Tornadoes And Dust Devils Can Be Weird. Here's Proof

A tumbleweed devil bears down on a motorist in Washington State.
Looks scary, but it was fine. 

Today, we have a few odd tornado videos. Just for fun, I guess.

On Friday, a tornado hit an area around Puebla, Mexico.

Did I say a tornado? I meant five tornadoes. Yes, five tornadoes all lined up like ducks in a row.

These were a type of twister known as landspout tornadoes. They aren't the classic, usually more dangerous ones that originate in a supercell thunderstorm, and lower to the ground to cause their destruction.

Landspouts are usually associated with less severe thunderstorms and spin up starting from the ground. While any tornado is dangerous, landspouts are usually less violent than their supercell counterparts. Still, if you happen to see a landspout, head for the basement.

It's certainly unusual to get five of them spinning up like in Puebla, Mexico.  Here's a compilation video



The next video isn't unusual for a tornado video, but it is quite odd for where it was filmed: Around Doha, Qatar.  Twisters are rare in Qatar but certainly do occur from time to time.



The final video isn't a tornado at all. It's a dust devil.  Except it's got a surprise element.  Dust devils are tight whirls of air that spin up on clear, sunny days.  The strongest ones can cause minor damage but they're usually harmless.

This one is more of a tumbleweed devil. So cool!  It happened recently in Washington State. I'm told the car was not seriously harmed. The driver is fine.

Another Hurricane Abruptly Turns Into Monster. And Will Nor'easter Result

Satellite image of what was Category 5 Hurricane Willa off
the western Mexican coast on Monday. 

Following a dangerous and increasing trend in recent years, Hurricane Willa blew up into a monster off the west coast of Mexico between Sunday and Monday.

It's going to come ashore today in southwestern Mexico, and I imagine we're going to hear a lot of news about destruction in that neck of the woods in the next few days. It'll come ashore north of Puerto Vallarta.

Willa went from a humdrum tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in just two days. That's incredibly rapid intensification.  Waters off the Mexican coast are running one to two degrees warmer than normal, and that certainly helped with the intensification.

That type of explosive development seems to be a trend in tropical systems.

Willa might be an indication that rapidly intensifying hurricanes will likely become more common with global warming. There won't necessarily be more hurricanes than there used to be, but a greater proportion of them will intensify really quickly.

There's more research on this trend. A 2016 paper from MIT examined this.

Reports the Category 6 weather and climate blog:

"MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel explained that not only will global warming make the strongest hurricanes stronger, it will also increase how fast they intensify."

That's especially dangerous when the intensification comes just as the hurricane is getting ready to make landfall. We saw that with Hurricane Harvey in Texas last year and Hurricane Michael earlier this month in the Florida Panhandle.

Emanuel's argument makes sense. If the overall atmospheric conditions are favorable for a hurricane, warmer water will more efficiently feed the hurricane, making it intensify more quickly. Warmer ocean water is widely expected to be around as climate change continues to take hold.

When a hurricane intensifies greatly just before coming ashore, these monsters would catch people in the storm zone off guard. They might be expected a so-so storm and instead getting something more powerful. That happened with Michael this month on the Florida Panhandle.

According to the Category 6 weather and climate blog:

"The analysis found that the odds of a hurricane intensifying by 70 mph or greater in the 24 hours just before landfall were about once every 100 years in the climate of the late 20th century. But in the climate of the year 2100, these odds increased to once every five to ten years."

That might sound like a whole lot. But as we saw with Hurricane Michael, this type of intensification is beyond catastrophic.

In the case of Willa, the explosive intensification occured when the storm was a fair distance offshore. It looks like it peaked yesterday with top winds of 160 mph. As is typical with hurricanes, Willa has rearranged the thunderstorms around the eye of the storm. This tends to weaken the top winds, but spreads strong, dangerous winds over a wider area, and can make the storm surge worse.

Willa was down to 130 mph this morning, and wind speed will probably drop a little more before landfall. But it will still be a serious, life-threatening hurricane.

The remnants of Willa will cross through Mexico and into southern Texas, spreading more unwelcome rain in an area of the Lone Star State that has had far too much rain and flooding lately.

The ghost of Willa will then run eastward across the Gulf Coast and become an ingredient to the formation of what looks like the season's first nor'easter.  It will make a run up the East Coast over the weekend.

It's too soon to determine what exactly that nor'easter will do, but it could have implications here in Vermont later Saturday and especiallly Sunday.   We have a good chance of a cold rain, maybe some wind, and maybe some snow in the higher elevations. We don't yet how far to the east the storm will go, so we don't know how heavy the precipitation might be.

We'll know more by about Thursday.

This nor'easter will come just about on the anniversary of last October's nor'easter, which brought one of the worst and destructive windstorms on record to parts of Vermont. We're quite sure whatever this weekend's nor'easter does, it won't be as bad as last year's.

Hurricane Bud In Pacific, And Are Hurricanes Getting Even Wetter?

Hurricane Bud looking impressive in this satellite photo from Monday

The second Category 4 hurricane in a week is spinning off the west coast of Mexico this morning. Unlike last week's Aletta, this new one might actually do some damage.  Mostly from flooding.

And it could even wet some of the deserts of the American Southwest. Here are some details:

HURRICANE BUD

It's got an interesting name - Hurricane Bud - and it might sideswipe Cabo San Lucas later this week. By then, Bud's winds will have diminished to nothing too spectacular at all, but it could easily create a lot of heavy rain and flooding in southwestern Mexico, including the Baja Peninsula.

As of this morning, maximum sustained winds were 130 mph with Hurricane Bud, but it's moving northwest into cooler waters, which will start that weakening trend.

However, heavy rains often linger with the remains of hurricanes long after they weaken. Bud wil be no exception.  It will probably still be a tropical storm when it reaches Baja California, and then soak western Mexico with up to 10 inches of rain. Flash flooding is a very good bet in that neck of the woods.

It looks as if moisture from Bud will make it all the way up into Arizona and Mexico. On one hand, this is good. The Southwest has been plagued by wildfires pretty much the entire spring, and some nice rains will help. This system might give Tucson and Phoenix their first rains in three months. 

On the other hand, it doesn't take much rain in the deserts to set off flash flooding, and some of the downpours associated with the  remains of Hurricane Bud at the end of the week could cause some local high water in Arizona and New Mexico.

GULF OF MEXICO STIRRING

Hurricane experts are watching an area of disturbed weather in the Caribbean Sea east of Central America that is likely to eventually drift north. Once it hits the Gulf of Mexico, there is a chance - albeit rather slight at this point - that it could become a tropical storm.

Even if it doesn't, this storminess will bring a slug of heavy rain somewhere into the Gulf Coast toward the weekend or early next week. At this point the target area for the potential heavy rain seems to be Texas and/or Louisiana, but we'll have to wait and see on that.

While nobody is hitting the panic button over potential flooding yet, this kind of thing makes people in and around Houston nervous, given the catastrophe of last year's Hurricane Harvey flooding there.

HURRICANES GETTING WETTER?

Flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Port Arthur, Texas last year.
Photo by Marcus Yam/LA Times/Getty Images

Hurricanes, tropical storms, tropical depressions and the remnants of dead and dying tropical systems almost alway dump heavy rains wherever they go. Inland flooding is often the biggest risks of tropical systems. Note Harvey, mentioned above.

New research into hurricanes are leading to worries about heavier rains and worsening floods from future tropical systems.

The journal Nature reports on findings that hurricanes in general are traveling at a forward speed of 10 percent slower than 70 years ago.

That's bad because the longer a hurricane stays over an area, battering from wind and waves will also last longer. Worse, the heavy rains will go on in any one place for a greater period of time, resulting in worse floods than if the hurricane raced past a particular locations.

Some hurricanes have always slowed down and stalled. Again, witness Harvey in Texas last year. However, it looks like these stalls and decelerations with hurricanes are happening more often.

Once again, we can blame climate change. As NPR reports:

"Climate change is causing the poles to become warmer, which in turn affects the atmospheric pressure. There is less and less difference in pressure between the poles and the tropics, and that causes the big currents of wind between the two areas to slow down. 

Storms ride on those currents of wind, like a boat in a stream."

Which means if the winds carrying tropical systems slow down, so will the hurricanes. Just another reason to dread hurricane season, huh?

New Orleans Next On Hurricane Hit List?

There's good agreement among computer forecasting
models that Nate will come ashore over or near
southeastern Louisiana, but the wild card is
how strong it will be when it gets there. 

The next American city to get slammed in this terrible hurricane season of 2017 might be New Orleans.

Hurricane watches are now up for this weekend along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, including the city of New Orleans as Tropical Storm Nate gets its act together in the western Caribbean Sea today.

It's inevitable that Nate will hit the United States somewhere along the Gulf Coast over the weekend, but there are big questions on the exact path and especially the strength of Nate once it reaches the U.S.

Maximum sustained winds with Nate were 45 mph early this morning, which isn't too intense, but the storm should strengthen fairly rapidly over very warm waters north of Nicaragua today.

Nate will head north, and how the storm interacts with land when it passes over or near Mexico's Yucatan peninsula tonight will greatly determine how fierce a storm Nate will be once it reaches the United States.

If the land interaction seriously disrupts Nate's core, it won't have time to get its act together and, in a best case scenario, not even get to full hurricane strength.  However, if Nate stays organized, or somehow misses the Yucatan altogether, it could strengthen rapidly into a dangerous powerhouse.

Hurricane forecasters are generally better at predicted a hurricane's path than they are at pinpointing its future strength. That's the nature of the science.

Right now, the National Hurricane Center is going with a middle of the road approach, and predicts a Category 1 Nate with 80 mph winds when it comes ashore.

After dealing with Category 4 and 5 hurricanes this year, Category 1 doesn't seem so bad, yet it is. Up to a foot of rain might fall along the Gulf Coast in the path of Nate, and storm surges will very likely batter the coastline.

The New Orleans water pumping system, which pushes water out of the low lying city during storms, is still not fully functional after a very damaging August 5 flood there. So more flooding is very possible.

One hopeful piece of news is that Nate will be moving right along, so it won't rain heavily in New Orleans or elsewhere for a long time. It won't be like Hurricane Harvey, which pretty much stalled out over East Texas for days, which, as we all remember, caused immense floods.

After A Brief Break, Another Hurricane Threat For The United States

Just some of the computer models for the future
track of what could well become Hurricane Nate.
As you can see by the variety of potential paths,
the forecast for Nate is still uncertain, but it
really does pose a threat to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

For a few blissful days, there hasn't been much in the way of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean, and, thankfully, nothing to speak of near the United States except for a weak tropical disturbance near Florida.

Unfortunately, that started to change yesterday as a tropical depression formed near Nicaragua. That depression this morning strengthened to Tropical Storm Nate, which has a strong chance of becoming a hurricane.

Nate will likely cause big problems in Nicaragua and Honduras, Mexico, probably Cuba and, yes, the United States.

The tropical depression was having a hard time strengthening into Tropical Storm Nate early this morning because it was interacting with land over Nicaragua and Honduras. (Tropical storms and hurricanes only strengthen over warm water.)

Still, the storm is likely to cause dangerous flooding in those two countries today.

From there, Nate will head north and emerge over the toasty waters of the western Caribbean Sea, where it will likely strengthen. Before it gets too strong, the storm will likely clip Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

It's unclear whether what is now Nate will be a strong tropical storm or a hurricane by the time it gets to the Yucatan Peninsula sometime Friday night or early Saturday morning, but it will cause wind, flooding rain and possible storm surge problems there.

From there, Nate will move northward over the Gulf of Mexico toward the United States. The water in the Gulf of Mexico is very warm, which tropical systems love if they want to strengthen.

The big question is how much will this would-be hurricane strengthen before its inevitable landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Some models barely bring this to hurricane strength, it at all. Other computer forecast models dramatically strengthen Nate over the Gulf of Mexico, which would make it a terrible threat to parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast by late Sunday or early Monday.

This far out, its exact track is also uncertain, but a zone from Louisiana through most of the Florida Panhandle are at risk. Wouldn't you know this is an area that is relatively unscathed between the flood devastation from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and southwestern Louisiana, and the Florida Peninsula, which was raked by Hurricane Irma last month.

So, once again, the United States is bracing for a possible disastrous hurricane.

Up here where we live in Vermont, it's possible the remnants of Nate could affect us next week. On the plus side, if it does, it would dump a big slug of rain on us, which we need. (The relatively modest rains that fell over northern Vermont last night helped a little,  but we need a lot more to get over our current dry spell.)

On the negative side, a gusty, heavy rain from a former tropical storm could short circuit some of the fall foliage, which is finally beginning to develop over the North Country - much later than normal due to the record September heat we had.

I can't give you any specifics, since the track of Nate is so uncertain.

Weird Maryland Tornado And Tropical Storm Franklin Still Threatens Mexico

Flipped cars Monday after a tornado in Salisbury,
Maryland. Photo by Liz Holland/Delmarvanow.com

If you think you've read the headline in today's post before you're kind of right.

Yesterday, I reported news from Sunday on "Weird Tulsa Tornado and Tropical Storm Franklin Threatens Mexico."

Monday was sort of rinse and repeat kind of day.

In Salisbury, in eastern Maryland, a rather unexpected tornado touched down, flipping cars and causing other damage. You can see a security camera video at the bottom of this post of a car blowing out into a street.

Maryland certainly gets tornadoes from time to time, but not all that often. Eastern Maryland has been getting slammed this summer, though. A destructive tornado hit Queen Anne's County, Maryland last month and now this.

Like the Tulsa tornado early Sunday, Monday's twister spun up abruptly. The National Weather Service had warned of a severe thunderstorm, but the storm suddenly began rotating significantly, and the tornado touched down near Salisbury College.

Luckily, there haven't been serious injuries reported.

TROPICAL STORM FRANKLIN

As expected, Tropical Storm Franklin hit Mexico's Yucatan Penninsula last night with sustained wincs of 60 mph.

It's crossing the penninsula now, and weakening since it's over land. Still, it's fairly well organized and should survive the trip over the Yucatan and emerge into the warm waters of the Bay of Campeche tonight.

On the one hand, the waters in the bay are extremely warm, which favors Franklin. It could intensify into a hurricane before it hits the central east coast of Mexico. On the other hand, strong upper level winds and an intrusion of dry air could limit its intensification.

We'll just have to wait and see.

Franklin still poses little or no threat to the United States.

Here's that security cam footage from the Maryland tornado:

Weird Tulsa Tornado, And Tropical Storm Franklin Threatens Mexico

A TGI Fridays in Tulsa, Oklahoma was torn apart
by a rare August tornado Sunday morning. Photo
by Tom Gilbert/Tulsa World

Over the weekend, a tornado struck Tulsa, Oklahoma, causing somewhere between 13 and 26 injuries - depending on who you talk to - and causing extensive damage to a business district. Even a 20 story building suffered serious damage.

When we think of Oklahoma, we think of tornadoes, so at first glance, news of a twister in the Sooner State doesn't seem that out of the ordinary.

This tornado was an oddball, though. Tornadoes are common in and around Oklahoma in the spring, say March through May, as atmospheric conditions favor such storms that time of year.

Those proper conditions are usually missing by August. Oh sure, a tornado can happen pretty much anywhere and any time of day in August, including in Oklahoma, but this was rare. It was the first Tulsa area tornado to strike in August since 1958. 

The time of day it struck was weird, too. Again, tornadoes can happen at any  hour of the day, but they are far more likely to strike in the afternoon and early evening, when the sun's heat adds instability to the atmosphere. That instability can make tornadoes more likely.

The Tulsa tornado, however, swept through at around 1:30 a.m. Sunday. The early morning tornado mostly hit a business district, and most of the stores and restaurants in that area were closed and empty at the time of the tornado.

(Although some people inside a TGI Fridays were hurt when the tornado partly collapsed the building.)

Had the tornado focused on a dense residential district, it might have actually been worse, because people are sleeping at 1:30 in the morning and aren't awake to hear tornado warnings. And Oklahomans generally let their guard down a little after the spring tornado season ends.

And had that tornado struck during the day, when the business district was very busy, it would have been a much worse situation.

The tornado spun up extremely suddenly, catching forecasters a bit off guard. No tornado sirens in Tulsa sounded because by the twister appeared, it was already heading out of town and into the neighboring community of Broken Bow, which did receive warnings.

TROPICAL STORM FRANKLIN

The latest tropical storm to form came to life last night in the northwestern Caribbean Sea.

Its name is Franklin. Top sustained winds this morning were 45 mph, which isn't too big a deal, but forecasters think Franklin could strengthen. The government of Mexico has issued a hurricane watch for the Yucatan peninsula, as the storm is expected to hit there.

It'll weaken briefly while over the Yucatan, but could strengthen again once it gets over the warm waters of the Bay of Campeche on Mexico's easrt coast.

Franklin does not appear to be much of a threat to the United States at the moment.

Mudslides Triggered By Hurricane Earl Kill Dozens of Mexicans

Destruction from the rains of Hurricane Earl in
Mexico. Photo by Kirsten Luce/NYT  

Hurricane Earl smashed ashore in Belize late last week, causing quite a bit of damage in that small nation's capital city.

But Earl's deadliest swipe came further north, in the southern reaches of Mexico, where incredible rains unleashed huge mudslides that swept into villages.

At least 38 people died in the mudslides, but the thinking is the death toll will rise as more bodies are discovered.

Some areas in Mexico had a month's worth of rain in five hours, and whole mountainsides seemed to shear off during the mudslides, the New York Times said.

Flooding from dying hurricanes moving inland is a real hazard. Often, these floods are the worst aspect of a hurricane or tropical storm.

We've seen that locally in Vermont. Hurricane Irene was kind of bad, but not extreme as it swiped North Carolina and the coastlines of New Jersey and Long Island.

But when the decaying hurricane moved inland, it caused record, devastating floods in central and northern New York, and across most of Vermont. 

Hurricane season in the Atlantic is heading into peak season. There's no immediate signs of anything forming, but Earl and Irene prove that you should worry about hurricanes even if you live nowhere near the coast.

We're Likely To See Tropical Storm Earl Any Minute Now

This storminess south of Hispaniola today
is likely to strengthen into Tropical Storm
Earl later today or tonight. 

Last week I said the tropical Atlantic was getting active, and sure enough, a new tropical storm looks like it will get going any minute now.

One of the weather disturbances that I said was way out over the central Atlantic raced westward and now it's in the western Caribbean already and is approaching Jamaica. 

It's pretty well organized and getting more organized, but doesn't yet have a full, circular wind pattern that you need to declare this a tropical storm.

Still, winds are running at 40 to 45 mph north of the storm's center, says the National Hurricane Center.

The weather system's circulation will probably become whole later today and tonight, and that will mean we'll have Tropical Storm Earl.

Wannabe Earl will probably keep zipping along on a generally westbound direction and will threaten Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Belize and/or Guatemala later in the week.

Earl could easily strengthen into a nasty hurricane by the time it reaches Mexico or Central America. Upper air patterns favor strengthening, and the ocean water in the path of Wannabe Earl is at near record highs.

In general, the warmer the water, the more likely it is for  a tropical storm or hurricane to strengthen.

Stay tuned! 

Yet ANOTHER Early Tropical Storm Might Form

That patch of clouds in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico
on Sunday could become Tropical Storm Danielle 

UPDATE Mon. Morning:

This disturbance did indeed strengthen to Tropical Storm Danielle early this morning.

As I noted Sunday, this is the earliest the fourth tropical storm of the year has formed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Danielle remains weak and disorganized. Top sustained winds are 40 mph, making it barely tropical storm strength.

It'll move inland today and then dissipate, causing some flash flooding in parts of Mexico in the process.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

There's an area of disturbed weather in the Bay of Campeche, off Mexico's east coast that could become a tropical storm by Monday.

If it does become a tropical storm, it will easily be the earliest on record the fourth tropical storm of the year formed in the Atlantic Basin. If it becomes a tropical storm, they'll name it Danielle.

The would-be tropical storm was an area of showers and thunderstorms in the far western Gulf of Mexico Sunday afternoon.

The storms were slowly becoming more organized, and the National Hurricane Center gave it an 80 percent chance of becoming at least a tropical depression.

A tropical depression is a weak version of a tropical storm, and are not given names. If sustained winds with this thing go up to 39 mph or more, it'll become Tropical Storm Danielle.

Wannabe Danielle doesn't have much time to strengthen before it makes landfall in Mexico Monday. Once it comes ashore, it'll dissipate, but not before dropping heavy rains that could lead to flash floods.

The chances of wannabe Danielle reaching hurricane strength -75 mph winds - is almost nil.  This storm will also not affect weather in the United States to any great extent.

Just because the start of the Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season has been very busy doesn't necessarily mean this will be a blockbuster year for such storms.

The National Hurricane Center is predicting an average year for hurricanes and tropical storms. El Nino, which tends to suppress Atlantic tropical storm activity is dead, and probably will be replaced by La Nina.

La Nina is a cool patch of water in the eastern Pacific Ocean that influences weather patterns and can make Atlantic Ocean tropical storms and hurricanes more likely. But again, we're not looking at an extreme year.

Still, it only takes one powerhouse of a hurricane hitting the United States to cause an epic disaster.

We've gone a record number of years without a major hurricane striking the U.S. coast, so we're way overdue.

A major hurricane is one with sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

Plus, it doesn't take a major hurricane to cause epic damage.  Superstorm Sandy in 2012 was transitioning into a non-tropical storm, but caused an immense disaster along the East Coast.

In 2011, Hurricane Irene became a tropical storm with winds dropping below 75 mph soon after landfall on the East Coast, but still caused record flooding and lots of deaths in New York and Vermont.

Danielle won't be much of a threat to the United States, but we still need to keep an eye out for dangerous tropical storms and hurricanes, especially as the hurricane season ramps up in August and September.

Did Climate Change Cause Super Hurricane Patricia?

Intense super Hurricane Patricia off the Mexican
west coast Friday morning.  

Hurricane Patricia, the most intense hurricane in modern records seen in the western hemisphere, slammed into Mexico as expccted Friday afternoon and evening.

The wildest winds with Patricia hit in a relatively sparsely populated spot on the Mexican west coast.

The worst of the winds appeared to miss the busy resort city of Puerto Vallarta and the port of Manzanillo so it could have been worse.

Both of those two bigger cities got nasty, damaging winds, but not the full blow of Category 5 winds of over 150 mph.

We are still awaiting full damage reports. So far it doesn't seem too, too bad, but we haven't heard from remote areas yet. So there will surely be more news on this.

There's no doubt Patricia was a meteorological shocker. Nobody expected it to get that strong.

It's leading to the inevitable question: Did climate change, global warming, however you want to describe it, cause Hurricane Patricia? Or at least make it worse?  Should we have renamed Patricia Hurricane Exxon, after the fossil fuel giant, as some social media wags suggested, because of global warming?

More on that in a moment. First, some perspective.

As I said, Patricia was the strongest hurricane on record in the western hemisphere. I'm resisting the urge some people have had to call it the strongest hurricane ever.

Scientists are much better at measuring hurricanes over water via satellite estimations and hurricane hunter flights than they were many decades ago. Perhaps a stronger western hemispheric hurricane occured over water, say, a century ago and we missed it.

Nor was Patricia "big." It was a compact hurricane, with the 200 mph winds limited to a 10 mile wide area, and hurricane force winds sometimes confined to within as little as 35 miles across

Even with these caveats, Patricia was in a rare class of intense hurricanes. It weakened a bit to sustained winds of165 mph at landfall, but that's still extremely intense ande extremely dangerous.

Imagine one of those immense, super strong Midwestern tornadoes sitting over your house for more than an hour, instead of the exceptionally frightening couple of minutes a tornado would.

So why was Patricia such a monster?

The two main things you need for an intense hurricane are light upper level winds and warm ocean water. The calmer the upper atmospheric winds and the warmer the water, the stronger the hurricane, at least usually.

Patricia took advantage of calm upper level winds. That was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. The hurricane formed under these conditions.

The water beneath the storm was at record high levels. Aha! Global warming caused Patricia, right?

Well, it certainly could have been a contributor, but that's not the whole story. Yes, the water was record warm. That was largely due to El Nino, the periodic warming of eastern Pacific waters.

This El Nino is stronger than almost all of them in the past 100 years or so, so this El Nino has more warm water than usual. That the water was at record temperatures could well have been given that boost due to global warming.

So yes, climate change might have influenced Hurricane Patricia, but the story is even more muddier than I let on.

First of all, it's hard to pin one extreme event like Patricia on global warming, when there are so many complicated factors that went into Patricia's formation.

We do know that global warming is causing, and will cause, more extreme heat events, extreme droughts and extreme rainfall events. That's pretty well established by scientists, who I trust a lot more than Donald Trump, who disagrees with this assessment.

Patricia was one more extreme event amid many others that have happened recently. Like the big flash floods in Texas Friday that will probably become more intense when moisture from Patricia's remnants enter the picture today.

The basic question remains: Will there be more serious and stronger hurricanes and typhoons because of global warming?

Individual cases suggest yes. Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012 along the U.S. East Coast seem to have given a boost by unsually warm water temperatures, a hallmark of climate change.

But does climate change also disrupt upper level winds? Does it increase those winds, making it harder for hurricanes and typhoons to form? If so where? It seems the science isn't totally settled there.

Maybe global warming will change where hurricanes and typhoons hit. If warmer water is more north than it used to be, it stands to reason that hurricanes would travel more north than they used to. That, again, depends on whether upper level winds also cooperate to help form these monster storms.

Some research also suggests that perhaps the overall number of hurricanes might not increase, but the number of really strong ones, like Haiyan and Patricia would rise due to tropical systems using all that newly hot ocean water as a fuel source. 

A bunch of scientists are studying hurricanes and typhoons and how they relate to global warming.

The bottom line: The science on specific super Hurricane Patricia is a little murky, but climate change is probably - but not definitely- making vulnerable coastal locations in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceams more prone to stronger hurricanes like Patricia.

Hurricane Patricia, Strongest, Most Dangerous On Record, Blasts Mexico

Hurricane Patricia with its tiny pinhole eye early
this morning. It is the strongest hurricane on
record in the Western Hemisphere.  

Hurricane Patricia is incredible. It went from a so-so Category 1 storm with 85 mph yesterday morning to the strongest hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere, with 200 mph sustained winds.

It's going to come ashore today not far from the resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico as a Category 5 storm. Winds will probably still be sustained near 200 mph when it blasts ashore. Of course there will be higher gusts.

You always hear, historic storm, historic storm for every seemingly bad tempest. But Hurricane Patricia is truly historic.

It is, as noted, THE strongest hurricane ever officially observed in the Western Hemisphere - which includes the eastern Pacific Ocean and the entire Atlantic Ocean.

The way to gauge a hurricane's strength is to measure how low the air pressure gets at the center. The lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.

At last check the air pressure at the center of Patricia was 880 millibars, or 25.99 inches of mercury. That beats the record set by Hurricane Wilma in the western Caribbean Sea exactly 10 years ago, which got down to 882 millibars.

Sunrise on monster Hurricane Patricia this morning

Of course, Patricia is the strongest hurricane on record in the eastern Pacific, beating Hurricane Linda in 1997.

El Nino, the periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, contributed to Patricia's strength. It's no surprise that both Linda and Patricia hit during strong El Ninos.

The warmer the water, the more likely a hurricane will be able to strengthen. So there you go.

Hurricane Patricia also intensified far, far, more quickly than most hurricanes do. As I noted, 85 mph to 200 mph in less than 24 hours is incredible.

Incredible is the word to use when describing how the impact is going to be on the Mexican coast.

At this point, it looks like landfall will be a little south of Puerto Vallarta. It looks like it might come ashore close to the city of Manzanillo, which has a population of over 100,000.

With winds of 200 mph, basically imagine one of those ultra strong Oklahoma tornadoes that destroy entire towns. But instead of the tornado being a mile wide, the destruction with this will be like a strong tornado that is more than 20 or 30 miles wide.

And the full force of Hurricane Patricia will last hours in any one place, not minutes, like a tornado would. I don't know how you survive that.

Waves on the Mexican coast could reach 40 feet high, too. Plus up to a foot of rain will fall in a short period of time.

Once Hurricane Patricia moves inland, it will smack into tall southwestern Mexican mountains. Such tall mountains will make Patricia fall apart fast, and will be remnant low over central Mexico with just 25 mph winds by Saturday afternoon.

But even then, Hurricane Patricia won't be done, uh-uh!

A non-tropical storm system is likely to get going along the Texas coast this weekend. That storm will draw incredible amounts of moisture from Hurricane Patricia or its remnants.

Texas has already had some flooding from a slow moving storm system this week, and the Patricia moisture will  unleash even more high water. Much more. Up to 10 inches of rain is forecast for parts of Texas in the upcoming week.

The storm system with its moisture from Patricia is likely to spread heavy rain as far north as New England by next Thursday.

Meanwhile, let's hope people were able to evacuate ahead of Patricia in Mexico. And lets pray that the strongest part of Patricia hits very sparsely population sections of Mexico.

Mexican Drought Makes Ghost Church Reappear

Ghost church reappears in a Mexican reservoir
as drought lowers water levels there.  

A drought has hit the state of Chiapas, Mexico and reservoirs have gotten low, low, low.

So low, that in one reservoir, a ghost church has emerged from the receding water.

According to The Independent, the Temple of Quechula was built in 1564 by Spanish colonists, who thought the area would become a major population center.

It didn't, and an outbreak of plague further reduced the population. The church never got that busy, and eventually, a dam was built in 1966 and the church disappeared beneath the new lake.

Now, local entrepreneurs are ferrying people out to the church for a look-see. It's pretty spooky looking, and it's amazing part of the structure is still around after being submerged like that for so long.

This isn't the first time the church has reappeared. In 2002, a drought made water so low that people could walk around the church and explore its rooms.

I'm sure the people of Chiapas are hoping the drought ends, but I guess the re-emergence of the church is one small bright spot to enjoy while waiting for the rains to return.

More Extreme Weather Videos

This car was crushed by a tornado this morning
in Ciudad Acuna, near Del Rio, Texas.  

It's another day of stormy weather across the southern Plains today.

A particularly nasty batch of storms spewing hail, high winds, tornadoes and flash floods got going over western Texas this morning.

As of noon, the storms were gaining strength, size and coverage, meaning much of central and eastern Texas is in for a trying day today. As if the last several weeks of tornadoes and floods weren't enough.

There's already been a report of a 76 mph wind gust around Abilene, Texas earlier today.

Demonstrating how potentially dangerous this weather system is, a tornado roared through Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, just across the border from Del Rio, Texas earlier this morning.

Reports are that 10 people died in the Ciduda Acuna tornado.

The tornado lifted before it reached Del Rio, but that city still got high winds and flash flooding out of the deal.

Huge hailstones in Romania today. 

Violent and unusual weather has been hitting wide areas of the world in the past week. Today, a supercell thunderstorm dumped tennis ball sized  hail on parts of Romania. Serbia is experiencing dangerous flash floods.

Record heat has hit parts of Alaska and northwestern Canada. Eagle, Alaska, some 200 miles east of Fairbanks, had six days in a row with temperatures in the 80s last week.  It was 47 degrees on May 21 in Barrow, on Alaska's northern tip.

That doesn't seem like much, but that is by far the warmest it has been there for so early in the season. The unusual and persistent heat up that way is aggravating early ice melt in the Arctic this year.

In Turkey a few days ago, massive flash floods swept away cars, buildings and people. Have a look in this video:




For proof that Texas has gotten way too much severe weather, here's footage from StormChasingVieo.com of hail piling up to a foot or more deep in Pecos, Texas back on May 18.

The hail was so deep that the bottom of low clearance cars were scraping the accumulation and getting stuck. It looks like the worst of winter driving, but it was springtime hail. Watch:

Hurricane Blasts Violently Through Hotel Lobby: Wild Video

Hurricane Odile pays a visit to
a Cabo San Lucas hotel lobby back in September.  

Powerful Hurricane Odile slammed into the area around Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in mid-September with 125 winds. The resort was really totally trashed.

The Holiday Inn Express hotel in Cabo San Lucas was among those damaged.  A surveillance camera captured the chaos.

In the video below, the calm eye of the storm is passing over Cabo San Lucas. The hurricane has already damaged the lobby, as you can see.

Then the eye passes, and suddenly the hurricane's 125 winds slam through the lobby, and all hell breaks loose.

Here's the incredible video:

Update: Cabo San Lucas Is Trashed; Odile Flood Threat In U.S. Worsens

Inside the terminal at the Cabo
San Lucas airport. 

The resort mecca of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico got absolutely nailed by Hurricane Odile, as anyone reading or watching the news can tell you.   

So far, I haven't heard reports of fatalities, but news is just barely starting to trickle out of the resort area. Infrastructure is damaged, so I'm sure we are having trouble getting a complete assessment of the destruction.

Below is a very telling video of a drive through the resort shortly after the hurricane tapered off. You can see tourists walking around kind of shell shocked, and a lot of damage.

Also, scroll down below the video, as I have some updates on the potentially worsening effects the remnants of Odile will have in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and nearby areas.

Here's the Cabo San Lucas destruction:




Hurricane Odile moved northward, as expected, but the track was a little to the east of some forecasts.

Because of the track that's a little more to the east, the remnants now look like they will head right toward Arizona. Of course, Odile won't be an organized storm by then, just a big blob of moisture.

A really BIG blob of moisture.

Flash flood watches are up for a wide area of the southwestern United States, including much of Arizona and New Mexico, southern Nevada and extreme southeastern California, in the deserts.

Some of the heavy rain will come in by early Wednesday, but the worst of it will be Wednesday night and Thursday.

And wouldn't you know, the rain won't hit the areas of California that are having an epic drought, and an epic heat wave, and epic wildfires. Instead, it's going to rain hard in areas that got wicked flash floods in Arizona and southern Nevada.

Forecasts for the amount of rain that will hit the flash flood watch area have increased since this morning. Some areas could get up to five inches of rain, or even more than that.

Stay tuned on this one.

Hurricane Odile To Blast Baja California; Cause New Flooding In Desert Southwest?

Satellite view of Hurricane Odile approaching
the southern tip of Baja California on Sunday.  

This hurricane season, the East Coast of the United States hasn't had it too bad, as there haven't been many tropical systems in the Atlantic so far this year.

That's the good news.

The bad news, is, we have to keep turning our eyes to the west, which we don't often have to do for hurricanes.

Right now, Hurricane Odile is the troublemaker. It's moving toward the Baja California pennisula on the northwest coast of Mexico.

As of late morning Sunday, Eastern Daylight Time, and breakfast time out in western Mexico, the storm had top sustained winds of 135 mph.

That's a Catagory 4 hurricane, the second strongest catagory we have. Later today, those strong wind will hit the southern tip of Baja California, and then spread northward as the hurricane moves toward the northwest, along the coast.

Basically, this means much of Baja California in Mexico is screwed. They're going to get extremely damaging winds, of course. Also, a severe storm surge will slam into coastal buildings and structures, causing severe damage.

It'll rain like hell with this, of course. They're expecting five to 10 inches of rain, with some mountainous areas probably clocking in at 15 inches, so there will be huge flooding and mudslides in the area.

So we should hope for the best and pray the storm unexpectedly veers away from the coast of Mexico. But don't count on it.

If Hurricane Odile is heading north, it'll hit California in the United States or someething like that, right?

No.

The West Coast is largely protected from hurricanes because the water temperature in the Pacific Ocean is chilly there, due to normal currents. Hurricanes grow and thrive on warm water, above 80 degrees, and fall apart and die in colder water.

It's extremely rare for a tropical storm to hit southern California or southeastern Arizona. It might have happened once or twice in the past century

So that's Odile's fate as it heads northwestward. It'll fall apart. But that doesn't mean the United States gets off scott free from this.

The first problem is, the southern California coast will get hammered by swells and waves generated by Odile, so there will be dangerous conditions and rip tides for swimmers and surfers. There might be some coastal flooding as well.

Even worse, moisture from Odile will move into the Desert Southwest. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is. Last week, moisture from Hurricane Norbert, which had been off the Mexican Coast, fed into Arizona, southern California and southern Nevada, and epic flooding resulted.

Phoenix, Arizona had its wettest day on record, and some of the worst flooding on record hit areas around Phoenix, Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada and Riverside, California.

The rainfall and the flooding from Odile probably won't be as extreme as last week, but still, it spells trouble.

Most of the rain will miss coastal and central California, which is currently experiencing a big heat wave and an ever-worsening drought. Wildfires are a problem, and Odile's moisture won't be enough to tamp those blazes down.

Crazy Guy Films Mexican Tornado Amid Giant Razor Blade Sheet Metal

Aftermath of Chiapas, Mexico tornado.
Note all the sheet metal that had flown around. 

A video has emerged of a tornado that struck Chiapas State, Mexico a couple months back.

Don't try this at home, kiddies!

The guy filming inside the tornado is amid flying sheet metal.

I really don't think I'd be outside with what are essentially giant razor blades flying around at 100 mph or so.

Still, quite an incredible video. Watch: