We haven’t had a whole lot of reason to check out the radar around here lately, so you probably haven’t noticed that you can track tropical storm systems right here on our website. How, you might ask? Check out Interactive Radar. The picture you see above is a screen grab I took at home on my laptop. In the white drop-down box, located within the viewable map, you can select ‘tropical storms’ and ‘clouds’ to get that very same image. The controls for our interactive radar are just like those you’d find at bing.com or google maps, so you can navigate anywhere and check out the latest in the tropics.

Right now, Irene is becoming a monster of a hurricane and is forecast to have a major impact on the east coast (as of this Wednesday morning’s NHC forecast). You can see that forecast track on our interactive radar and get the forecast timeline by hovering over each dot along the track.

Posted under Atlantic Hurricane Season, KTTC, severe weather, Tropical weather

Tropical Storm Irene has the potential to be two firsts.  It could be the first tropical cyclone to hit the United States Since 2009. Last year there were zero tropical storm or hurricane landfalls.  Irene has the the potential to do that and the potential to become the first hurricane of the 2011 hurricane season.  The second is very likely to happen.  As of Sunday evening, Irene has winds of 60 mph.  To become a hurricane, maximum sustained winds needs to be 74 mph or greater.

This was a satellite image taken from about 1:00 this afternoon.

Here is the current forecast path as predicted by the National Hurricane Center.

Posted under Atlantic Hurricane Season

Here’s something you don’t see every day, the National Hurricane Center’s current 5 day forecast projection places what is now Hurricane Igor over southern Greenland by Friday, but as a weaker non-tropical storm system, but one still capable of producing tropical storm force winds.  The hurricane is now a category one storm heading north toward eastern Canada.  It’ll likely maintain its hurricane status (maximum sustained winds of 74mph) through tomorrow night as it brushes past Newfoundland and then weaken to a tropical storm.  What will then likely happen, as Igor moves into cooler waters of the North Atlantic, is a transition from tropical storm to extratropical storm, meaning Igor will draw more enegry from the atmosphere than the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.  Even as an extratropical storm, it’ll still be interesting to watch Igor making landfall in Greenland and affecting portions of the arctic that don’t often experience storm systems of tropical origin.  The forecast for Friday places Igor at the southern end of the huge, glacier covered island packing winds of greater than 40 miles per hour.   Hopefully the local population and adventurous tourists in that region will be prepared when Igor arrives as waves will be rather choppy and dangerous.  Just last month in western Greenland, a group of 27 sea kayakers were caught in a similar storm and had to be rescued.

The current National Hurricane Center forecast calling for a slight chance of Igor making it up to Greenland and the Greenland Sea.

Posted under Atlantic Hurricane Season

There’s a lot to talk about in the world of weather today (but isn’t there always something?)

Probability of hurricane force winds

For those with interests in the tropics: For info on Earl, Fiona, Guston, and any other potential tropical formations: visit the National Hurricane Center page. Earl is a Category 4 monster hurricane with winds in excess of 140 mph. While it’s not expected to make direct landfall along the eastern seaboard, it will bring a glancing blow of potentially hurricane force winds, heavy rain, and dangerous surf to the coast (see graphic on the left).

Also, for the geek in you, you can find some pretty cool NASA stuff on Earl (think, satellite and beyond!) by clicking here.

August climate stuff: it’s official – Rochester’s average temperature was 5° above normal (officially: 72.7° was the average temperature). And yes, it was sticky, warm, and whatnot – but Rochester didn’t chalk up a single 90° reading. Typically, there’s 2 in August. We did have a bunch of days close to it, however.

In September, Rochester’s average temperature drops about 10° by September 30th; we usually see our first sub-32° low of the season, and we have a little over 3″ of precip. Oh yes, and we lose nearly an hour and a half of daylight between the 1st and 30th.

Our forecast today will feature some scattered showers with embedded t-showers. Winds will pick up late tonight and Friday will have an October feel to it: highs in the mid 60s, blustery, gusty NW winds, mostly cloudy skies, and some spotty showers. We warm things up slightly for Saturday…call it seasonable for Sunday…and near 80° for Monday (with maybe a few t-showers).

….was I supposed to talk about frogs? Hmm. Well, just watch out for the buggers crossing the roads.

Posted under Atlantic Hurricane Season, climate

If you want to keep tabs on now Category 2 Hurricane Earl, you can by heading to the National Hurricane Center’s website. Earl could come dangerously close to the eastern US seaboard by late-week…it’s already impacting the northern most part of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean.

Posted under Atlantic Hurricane Season