talking about a major cool down this next weekend. A lot of these statues updates have been talking about snow and "winter" like conditions occurring (The weekend of Oct. 6th.). In this blog, I hope to convey an aggressive defense against these arguments and too provide what I think is correct.

So let me ask you a question... What happens when nothing more than rain actually happens during this predicted event?  All the hype that went into your forecast essentially convinces the general public that we do get paid to be right half of the time.

Here is a progression of the North American Cyclone that is going to traverse through the mid and eastern sections of the United States this coming weekend.

So what is significant about these maps? Why are people calling for snowstorms? It's because we are transitioning into a new season and a lot of forecasters do not know how to interpret these changes effectively. Whenever we get close to November and December, we notice the 5400m contour line moving ever southward. What is the 5400m contour line, you say? It is derived from the 1000-500mb thickness chart located in the upper right hand map on the chart provided above. The 1000-500mb chart's usage is for estimating where changes in surface air temperature occurs. These differences in surface air temperature can also be interpreted as air masses (a homogeneous mixture of air with like characteristics). It also locates warm and cold fronts. Essentially, the height is just a measure of how cold (compressed) or warm (expanded) the surface air temperatures are. So with that in mind, a general rule of thumb is that the 5400m line is associated as the cross over between rain and snow due to the associated temperature at which the height occurs.

Where a lot of forecasters get into trouble is when to take that rule of thumb into consideration. For an example, at this time in the year, in the Ohio Valley region, surface temperatures are not cold enough to produce the required results for snowy conditions. I have graphical explanations for my reasoning.

Here is a temperature reading for the same time period that the above chart is predicting snow for our forecast.

And

These graphs can be a little convoluted. So let me try to help you decipher the truth for yourself. If you can locate Indiana on the map, you can tell the the temperatures basically fit the average between 35-40F. While this is a cooler temperature (suggested by the lower height contour stated above) it is NOT cold enough to produce "winter" like conditions. The only areas cold enough to support snow would be Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. The surface just hasn't had enough time to cool down to allow for snow.


So what do I think is going to happen?
Here is an example of a forecast I would give.


A deep trough is going to progressively build and push through the central United States, giving way to cold temperatures and rain. The low center over Texas will push North East, Intensify, then allow for the trough to really dig and extend southward.

                                          12z- Sunday.

As you can tell, the low pressure by 12z (8am) Sunday has significantly strengthened and the trough has dug deep into Southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky. On the out fringes of the trough, PVA can be noted on the 700mb map (PVA - Positive Vorticity Advection - Dynamic lifting) around the Ohio Valley and on into the Appalachian Mountains. This area of dynamic lifting will more than likely trigger precipitation. How much exactly is a little hard to tell. However, the point is that this area of precipitation falls well into the 40-50F, so likely form of precipitation will be liquid. Temperatures will probably top off at around 65+/- a few. As the boundary moves through, residence could very well experience stronger winds in excess of 15-20mph. Areas that could receive snow would be Northern Wisconsin as a small area of precipitation appears to form in that area.


I think the main point to take away here is to exclude wish casting from actual forecasting. To use more than one model to make accurate forecasts and to not base "snow" forecasts solely on the  5400m line or what one model says is going to happen(as stated above, I examined the 5400m line but also examined the temperatures associated with that area and came to the conclusion that there is no possible way that snow could occur in 40-50F weather).

-Thanks for reading!

Cartography - Intro into drawing

One of the many fields growing in the realm of G.I.S. is Cartography and visualization of maps in an artistic way. Here at Ball State, we have spent a lot of time on the theory and rules of color and learning the system involved with creating these masterpieces. In the post, I hope to give an update on the software and I use and some of the images that I have produced.

Naturally, the best software to use for any detail map making is Adobe Illustrator. The reason for Illustrator is that it uses vector graphics, which appear clean and crisp on paper and on computer monitors. It also allows for an almost infinite amount of color choices to be used on the maps. Starting out in my career of working with Illustrator, I have been exposed to several different techniques for organizing the structure of my work using layers and grids.

Example 1.)

While not a difficult drawing, it has been very helpful in teaching us to keep our lines straight and in order using the grid system. It also has shown us how to add different styles and layouts of text. Another important thing this taught me was the value of separating everything out into different layers. When i finished this drawing, I had a layer for the: Title, Percentages, Numbers, Boxes, and Box fills. Keeping these all separate allows for me to independently change each variable without affecting the other aspects of the drawing.

Example 2.)

Another example of a drawing I have done is an origami bird. This bird not only taught me how to create a popping image using gradient colors, but also in organizing and separating the different layers of the drawing. If you notice there are three separate sections of the bird: a section close to the viewer, half way from the viewer and the furthest from the viewer. Obviously the wing that is closest to the viewer would need to have the highest view in order on the layer list. The mid section would be placed in the middle of the layer view and then the wing in the back ground would be placed towards the bottom for lowest visibility.
After organizing the layers, drawing the bird is just a simple trace from the origami photo provided. Tracing is a very easy method as you just have to set and lock the templet layer and then create a separate layer in which to draw on. The actual drawing itself using the pen tool was not very difficult.

Example 3.)

While the layer set up was actually very easy, the drawing itself was challenging. The objective of this challenge is to teach smooth curves utilizing the pen tool. As you can tell there are very little straight lines in relation to the origami bird in the previous example. So feeling out where to place nodes for the best possible outcome of a smooth line is key. The challenge really began when trying to create the fin on the back. If you can tell, there are two curves back to back with a change in direction midway through. For some reason, this area caused the most kinks when trying to make smooth curves due to this. After several tries and headaches, smooth curves were finally yielded leaving a very smooth drawing.

Example 4.)

Obviously, this drawing is more complicated than the other three drawings which utilizes all skills taught. In the design of the fish, each component has to be separated into different layers. I just did the essentials such as: head, fins, scales, body, and tail. Arranging them into a certain order (especially the whiskers) gives the desired effect of how it is supposed to look. When adding the colors to the fish, I decided to go with a more tropical look. I used a lot of reds/oranges/purples/blues to give the tropical fish look. For the head, I used a radial gradient to give the effect that his head is round. For the body I did a linear gradient, which is pretty standard stuff. difficulties arose when trying to figure out the tail. I ended up doing a colorless sketch inside the tail and separate gradient to give the effect that the top part of the tail is bending over. From there, I finished the rest of the tail off with a separate gradient to bring it all together.


Overall, with a sound knowledge of color and the inner workings of Illustrator, I'm positive I'll be able to keep up with this class and provide artistically and accurate maps further along. In my next update, I'll provide images and info on my map creations. Thanks for following!

Forecast Discussion for Hurricane Isaac

With (soon to be) Hurricane Isaac's announcement a few weeks back, there has been much hype surrounding the projected path and strength of this storm upon arrival to land. A problem that occurs all to often is when people take these situations lightly and end up in trouble. Some topics I hope to cover in this discussion is not only the impacts of the hurricane (both spatially and temporally) but also some of the socioeconomic impacts as well.

So lets get started..

Hurricane Isaac started out in the mid-Atlantic as a tropical wave pattern over warm ocean waters. The warmer waters helped feed it a steady supply of moisture as it traveled across the Atlantic. With the warm waters in place, a strong shear environment ("It is the rate of change over a short duration. In wind shear, it can refer to the frequent change in wind speedwithin a short distance. It can occur vertically or horizontally." -weather.com) is almost non-existent. A shearing environment essentially stunts the growth of the cloud tops, which completely disables it from growing. So with the favorable environment in place in the Atlantic to initiate storm development, the Gulf of Mexico essentially puts a race car engine in tropical storm. Hurricanes need three major environments when determining if growth and strengthening are possibilities. The first major environment is sea surface temperatures(SST). If temperatures are 27C or higher, growth can be assumed. if you take a look at the current model showing SST's for the Gulf of Mexico, you'll notice that temperatures are roughly in the 30C range. Which is excellent for hurricane growth! Another major factor involved with hurricane growth is the residence time or time that is spent over the ocean waters. Isaac is traveling through a thicker portion of the Gulf as it makes its way towards the Louisiana/Mississippi coast. Long route equals more residence time equals stronger hurricane. Finally, the last major topic to discuss is the shear environment (stated previously) and the location of the shear environment (helpful for people up north, still in the path of the fragments of the hurricane). Lucky for all of us up north, a rather strong high pressure center is located over the central plains region creating a nasty ridge which is pushing the jet stream well into the Dakotas and Canadian regions. The reason why this is important for us, is that this kind of environment is conducive for a nice extra-tropical conversion; meaning that the hurricane will be able to mix with more unstable airmasses and it will take on characteristics of an MCS or North American Synoptic front. [caption id="attachment_46" align="alignright" width="259"] SST for the Gulf of Mexico[/caption]

Impacts of Hurricane Isaac

Major impacts with all hurricanes are storm surges and flooding. While it is still a little early to tell what the precise surge level will be on impact (factored by RFQ and max wind speed), it's pretty safe to say that flooding will be a problem. Once the hurricane makes land fall, friction, interactions with different airmasses and loss of energy from the warm ocean waters will begin to significantly weaken and slow the movement speed of the hurricane. The problem with a slower moving hurricane is that it will be stationary over a location for a long duration of time giving it the chance to dump tremendous amounts of water in the area. According to GFS and WRF models, Isaac will remain over the Louisiana/Mississippi coast for roughly two days. Over this time period, areas such as New Orleans, Biloxi and Mobile could see anywhere from 7-20 inches of rain from Isaac. While high rainfall amounts may not cause a high deathtoll, the damages and disruption to daily life could be very costly. People not directly affected by the hurricane's surge and heavy rain on the coast could be affected by its extra tropical progression inland (Extra-tropical link ). As Isaac makes its approach inland Thursday evening and through the weekend, it could be very wet and stormy for Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and so on. It's not uncommon for the most destructive part of the hurricane to occurs during its extra-tropical transition when phasing out over the central portions of the United States. Hurricanes in the past have caused upwards to 500year flood damage in multiple regions and gusty winds that have flattened many trees and telephone poles. So it would be a good idea to listen to all weather announcements dealing with the remnants of hurricane Isaac and to take them very seriously. [caption id="attachment_49" align="alignright" width="150"] Rainfall in inches[/caption]

mitigating the effects of the storm..

In order to prepare and survive the storm with as little cost, make sure to tune into your local weather stations and the National Weather Service for all warnings and watches issued. If you are living in the Louisiana/Mississippi region, you may want to consider options of leaving or evacuating to areas above sea level and boarding up homes. Remember, levies are built to withstand a 50 year flood, often times storm surges can over top these barriers. Areas outside of the direct impact of the hurricane will want to listen for heavy rain reports and to be prepared for serious flooding and all associated hazards caused by floods (flooded roads, towns, mudslides, disease in the water, ect...). If caught in the furry of the storm, proper medical supplies and food would be a great start to have near by and a sound knowledge of all escape plans.

Forecast discussion for severe weather event (8/16/2012)

As Thursday the 16th comes closer, it appears that a decent frontal boundary is going to make its way through the Indiana region bringing about thunderstorms and cooler temperatures. I'm going to provide an in-depth look at the weather that will be moving through Thursday evening and the processes involved. The first thing to take notice of is the timing of the frontal boundary. According to the 850mb temps, cold air advection can be seen through weak solenoids around Michigan, Wisconsin and Northern Illinois on Thursday late afternoon/evening. The represented area is where cold air is moving into and will receive the greatest initial cool downs. Once the trough deepens and pushes southward, cooler temperatures will extend on into Indiana by Friday. Not only will temperatures decrease due to this frontal boundary but thunderstorms will also be heightened. As the front pushes through the area, low level lapse rates will increase giving way to higher surface based CAPE values. After examining NAM model outputs, CAPE should extend well into the 2-3,oooJ/kg range which is conducive to pretty strong thunderstorms. Any novice could look at the map and make a guess as to where the severe weather is going to occur but not so fast. Thunderstorms are much like recipes in that they require multiple ingredients to fire. While CAPE values are good in portions of Southern and North Western Indiana, wind shear is not so good. Helicity is a measure of the cork screw or turning motions through out the atmosphere. Generally, you would want to look at the the first km of the atmosphere to determine whether or not it is conducive for tornadic weather. After examining the 0-1km helicity values, it's apparent that there is very little to no turning in Indiana. In fact, there is very little 0-3km shear which is supportive of MCS or "a line of thunderstorms." Also, stronger jet streaks aloft are prominent in the Illinois region and not Indiana. Jet streaks are crucial for strong storm development because it allows for the storms to grow in strength. In conclusion, Indiana will receive light to moderate multi cell thunderstorms that could be capable of strong winds. I would say that there is a small possibility of hail/severe type weather but no chance for tornadoes. After storms have moved through, I would expect to see temperatures return to the mid 70's with lows in the 50's making the weekend feel pretty nice.

Independent G.I.S. lab, Tornado Siren placement

Independent Geographic Information Systems Lab

Initial Statement..

During an advanced G.I.S. course that I took at Ball State University, we we're informed that we had to build a spatial model that should answer a specific geographic question or problem. The problem I addressed was the relation of tornado sirens to specific population densities in the county of Delaware, IN to see if adjustments are needed. As stated in the write up, I obtained a siren shape file from the Delaware county G.I.S. department and then searched the schools geodatabase to gather census data layers to depict locations of population. Once I collected the proper data, I designed the model builder to clip Delaware County out of a United States County shape file. It accomplished this task by selecting the proper area of Delaware County and then creating a separate layer. In the background, it also buffered the locations of the sirens to a one mile radius (a very crude, general estimate of how far the sound can travel especially during severe weather) and then dissolved the data to give a smooth appearance. From there I combined both siren buffer and the clipped Delaware County layers to come to depict my conclusion. Most of the town seemed to fit within the boundaries of the sirens output range except for two elementary schools. It seemed I had found a small flaw in distribution of sirens, so I discussed how a siren should be placed in close proximity of the schools to increase warning time to there locations and to protect lives.

After some critiques were provided to me by the Delaware County G.I.S. and EMS coordinators..

I soon realized that I had several errors in my thinking. Yes, my model was acceptable by Ball State standards because it did in fact do what it was supposed to do but it did not answer the deeper question I was hoping to resolve. The first problem I introduced into my project was the data for population. Census data isn't nearly as accurate as using an address point layer. The reason is, census layers use blocks (They are usually small areas bounded on all sides by visible features such as streets, roads, streams, and railroad tracks, and by invisible boundaries such as property lines, legal limits, and short imaginary extensions of streets and roads." (from: Datamocracy description)) and not personal locations like in an address point layer. So already, it was questionable about what the sirens did and did not cover. Another critical error in my assumptions was the purpose of tornado siren. It is simply to warn the general public who are in an outdoor place to move inside and to seek shelter. Not to warn people who are already indoors and near a shelter. In fact, research has been done that during severe weather and in an interior house, the sound of the siren would only be audible up to a quarter-mile at best. So overall my conclusions in the paper were wrong on a professional level but provided me with a lot of detail and insight into how warning systems are planned out. I was very fortunate that I had professionals critique my ways of thinking in a constructive manner and am thankful for it.