Tropical Depression Strikes Indiana Of All Places, Bad Flooding Elsewhere

Tropical Depression Alberto still has a well defined tropical-like
circulation over Indiana on Wednesday. 

This morning, former subtropical Storm Alberto was still a tropical depression - in Indiana of all places.

Alberto has held together remarkably well as a tropical system. Usually, they transition pretty quickly to non-tropical storm systems or disturbances soon after moving inland.

Alberto will indeed become just a regular old inland weather system later today, but it's survivability into Indiana is pretty incredible.

Satellite photos from this morning show a well defined pinwheel Tropical Depression Alberto centered not far from Terre Haute, Indiana.

This is a big example of what's known as the "brown ocean."  The tropical disturbance can hold together becuase there is no influence from an upper level low that would disrupt the circulation. Also, there was plenty of low level and moisture from the ground to support the tropical system.

Remember, tropical systems depend on warm water to maintain their strength and integrity. When they go inland, that source of nutrition for tropical systems ends. Usually. Except in cases like this when there's nothing to disrupt them and there's plenty of atmospheric moisture to work with.

North Carolina Department of Transportation truck swept into a river
Tuesday. The two workers in the truck were rescued. 

While the actual circulation of Alberto is relatively small, it drew huge quantities of tropical, wet air into parts of the nation, causing or at least greatly contributing to some pretty horrible flash floods in some locations.

Western North Carolina was especially hard hit, with plenty of evacuations, water rescues, road closures and property damage.

Even the famed Biltmore Estate in Asheville was affected: The main entrance to the mansion and tourist attraction was blocked by floodwaters.

Ashville has had its wettest May on record.

Interstate 40 in McDowell County, North Carolina was closed due to landslides and flooding. Two North Carolina state highway workers had to be rescued from the flooding.

A flash flood emergency was also declared in parts of Alabama as well. Many roads are closed and people had to be rescued from at least one flooded home.

GERMANY FLOOD, TOO

Flash flooding seems to to be all the rage this week across much of the world. We had the Ellicott City, Maryland disaster on Sunday. Other flash floods struck parts of the Rocky Mountains. Areas of Great Britaina and particularly Germany have also been slammed by these floods.

Roads and buildings flooded, roofs collapsed and people were rescued, especially around the city of Wuppertal, Germany.

Some videos:

Flooding in the Biltmore Village section of Asheville, North Carolina:



Flooding in Germany:

Alberto Update: Two Journalists Die Covering Storm

Alberto over Alabama Tuesday morning.  

Once-Subtropical Alberta, which moved inland yesterday, is still prompting widespread flood alerts and watches and warnings as it slowly moves north toward the Midwest.

Tragically, two journalists in North Carolina died while covering the storm.  A tree fell on a vehicle as WYFF anchor Mike McCormick and photojournalist Aaron Smeltzer covered heavy rains and potential flooding.

The danger from Alberto is from flooding, and the area at risk is pretty widespread. The tragedy in North Carolina was one example of this.

As Alberto made landfall along the Florida Panhandle Monday, a wide fetch of tropical moisture associated with the storm flowed into areas as far away as the Carolinas.

That's why McCormick and Smeltzer were covering the storm. Flood watches and flash flood warnings were in effect Monday in the Carolinas.

This morning, flash flood warnings were up for areas of Alabama, including the Tuscaloosa area. Flash flood watches are up today for a wide area of the Southeast, as they were yesterday. Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky are some of the areas under threat from the flooding today.

The remnants of Alberto will make their way up toward Michigan by Thursday and on up into Canada Friday. Heavy downpours are possible along the storm's path, but I don't expect huge, widespread floods.

Tornado over Colorado Tuesday.
Photo by Daniel Shaw, via Twitter
@DanielShawAU

TROUBLE ELSEWHERE

Monday was quite an active severe weather day in much of the country. It was one of the busiest days of the year for tornadoes, with at least 19 reported. Most of them were in Colorado, but there were a few others in Iowa, Kansas and Utah.

Luckily, most of the tornadoes were in open country and caused relatively little damage.

Today, most of the severe weather, including some risk of tornadoes, heads mostly to central and western Kansas and parts of Oklahoma. Minnesota looks like it will have some strong storms today, too.

The always entertaining and expert photojournalist/stormchaser Pecos Hank captured some of the tornadoes in Colorado Monday, including two that were spinning simultaneously:

Active Weather Memorial Day Weekend Unfolding Nationwide

Subtropical Storm Alberto is still disorganized in the eastern
Gulf of Mexico. However, thunderstorms are getting
more concentrated in the storm northwest of Cuba,
which means it's more organized than yesteray. 

There's quite a lot of weather excitement going on across the nation this Memorial Day weekend.

Some people are girding for storms, even a tropical storm. Other areas are flooding, and yet others are getting blasted by mid-summer, record heat. At least the sun is out in those hot locations.

I'll start with the biggest news first:

SUBTROPICAL STORM ALBERTO

Alberto was looking somewhat more organized in the Gulf of Mexico this morning as it heads toward landfall along the Florida Panhandle sometime on Monday.

Maximum sustained winds are still only 50 mph, and they'll only strengthen a little more before landfall. But as I noted yesterday, the wind isn't the main worry from this thing anyway. It's the flooding.

First, along the coast in the Florida Panhandle, a storm surge of two to four feet will put some coastal streets and buildings under water. Worse, as the storm comes in, the downpours will be fierce. That's especially true around northwestern Florida, southern Alabama and southwestern Georgia.

Four to eight inches of rain is likely in this zone, with locally higher amounts. It has already been raining in some of these areas quite a bit lately, so that enhances the flooding potential.

The storm, or its remnants, are expected to head up through the Midwest during the week, ending up in Michigan or thereabouts Thursday and near Toronto, Canada by Friday.

A large, severe thunderstorm at sunset in Houston, Texas
Saturday evening. Photo by Christopher Ramirez. Severe
storms are possible in the U.S. High Plains today. 

Alberto, or ex-Alberto, will carry a swath of heavy downpours with it all the way to Ontario, though by the time it gets that far north, I don't think it will cause that much flooding. It's punch will almost certainly be diminished by then.

OTHER FLOODING

Alberto isn't the only thing that's creating flooding in the nation. Slow moving weather fronts in the East are also causing high water problems, or at least the potential for it in the East.

Today, a cold front that drifted down from New England stalled around New Jersey, unleashing downpours there. Up to five inches of rain had fallen in New Jersey by mid-morning, and it was still coming down. Flash flood and flood warnings are up for much of that state.

Flash flood watches extend down to parts of Maryland, Delaware, Washington DC and Virginia. That stalled front up in New Jersey could easily contribute to torrential thunderstorms in these areas this afternoon. It's been raining an awful lot in the Mid-Atlantic this month, so it won't take much to create high water.

Tropical moisture streaming north, in part because of Alberto, is streaming into the Carolinas, so flash flood watches are in effect there, too. 

Elsewhere, parts of Wyoming and extreme western South Dakota are also under flash flood watches because of expected slow moving, and potentially severe thunderstorms later today. I suspect the heavy rains might extend into North Dakota later this week, possibly causing flooding problems there, too.

SEVERE STORMS

Severe storms (in yellow) associated with Florida with
Alberto and in the High Plains as a cold front
approaches record heat. 

Scattered dangerous thunderstorms are likely in the western High Plains from Wyoming and South Dakota, down into western Kansas, eastern Colorado, western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.  

A few supercells might spin off a tornado or two today, but the main threats are giant hailstones, strong winds and flash floods with these storms.

Tomorrow, as a cold front starts to impinge on record heat in the Upper Plains and Midwest (I'll get to the heat in a minute.) severe storms are expected to break out in much of the northern and central Plains. 

RECORD HEAT

A big early season heat wave is baking a large area from Texas all the way up through the Plains and into the Midwest, including the cities of Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Sioux Falls, Des Moines, Omaha and Wichita.

I'm at my temporary headquarters in Yankton, South Dakota, and I can testify it's HOT!  We're under a heat advisory here, and it could be 100 degrees this afternoon. It was 97 degrees here yesterday.

Several places in this region have a decent shot of reaching 100 degrees, which is particularly rare in May. It did make it to 100 degrees in Omaha, Nebraska yesterday.

This is among the strongest and longest lasting heat waves on record in the Upper Midwest. Although it will cool off some after Monday, it will stay much warmer than normal.

NO DRAMA VERMONT

Back in Vermont, there are no extremes this weekend like in so much of the rest of the nation. That cold front which is contributing to the flooding in New Jersey slipped through Vermont yesterday with some clouds and showers.

It's cool north of that front today in Vermont, but rain - if any - will be spotty and light today. It'll be cool-ish, especially east of the Green Mountains today.

Showers will be around here and there in Vermont on Monday, Memorial Day. But there will also be some sun, and it will be seasonably warm.

Not perfect weather for the Memorial Day weekend, but the no drama aspect of the weather is certainly welcome.

Update On Alberto: Flood Risk Rising In Southeast

Subtropical Storm Alberto looks like a disorganized
mess of thunderstorms in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Still, it is threatening to cause a lot of flooding
in the southeastern United States in the coming days. 

Subtropical Storm Alberto continues to splatter around the Gulf of Mexico.

It's disorganized and struggling against strong upper level winds and dry air trying to intrude on the system, but it still poses quite a danger to the eastern Gulf Coast.

Flooding is the main worry from this storm as it nears the Gulf Coast around Alabama or the Florida panhandle around Monday.

Alberto is being called a subtropical storm because it has characteristics of both a tropical storm and a regular old storm system. It looks like Alberto will transition to a fully tropical storm over the next couple of days.

But these semantics don't really matter in terms of the impacts from this storm. The storm's winds will probably increase from the current 40 mph sustained to perhaps near 65 mph as it approaches the coast Monday.

However, the wind isn't the big worry here. As noted, flooding is going to be a big factor. Six to 12 inches of rain, with locally more, will come down with Alberto, making the flooding inevitable.

What makes this worse is that as Alberto approaches and then crosses the coast, it will slow down, and linger for a few days. (A high pressure system that is causing a record heat wave in parts of teh Plains and Midwest is slowing Alberto's forward progress.) That prolongs the rainfall, causing precipitation totals to rise and increase the risk of flooding.

The remnants of Alberto will likely cause local flooding in many areas of the East through next week as it slowly lifts toward the north and east, possibly reaching New England by the end of next week.

Time For A Deeper Dive Into Two Tropical Storm Threats

This map from the Weather Channel depicts insane amunts of rain
from Cyclone Mekunu in Oman and Yemen. In an area that gets
normally gets roughly five inches of year, up to a foot and a half
could come down in just a couple days. 

There are two odd threats looming in the tropical storm department:

A powerful storm is threatening to bring disaster upon Oman and Yemen this week, and a messy tropical system threatens flooding in the southeastern United States early next week.

Let's go overseas first, where the bigger of the two problems is looming.

CYCLONE MEKUNU

As of last night, Cyclone Mekunu was a borderline Category 1/Category 2 hurricane. (They're called cyclones where this one is, but a hurricane and a cyclone are the same thing.) Sustained winds are in the dangerous 90 to 95 mph range.

Mekong could easily end up becoming the strongest tropical cyclone on record to hit the Arabian Peninsula when it makes landfall near the Yemen-Oman border, says the India Meteorological Department.

According to Bob Henson in the Category 6 weather blog, Mekunu is worrying for two principal reasons: It's going to hit land at a nearly perpendicular angle, which would increase the winds, waves and storm surge in Oman.

It's also likely hitting near a populated area: The city of Salalah, Oman, population about 340,000, can expect a nasty storm surge and major flood.

The normally arid area where Mekunu is expected to hit will probably get eight to 16 inches of rain, with more in the nearby mountains. This in an area that normally gets just roughly five inches of rain per year. You can imagine, then, how destructive the floods will be with a storm that brings two year's worth of rain in a day or two.

This will be a major, deadly disaster, folks.

WANNABE TROPICAL STORM ALBERTO

A big area of the Southeast can expect flooding rains from a
tropical system to form in the Gulf of Mexico in the coming days
Areas in red and oranage at this point look to be at most risk.

It looks almost certain now that some sort of tropical system will affect the eastern or central Gulf Coast of the United States in the coming days.

What exactly that will be is still open to question, but dangerous flooding is becoming an increasing risk.

That weather disturbance that was near Belize the other day has moved north to near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and will emerge into the Gulf of Mexico in the next day or two.

Normally, this time of year, upper level winds are too strong in the Gulf of Mexico to support a tropical system.

These upper level winds rip apart thunderstorms that would form into a tropical storm, so they don't happen. Over the next few days, those upper level winds over the Gulf aren't all that strong, so this thing has the potential to develop.

It'll probably form into a tropical or subtropical depression in the coming days. (A subtropical system has characteristics of both a tropical storm and a regular old storm system.) There's a chance this storm could become strong enough to be declared a tropical storm, with sustained winds of 39 mph.

If it achieves tropical storm status, it will be named Alberto.

Whether or not this thing becomes a tropical storm, it will bring boatloads of moisture into the southeastern United States, so flooding is a real concern in that part of the country. It doesn't help that parts of the area that are in for a soaking from Wannabe Alberto are already quite wet from previous rains, so this could be a real troublemaker.

Wannabe Alberto will never become one of those nice pinwheel shaped tropical systems or hurricanes that you often see in satellite photos. It'll be a messy mass of clouds and downpours that will slowly invade the Southeast.

The Atlantic tropical storm season officially begins on June 1, so this might form before then. But tropical systems sometimes form before the "official" start of the hurricane season. Just because this is early doesn't necessarily mean the overall hurricane season will be especially nasty, like last year.

It's too soon to tell how bad the upcoming hurricane season will be, but here's one hopeful sign: Water temperatures in the area of the Atlantic where the most powerful hurricanes tend to form in August and September are cooler than average. If this state of affairs continues, that could cut down on hurricanes since these things need warm water to thrive. And the warmer the better, as far as hurricanes are concerned.

Then again, the National Hurricane Center today issued a forecast calling for a near normal to busier than normal hurricane season. We shall see!