Tornado And Severe Weather Threat Still Big Risk In South

The question of the weekend in the Deep South is where there
be more of these types of highly visible but also highly
destructive tornadoes, or.....

Meteorologists around the nation, but especially in the Deep South are still watching what could be a terrible severe weather outbreak unfold this weekend.

Not to be glib in a situation like this, but it's an April classic, at least as the overall weather set up is.

A strong - and strengthening storm will move from the Plains to the Great Lakes Sunday and Monday.  There's going to be another snowstorm on its northwest flank from the central Plains up into Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

Strong, destructive winds and shoreline flooding are forecast for most of the Great Lakes.

But the real, most worrisome situation is the threat for tornadoes, some maybe long lasting and strong, especially Sunday. As readers of this blog thingy know, forecasters have been watching this situation for days now, and there are no signs so far that anybody can rest easy.

The first hint of trouble came Friday with a swarm of supercell thunderstorms in western Texas that produced some gigantic hail stones, as loud and enthusiastic storm chaser Reed Timmer discovered.

The trouble will begin to really blossom today. as most of Texas and a large chunk of Oklahoma fall under a severe storm threat. Tornadoes and destructive straight line winds are real threats today, but large hail is once again the predominant hazard today and tonight in this area.

The Sunday threat covers a huge area from eastern Texas to the Carolinas and from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio River.  The main bullseye for the worst of it continues to look like it will be Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, at least as things stand now.

The question is not whether severe weather develops, it's what form it will take. The worst way it could develop if a bunch of rotating supercells form, with each one being on its own, not part of any squall lines.

If that happens, you get these wide, long lasting and intense tornadoes that cause the most extreme damage, and are the most life-threatening since they are so strong.

....or something like this not quite as strong, but still dangerous
and also hard to see coming rain-wrapped spinup tornadoes 

Things could instead develop into messy lines and cluster of thunderstorms. That's still really bad, because there would be embedded tornadoes and very serious straight line winds.

But most of the time, the tornadoes in this scenario, while still extremely dangerous, are not the high end super bad ones you get with those more isolated supercells I talked about above.

The tornadoes in these "messy" clusters have their own hazard, however. These are usually hidden within curtains of rain. Human nature sometimes prompts people to look for the tornado that's threatening them before taking shelter. Usually, you can't see this type of tornado coming.

Though there are guesses, I don't think anyone really knows how this will develop until it gets going. There will probably be those messy lines and clusters of storms, and discreet, big tornado ones,  but nobody is sure which style will predominate.

Some of the same areas most at risk for tornadoes and damaging winds also have a substantial flood risk.  At last check, most of Tenneessee and the northern halves of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia in particular are under the gun for heavy downpours and flash floods on Sunday.

It's already been a tremendously wet year in these areas and the expected three to six inches of rain Sunday and Sunday night will only trigger more flooding.

VERMONT IMPACTS

Here in Vermont, there will certainly be no tornadoes, but the storm will give us a few problems, albeit minor compared to what will go on in the South.

The storm will bring a quick slug of fairly heavy rain through on Monday. The National Weather Service is foreasting perhaps a half inch to an inch of rain.

That doesn't make me too frightened about any flooding, but we'll have to watch the Northeast Kingdom.  The mid elevations and mountains got quite a bit of snow from that last storm Thursday night and Friday. Averill, way up in the northeast corner of the state, got a foot of snow out of that one.

The lingering snow, and snow from previous storms on the mountains in the Northeast Kingdom, will do a lot of melting amid the rains coming up Monday, so there is the risk of some high water. They'll need to watch the flood prone Passumpsic River for this one.

The big story in and near Vermont with this one will be the wind. There will be gusts over 40 mph ahead of the cold front Monday morning and early afternoon.  Once the cold front passes, the winds will really crank, especially in northern New York, the northern Champlain Valley, and I think eastern slopes of the Green Mountains.

Winds could easily be strong enough to damage trees and power lines Monday, so we should keep that in mind.

Recovery Slow In Florida After Hurricane Michael, One Year Later

A house in Panama City, Florida damaged by Hurricane Michael last
year still sits unrepaired. Photo by Valerie Crowder/WFSU.

Just about a year ago, on October 10, 2018, category 5 Hurricane Michael slammed ashore at Mexico Beach, on the Florida panhandle, with 160 mph winds.

Needless to say, the area in and around Mexico Beach was pretty much leveled.  As the one-year anniversary approaches, the area is still struggling big time, as you will see in the sad video at the bottom of this post. 

You can tell some early hopefulness faded.  On some buildings, blue tarps had been placed over the remains of roof, as property owners hoped to salvage what they could and rebuild. But no work has begun on some of these properties and many of these tarps are now shredded and useless, flapping in the Gulf of Mexico breezes.

On other properties, the debris has been removed, leaving just blank concrete slabs. Other buildings lay in ruins, looking just the way they did when we saw news footage of them on the days immediately after the storm.

Hurricane Michael coming ashore at Mexico Beach, Florida last year.

Part of the reason might be this: As of July, 15% of Michael-related insurance claims were still unresolved, according to the Associated Press. 

Vast pine forests just inland from Mexico Beach still lie in twisted ruins, with a little greenery popping up in what is left of the understory.

Back in Mexico Beach, resilient palm trees look like they've made a nice comeback, but otherwise there's still scarcely any green trees left. 

The white sandy beach in the town looks inviting, but few beachfront buildings have been repaired. Some ostructures are undergoing reconstruction, but not all that many. The only fully restored and open business I saw in the video is a Dollar General.

There's still  few people around, too. It looks might many have abandoned Mexico Beach. There are plenty of forlorn "For Sale" signs on ruined or blank properties, with no takers.

Here's the video:

Hurricane Michael Upgraded To Rare Category 5 Storm At Landfall

Add caption

It turns out Hurricane Michael, which devastated parts of the Florida Panhandle and surrounding areas last October 10, was even stronger than first thought.

It was a rare landfalling Category 5 hurricane, the strongest you can get. It had previously been regarded as a higher end Category 4, but a re-analysis has determined the extremely powerful hurricane was even a little worse than everybody assumed.

According to a statement Friday from NOAA's National Hurricane Center:

"Michael is the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States as a Category 5 since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and only the fourth on record. The others are the Labor Day Hurricane in 1935 and Hurricane Camille in 1969. Michael is also the strongest hurricane landfall on record in the Florida Panhandle and only the second known Category 5 landfall on the northern Gulf Coast."

Hurricane Michael was originally thought to have made landfall with top sustained winds of 155 mph, which is a high end Category 4. But it probably had sustained winds 5 mph higher, at 160 mph.

As a practical matter, the 5 mph difference has little real-life effect. The storm would have been pretty much as destructive if winds were "only" 155 mph instead of 160 mph. The top sustained winds of 160 mph probably occurred in a very small area around Mexico Beach, and Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

But the new designation helps demonstrate how extreme Michael was. The upgrade in the storm's intensity came after the National Hurricane Center reviewed wind measurements from aircraft, reports of surface wind measurements air presure, satellite intensity estimates and Doppler radar data. This includs a lot of data and analysis that was not immediately available at the moment Michael roared ashore, says NOAA.

Most hurricanes weaken as they approach a coastline, because friction with land usually interferes with the storm's air flow. Hurricane Michael kept strengthening right up to the moment of landfall. There's no telling how strong it would have gotten had it gone through more warm ocean water before reaching shore.

Only a few recorded hurricanes, like Hurricane Charley in southwestern Florida in 2004, strenghten rapidly until landfall. This type of hurricane is obviously extremely dangerous. People in the hurricane zone might have been expecting a weaker hurricane, only to confront a monster like Michael.

With this in mind, Hurricane Michael is sure to be studied extenstively going forward. Meteorologists will want to understand why some hurricanes strengthen dramatically as they approach the coast, like Michael did. Better forecasting in such situations will surely save lives.

I also think scientists will want to better understand whether climate change makes it more likely that hurricanes could pull a Michael and get much more dangerous as they come ashore.

Meanwhile, the people who suffered the effects of Hurricane Michael are probably not caring whether the storm had 155 or 160 mph winds. It'll take years to clean up the mess. CBS News said some people were still living in tents six months after the storm.

Hurricane Michael will also present dangers for years. About 350,000 acres of northwest Florida pine forests were completely destroyed by the hurricane. Another 4.6 million acres are damaged.  All that fallen timber presents a big wildfire danger, reports Scientific American.

Already, there has been on pretty good sized fire near Panama City, and there will probably be more.
All this is more proof that hurricanes don't really end when the winds die down. In some ways, they continue on for years.

Why Did This Florida Home Survive Michael While Those All Around Are Gone?

The "Sand Palace" that nice blue Mexico Beach, Florida house in the
foreground, survived Hurricane Michael nicely while all those
around it were destroyed. The home was designed to withstand
the worst hurricanes. 

The New York Times had an interesting story this weekend about a beachfront house in Mexico Beach, Florida that survived Hurricane Michael with barely a scratch.

The entire story is a great read. But I'll summarize here.

You might have seen the video taken from helicopters or drones: All the houses around are gone, except for one happy blue house that looks ready for a beach party today.

The house, dubbed the "Sand Palace" was just built last year. It's owned by a guy named Russell King and his nephew, Dr. Lebron Lackey. They wanted to make sure the house was hurricane-proof.

"We wanted to build it for the big one," Lackey said. "We just never knew we'd find the big one so fast."

Building codes for houses in the Florida Panhandle are not as strict as those in South Florida. If you build a house near Miami, it has to be able to withstand 175 mph winds. Build your dream house in the Florida Panhandle, it only has to withstand 120 to 150 mph winds.

Most buildings in Mexico Beach, where Hurricane Michael came ashore, didn't stand a chance against the wind and epic storm surge.  The surviving "Sand Palace," on the other hand, was built to withstand 250 mph winds.

According to the New York Times:

"The house was fashioned from poured concrete, reinforced by steel cables and rebar, with additional concrete bolstering the corners of the house. The space under the roof was minimized so that wind could not sneak in underneath and lift it off. The home's elevation, on high pilings, was meant to keep it above the surge of seawater that usually accompanies powerful hurricanes"

The stairway to get into the Sand Palace were ripped away by Hurricane Michael. That was by design. If the stairs easily go, they wouldn't rip off part of the house with them. That helped preserve   the house's strength against the storm. King, Lackey and the New York Times gained access to the house via a ladder.

In the end, the Sand Palace suffered a tiny bit of water damage and one cracked window. That's it. Repairs to the structure would take a month, at most, and not cost much.

Of course, all this reinforcement costs money, and many people don't have the means to protect their homes like King and Lackey did with their Mexico Beach vacation home.

A beach house on a lovely sandy ocean shoreline is not a necessity. But houses belonging to people who live and work in the area are prone to storms like Michael. We know that homes well inland from the beach were destroyed by wind and storm surge.  How can people afford to protect their property from the next Michael?

I surely don't have an answer. I don''t think anybody else does either. As storms get more ferocious as the climate changes, this is becoming a more and more important question.

All these hurricane protections are not flawless, either. One design mistake and the whole house goes. Most houses around the Sand Palace were completely gone. One next door was still sort of there, but its roof and many of its walls had caved in. That badly damaged house was also supposedly built to withstand big hurricanes.

Ominously, there were two renters in that largely destroyed house. While the New York Times interviewed King and Lackey in the Sand Palace,  FEMA searchers were going through the wreckage of that next-door house. Nobody knows if those two people fled, survived and can't yet be found, or died in the storm.

Buzzsaw Hurricane Matthew Was LIke An Immense Tornado

In the eyewall of Hurricane Michael. Photo by Joe Randle/Getty Images

Imagine if you were in your house when a strong tornado hit it.  You would cower in the your basement as the twister pulled the house to pieces, but the good news it is all over in a minute or so.

Imagine having to endure that for an hour or more.  

That's basically what people in and around Panana City, Florida had to deal with as Hurricane Michael came onshore yesterday.

IT WAS BAD

Maximum sustained winds in Hurricane Michael were 155 mph - just shy of Category 5, which would be the worst hurricane possible.  Videos taken in the Florida Panhandle of the 100 to 130 mph gusts that were common in region were just like videos I've seen taken inside of tornadoes.

Roof went airborne. Debris swirled everywhere. Scary stuff, made worse by an immense storm surge that sent walls of watering crashing through seaside towns. Storm surges reached over ten feet high as predicted, washing many neighborhoods completely away.

One person said Panama Beach looks like it has been nuked. A major U.S. Air Force base is in ruins.

There are several videos of news reports, the storm in full progress and the terrible aftermath at the bottom of this post.

It's amazing that as of this writing, I'm aware of only two deaths associated with Michael. I'm sure teh death toll will rise, but still, the casuality list is so far mercifully short.  Damage photos from the area look like it was hit by a 10 or 20 mile wide EF-4 tornado.

We've had a lot of unusual, and unusually strong hurricanes lately. This one fit that bill. Forecasters had known right along since at least Sunday Hurricane Michael would strengthen pretty steadily as it worked its way north across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida.

Wild close up satellite view of Hurricane Michael eye

The strengthening was stunning, however. The hope was that Michael would limit itself to a Category 2 storm. Instead, it was a much worse, high end Category 4 monster.

It was the third most powerful hurricane to hit the United States in centuries. Michael was the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. since Camille in 1969.

Michael was yet another example of how forecasters have gotten much better at predicting the path of hurricanes, but we need work on predicting the strength.

The forecast was pretty good in this case, as the National Hurricane Center very early on caught on to the idea that Michael would strengthen.

They just had no idea it would get that bad. I'm sure researchers continue to study how to better forecast hurricane strength. If there's a tiny silver lining to Hurricane Michael, it is that it will probably provide more, valuable data to the researchers.

Nonetheless the National Hurricane Center, local National Weather Service meteorologists, broadcast meteorologists and emergency managers deserve a huge amount of credit. Their timely and increasingly strident warnings prompted a huge number of people to flee out of harm's way. That's why the death toll is so far surprisingly low.

Of course, we don't know to what extent, if any, climate change had to do with Hurricane Michael's strength. We do know the Gulf of Mexico water temperature was warmer than normal, which certainly fed Michael.  Was the water warm due to climate change, a normal cycle, a fluke or a combination?

From television station WFLA. Mexico Beach, Florida after Michael

As Scientific American points out, cold fronts usually start pressing in from the north and into the Gulf of Mexico by this time of year. These cold fronts stir up the atmosphere and increase upper level winds.

That disrupts hurricanes. The cold fronts add a bit of chill to the Gulf of Mexico waters, too. No cold fronts, no chill, no disruptive winds. Michael had a strangely perfect environment to strengthen. Which is weird for so late in the season.

Ocean water temperatures have risen all around the globe due to climate change, so we can suspect that had an influence on Michael. And why haven't the autumn cold fronts reached the Gulf of Mexico yet? Global warming or a fluke or both?  

Generally speaking, hurricanes that are relatively small in size have a greater chance of intensifying rapidly than big, sprawling storms. Michael was kind of small in area, so it was better able to take advantage of perfect atmospheric conditions to strengthen.

Michael actually reminded me a lot of Hurricane Charley, which behaved very much like Michael as it blasted into southwestern Florida in 2004.

Contrarians will say that climate change is not having an influence on hurricanes, or they'll say that climate change doesn't exist. They'll point to the fact there has been no real trendline in the number of hurricanes that pop up every year. True, but it does seem like many of the stronger ones are even more intense than they were previously.  

These contrarians will also say there have been plenty of tropical storms and hurricanes this year and previously that didn't amount to much, and behaved pretty much the way all tropical systems have in the past. That's all very true. But is something weird going on with these particularly strong ones?

Other hurricanes, like Harvey last year and Florence this year stalled an meandered, dumping incredible rains on Houston in 2017 and the Carolinas this year. There has been some research and more than some speculation that these stalls are influence by changes in the the jet stream. Which in turn have been influenced by global warming.

Some of our contrarians will point out, quite accurately, that Hurricane Michael moved right along. No stalls, no meanders, no loop de loops. It just plowed ashore and kept right on going to the Carolinas, where it was this morning as a tropical storm. Michael is still racing forward, and will move off the East Coast tonight.

If hurricanes are stalling, why didn't Michael? our contrarians will ask. Climate change doesn't nullify basic physics. Not all hurricanes will stall and meander. Most, like Michael, get picked up by upper level winds and steered briskly toward their destinations.

By the way, there is currently an aimlessly meandering hurricane out there. Hurricane Leslie, out in the central Atlantic Ocean, has been moving to and fro and not making much headway in any particular direction for more than a week now.  It's now moving back toward Africa, where it came front. Forecasters say it will weaken, and do another U-turn in a couple days.

Michael is still quite a danger, despite the fact that its 155 mph sustained winds are long gone. (Top sustained winds were 50 mph as of 8 a.m. today. Michael is still unleashing torrential rain and causing renewed flooding in the Carolinas.

Plus, as many dying tropical systems do when they're inland, there's a high potential that Michael will spin off tornadoes today in North Carolina and Virginia.

Now, some videos:

This video shows large masses of debris from wrecked homes  floating around in the storm surge:



The Washington Post gives a great overview of what it was like. Even the satellite image of Hurricane Michael's eye coming ashore is scary as hell:



ABC meteorologist Ginger Zee rode out the storm in a concrete condominium that held - barely.  Her report is fraught to say the least. Especially the part where she describes the blue house across the street just rolling away:



The following video is often blurry, but it's an aerial view of Mexico Beach, Florida. Utter devastation:

Digging Out And Reconnecting After Epic Vermont Windstorm

A blue spruce fell against this house in Milton, Vermont
during the windstorm early Monday

As we struggle to get our electric power back, pick up the mess in our yards, contemplate the fallen trees and blown off roofing shingles, it's turned into a gorgeous late afternoon after the storm, at least in western Vermont.

It's still windy, but the sun has popped back out and the temperatures are still relatively mild for this time of year. A nice interlude to start cleaning up.

Lots of problems remain of course. As of 3:30 p.m. this Monday afternoon, a whopping 64,000 Vermont homes and businesses remain without power. It could take days to restore electricity in some areas.

Workers put tarps on a roof that lost many shingles in the
big windstorm in Milton, Vermont. 

Late this morning, those numbers translated to 150,000 Vermonters without electricity. That's roughly 25 percent of the state's population. At one point 1.4 people in New England had no electricity today.

Although my town, St. Albans, was pretty hard hit, I'm lucky. My power is back on. Most of the few patches of siding that were torn off my house can easily be put back in place. A large branch pierced the roof of my shed, but it looks easily repairable.

And I'll have to spend time picking up the countless branches down on my property. (It looks like I'll have a HUGE winter burn pile.)

Green Mountain Power, Vermont's largest utility, says 350 linemen, tree workers and others have mobilized to fix all these power failures.

Non-functioning traffic lights due to continued power
failures in Colchester, Vermont after the big windstorm

At least here in Vermont, the damage was hit and miss. Most of the strongest winds came from downslope winds off the west sides of mountains, especially the Green Mountains. The cause of this was screaming strong winds, in excess of 100 mph several thousand feet overhead.

In some places, lower level winds going up and over the tops of the mountains were able to "grab" some of the stronger winds aloft and translate them down to the surface, where we live.  That explains the pockets of heavy damage.

In other sections of the state, this "grab" didn't quite happen, so the winds weren't quite as strong in some aresa. Which left us with swaths of heavy damage, with many trees down, roof shingles gone and chaos, and other areas that had a rather stormy night, but nothing super scary.

A tangle of fallen trees in Milton, Vermont Monday after
the severe wind storm earlier in the dauy. 

Unlike most downslope wind events, the strongest winds were felt a several miles west of the Green Mountains, rather than along the immediate slopes.

That's why towns like St. Albans, Milton, Georgia and South Burlington were so badly affected. Towns closer to the Greens in the traditional wind belts also had trouble, too, but they've seen that, done that.

We can count ourselves lucky in Vermont, too, that it wasn't worse. Southern New England was blasted by even stronger winds than Vermont, and more damage, too. Mashpee, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod reported a gust of 93 mph. The wind gusted to 80 mph in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

And in southern New England, up to five inches of rain fell. So flooding accompanied the high winds. There were no reports of serious flooding in Vermont. In the White Mountains region of New Hampshire, rainfall of up to five inches caused damaging flash floods this morning.

My dog Jackson inspects the chaos on our back deck in St.
Albans after the severe windstorm tossed outdoor furniture
all over the place earlier Monday morning. 

Going forward, the weather in Vermont and much of the rest of New England will remain unsettled as we go into November, but that's normal for that time of year.

There's a good chance of showers from Wednesday night through Sunday, and there will be some fairly gusty winds at times, but nothing particularly dangerous.

Some of those rain showers will turn to mountain snow showers at times through the period, but again, that's normal in Vermont for early November.

I guess, then, it is now becoming safe to go out and clean up after one of the worst Vermont windstorms in recent decades.

Matthew Hammering Florida, Haiti Reeling, Dumb Storm Conspiracy Theories

Radar image of Matthew near
  Cape Canaveral early this morning.  

Winds were starting to gust to near 100 mph around Cape Canaveral, Florida before dawn today as Hurricane Matthew slowly trudged northward along the Florida coast.

So far, the hurricane has been in a position ever so slightly east of where many forecasters thought it would be.

That's great news, because even this slight eastward jog has kept much of the worst winds away from Florida. At least so far.

Still, there's going to be a lot of wind damage and flooding in that area, and in coastal Georgia and South Carolina, too.

Before dawn Matthew was going through what is known as an eyewall replacement cycle. During these cycles, the eye of the storm rearranges itself, either becoming bigger or smaller.

During eye wall replacement cycles, powerful hurricanes like Matthew temporarily weaken a little, and that's what Matthew did, which is also a bit of good news.

 Maximum sustained winds had dropped to 120 mph - still horrible, but a tad less horrible than yesterday.

Once the eyewall replacement cycle is over, Matthew won't have a chance to restrengthen. Interaction with land as it moves along the coast, and increasing upper level winds, will make Matthew slowly weaken further over the next few days as it first makes a run at the South Carolina coast, then heads east offshore, then south.

The really good news is Matthew is tracking northward a little offshore, a bit more than forecasters thought. So things are really bad in eastern Florida, but not as bad as they could have been had Matthew went inland.

As it stands now, it looks like Matthew could hit the Bahamas or even Florida again in a few days as it does a loop off the coast. Only this time it would do so as just a fairly weak tropical storm. We'll see how that turns out. 

Matthew along the Florida coast Friday morning.

Meanwhile, news out of Haiti, the first country Matthew hit, is getting grimmer and grimmer. As of early this morning, the BBC and other news outlets reported more than 300 dead in Haiti, and the death toll is sure to rise as rescuers and aid workers reach hard hit areas.

Matthew lumbered through the Bahamas Thursday, causing extensive storm surge flooding, blowing roofs off homes and hotels, cutting power and prompting several rescues. So far, I haven't heard of any deaths in the Bahamas, which is a good thing.

NICOLE

Another stunning hurricane development that hasn't gotten much attention because of Matthew is Hurricane Nicole. It's south of Bermuda, and peaked last night with sustained winds of 105 mph.

This meant that two hurricanes in the Atlantic simultaneously had sustained winds of at least 100 mph. That's the first time such a thing has happened this late in the season

Luckily, Nicole is not expected to hit any land areas and will gradually weaken over the next few days.

Nicole wasn't supposed to amount to anything more than a piddling tropical storm, because outflow from Matthew would squelch it. But Nicole surprised everyone by becoming a substantial hurricane.

STUPIDITY OF DRUDGE

Now, I have to go off on a riff about stupid people, so here goes:

That Hurricane Matthew appears to be sparing Florida as bad a blow as some feared is obviously a very good thing. But some people are making political hay out of this, which could be deadly in future storms. People like Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh might have blood on their hands in the future.

Matt Drudge came up with this wackadoodle conspiracy theory yesterday that government officials, including the National Hurricane Center, are exaggerating the strength and risks from hurricanes like Matthew to scare people into fearing climate change.

Drudge tweeted: "The deplorables are starting to wonder if gov't has been lying to them about Hurricane Matthew intensity to make exaggerated point on climate."

He also tweeted: "Hurricane Center has monopoly on data. NO way of verifying claims. Nassau ground observations DID NOT match claims. 165 mph gusts? Where?"

As Vox noted, Drudge's conspiracy dumbness is dangerous:

"The implication of Drudge's tweet is that resisting evacuation isn't a bad, self destructive move but a brave way for 'deplorables' to stand up to the government. That's not just stupid - it could very well be deadly," Libby Nelson wrote in Vox.

For the record, the National Hurricane Center is nonpartisan, and its data is public record. So anybody could look at their data and find out if there's any funny business.

The National Hurricane Center has also repeatedly cautioned that you can't blame climate change on a single storm, though scientists there have said that climate change might, MIGHT make stronger hurricanes more likely.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican who has not embraced the science of climate change, strongly urged people to evacuate ahead of Matthew.  So Matt Drudge, what's Rick Scott's problem.

I agree with meteorologist Joe Bastardi, an outspoken climate change skeptic on his Tweet this morning: "Flat out ignorant to believe NHC exaggerating data for climate change. What, so they can look bad if it doesn't happen? 40 mile error explains."

The 40 mile error Bastardi referred to is the mere fact that Matthew is as much as 40 miles further east than many forecasters predicted. It's that simple.

Drudge is just dumb. By the way, Rush Limbaugh was making similar silly claims as Drudge yesterday, too.

I think the two of them should rent a nice beachfront cottage in a location about to hit by the next strong hurricane.

See What Hail Did To This Roof

The other day I told you about that awful hail storm in Texas, which included hail the size of grapefruit in spots.

The pic in this post shows the view from inside a Wylie, Texas home attic after the storm ended and the sun came out.

(Click on the image to make it bigger and easier to see.)

You can see the many holes blasted through the roof by the hail.

You can imagine the rest of the damage done to this house. Between the holes in the roof and the windows shattered by the hailstones, no doubt plenty of rainwater gushed into this house, too.

Not to mention LOTS of other houses. In addition to this kind of damage, theres a lot of destruction from water, too.

You can see why bad hailstorms, when they hit populated areas like they've been doing in Texas recently, can cause a billion dollars in damage or more.

By the way, a day after the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs were pummeled by this huge hail, another very destructive hail storm hit the San Antonio area. Among other things, that hailstorm in San Antonio totaled a bunch of new cars at a BMW dealership.

The area around Wylie and Denton, Texas had a destructive hailstorm in March. Some people had already had roofs replaced and cars repaired from that storm, only to have them destroyed again this week, as the Dallas Morning News reports. 

I hate to think about how the insurance premiums are going to go up around there.

Softball Sized Hail And Storms Cause Incredibe Damage And Scary Scenes In Texas.

A man holds a gigantic hailstone
that fell on Wylie, Texas Monday.
Photo via Twitter, @heelsandracing. 

An incredible hailstorm hit parts of Texas Monday, dumping softball sized hail on several populated areas.

A few Texas neighborhoods got pummeled by hail the size of grapefruits, which is beyond the pale.

As you can imagine, there was a LOT of damage and some injuries.  Watch the very dramatic, terrifying videos of the storm at the bottom of this post.

The hail was so big that it nearly destroyed some houses. Not only did many windows break, but the hail was big and powerful enough to crash through home roofs.

Once the roofs were breached, the heavy rain accompanying the hail soaked the interior of many homes, television station KDFW reports. 

The hardest hit community was the city of Wylie, Texas, population about 44,000 where  most homes and buildings were damaged by hail.

The city's public works center and schools are closed today due to hail damage, says KDFW.

Emergency rooms in the area were busy with people who'd been cut by flying glass as hail crashed through home windows, or who were caught in cars that were pummeled.

Windows were blown out of these homes in Wylie, Texas
from softball sized hail. Click on the image to
make it bigger and easier to see.  

Damage will be as expensive as a big tornado for sure.

While few if any homes were completely destroyed as in a large twister, the large, damaging hail hit a much larger area than a tornado would.

Since these are busy, populated Dallas suburbs, many thousands of homes, businesses and cars will need expensive, extensive repairs.

This is the third, and the worst destructive hail storm to hit North Texas in the past month. Two March hail storms caused $1 billion, with a "B" dollars in damage.

Click on this link to see hail smashing through glass in this home. Unbelievable!

Here's some more videos out of the Wylie, Texas area Monday:



More from Wylie, Texas:




Coming through the windows in Wylie, Texas:

Second Destructive Hail Storm In Week Trashed Texas Few Days Ago

Hail crashed through windows
of this house in Plano, Texas, via
@jules_baby28 on Twitter.
Click on image to make it
bigger and easier to see.  

Texas is having a hell of a time with hail.

As noted a few posts ago, the Fort Worth area really got hammered by hail about a week ago.

Another hailstorm struck parts of northern Texas, again around the Dallas-Fort Worth area Wednesday night.

This second storm Wednesday night might have been at least as bad as the earlier one.

Insurance Journal said the March 16-17 Texas hailstorm caused an estimated $600 million in insured losses, and Wednesday's storm, which focused especially on Plano and Wylie, probably caused similar losses, or worse.

Countless cars, houses, apartment buildings and businesses lost windows as the hail smashed through the glass during the storms.

A Walmart Supercenter in Wylie, Texas is closed for awhile as workers repair at least 30 skylights trashed by the hail on the roof of the immense store, says television station WFAA.

Tornadoes get most of the attention during the nation's spring storm season but destructive hail is much more common and widespread. Supercell thunderstorms don't always produce tornadoes and if they do, they're often weak.

Cars damaged by hail Wednesday in Plano, Texas
Photo by David Woo/Dallas Morning News  

However, these supercells very often produce large, damaging hail.

According to the National Storm Damage Center, hail on average causes at least $1 billion in damage in the United States yearly. Some years - and with all the destruction in Texas -- are far worse than that $1 billion.

A single April, 2001 hail storm around Kansas City, Missouri caused about $2 billion in damage.

The spring storm season is young, so we're surely going to hear more reports of terrible hail before the year is over.

Here's a frightening security camera video of Wednesday's hail in Richardson, Texas. Bet you're glad you weren't out in this:




Here's another security camera view of Wednesday night's hail chaos in Dallas:

Scary: Roof Blows Off Russian Apartment Building In Strong Winds

The roof of a five story apartment building crashes
to the ground after strong winds ripped it
off this week. Add caption 

Terrible winds gusting to hurricane force swept parts of Russia amid a strong storm in recent days.

In Dudinka, Siberia, Russia, the gales tore the roof from a five story apartment building, and people in a neighboring building caught that on video.

Needless to say, you can hear they are pretty scared. After all, is their building next.

They then laugh with nervous relief when they saw the debris would not hit their building.

There were no reports of serious injuries or deaths with this incident, which is good news.

Here's the video:

Videos: Summer Storms Are Scary! Watch These For Proof

Aftermath of August 2 Traverse City, Michigan
storm. Video of it is below. Add caption

A few videos I came across this week show how scary heavy rain and severe storms can get in a big hurry.

We go to Yemen, Italy and Michigan to show what a summer storm can do in just a few minutes.

The first one shows serious flooding in Yemen recently, and a young boy got caught in it.

As he was being swept away, the video will show what happened next. Spoiler: It's scary, but ends well.



Next, we go to Italy, for this flash flood that hit in the past week.  The images in the first half of the video are by far the most interesting:



Finally we go to Traverse City, Michigan on August 2, where an incredible storm caused widespread damage in the northern part of that state.

Here, the storm goes on and on, dismantling the trees in a forested neighborhood in Traverse City. It's a wonder the guy and his house weren't completely smushed. By the way, foul language alert in the video, but you'll understand why:

Severe Weather Continues: New England Slammed

Impressive storm approaches town of Glen Lake, MI
Sunday in a severe weather outbreak that
 moved east into New England Monday and Tuesday.  

The severe weather that blasted the Great Lakes region Sunday moved east and hammered New England Monday.

The bad thunderstorms appeared to lose none of their ferocity as they reached the Northeast.

Even worse, the severe weather is continuing in New England today, and possibly tomorrow as well.

The biggest and by far the most tragic headline from the New England storms is the severe winds that hit a local fair in Lancaster, New Hampshire, in the far northern part of that state near the Vermont border.

Two people - a father and daughter - and at least 15 were injured when the severe storm collapsed and blew away a big circus tent. About 100 people were taking shelter from the downpour in the tent when the wind gusts hit.

The severe thunderstorms, one of which was the one that hit Lancaster, were fascinating in a scary way. They developed explosively along or just west of the spine of Vermont's Green Mountains, that south-to north running mountain chain running up the entire middle of the state.

The storms seemed to come out of nowhere. One minute, they're just some small clouds producing a few local shower, and seemingly minutes later, they were severe.

One storm developed near Monkton, Vermont in the early afternoon, and within a half hour moved northeastward to the town of Richmond, where it deposited hail almost the size of golf balls

Police cruiser smushed by fallen tree in
a severe thunderstorm in Barrington,
Rhode Island Tuesday morning.  

Once the storms developed they raced northeastward into eastern Vermont, and then they pummeled much of New Hampshire and Maine.

There were many, many reports of trees downed and power out in the eastern half of Vermont, much of New Hampshire and the northwestern half of Maine on Monday.

Other destructive thunderstorms were reported in Ohio and Pennsylvania on Monday.

The severe weather roared on this Tuesday morning.

Before 7 a.m., the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. warned of a "particularly dangerous situation" as a severe thunderstorm possibly packing winds of 80 mph ripped across Rhode Island and into southeastern Massachusetts.

This morning's pack of storms lit up the sky over New York City with lightning early this morning, tossed down numerous trees in Connecticut before trashing Rhode Island. Warwick reported a gust of 68 mph, and winds reached 67 mph in Providence with these storms.

An enteire lawn was upended when a very severe thunderstorm
uprooted a large tree in Cranston, Rhode Island Tuesday
morning. Photo from @Hayleigh_Meeker via Twitter.  n

As I write this, there are reports of multiple injuries from the storms at a Charlestown, Rhode Island campground, and police cars at the public safety building at Barrington, Rhode Island were smushed by a large falling tree.

Today, more severe thunderstorms will likely develop in New England, especially in the eastern half of the region. Strong winds and big hail are the biggest threats.

Yet more damage is possible on Wednesday, especially in the northern half of New England. A pool of very cold air for this time of year will pass overhead. The strong August sun will heat the ground.

When that happens, you get rapid updrafts and lots of showers and thunderstorms, some with gusty winds. Worse, with the cold pool overhead, you don't have to go up all that high to get below freezing.

That means lots of hail could form in the thunderstorms, and since the atmosphere will be relatively cool, the hailstones won't melt that fast on the way down. So damaging hail is possible in spots Wednesday, especially in parts of far northeastern New York, and much of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Things should settle down nicely toward the end of the week, with somewhat cooler than normal conditions for August in the Northeast.




Here's something that I've never understood on YouTube:

I look up "severe thunderstorm" and 99 percent of the results are a boring still shot of a weather radio squawking out a severe thunderstorm warning.

Is there some weird club that does this?


Here's a time lapse of a beach being hastily evacuated as Sunday's supercell thunderstorm approached:


Here's a neighborhood in Chicago being trashed by huge winds and hail:

Tornado, Flood Season Hit Hard Wednesday And It's Going To Get Worse

Brett Wright captured this tornado Wednesday
near Verden, Oklahoma.  

Oklahoma City and environs are a mess this morning, and things aren't going to get better anytime soon.

The city is used to severe weather, but the Oklahoma City was rocked to its core by several tornadoes, hail the size of baseballs in some spots, and record flooding.

See the tornado videos at the bottom of this post.

This all started Wednesday, and by this morning water rescues were still ongoing in parts of the city.

Oklahoma City had 7.1 inches of rain Wednesday. Hail fell for 67 consecutive minutes at Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City. The airport was shut down amid tornado warnings and flooding.

The Oklahoman newspaper reported no deaths from the tornadoes, but 12 people were injured, two critically in the area.

Tornado near Halstead, Kansas on Wednesday. 

One tornado destroyed a motel and a storage facility, and damaged other buildings near Interstate 35 in Oklahoma City, Rescuers had trouble reaching the area due to flooding and debris on the roads, says the Oklahoman. 

Major highways like Interstates 35 and 44 closed due to flooding and flying debris. There was quite a bit of tornado and flood damage in the Oklahoma City suburbs of Newcastle, Bridge Creek and Norman, all communities that have been devastated by major tornadoes in the past decade.

Wild animals, including tigers, escaped from an animal park in Tuttle, Oklahoma when a tornado struck, but the animals were later rounded up.

Extensive damage was also reported in Kansas and Nebraska, where the small town of Roseland was hit hard by a tornado. Flash flood warnings and alerts are scattered in areas from Nebraska to Texas this morning as heavy thunderstorms continue.

Torndo damage near Mount Hope, Kansas.  

Up to nine inches of rain fell near Lincoln, Nebraska.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center this morning had 50 preliminary reports of tornadoes from Wednesday in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Severe weather, tornadoes and flooding are expected to continue today, Friday and especially Saturday in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and some surrounding states.

Until now, it's been a quiet severe storm season. This week, clearly, it's not.

Severe thunderstorms, large hail, torrential downpours, and a few tornadoes are expected to repeatedly hit the central and southern Plains today and Friday.

Saturday looks awful. The ingredients seem to be coming together for a major severe weather outbreak, complete with strong tornadoes in from southern Nebraska into large parts of Texas. Once again, Oklahoma City appears as it it will be near the epicenter of Saturday's expected major storm outbreak.

Flooding will continue, too. Forecasters expect three to seven inches of rain, with locally higher amounts in the central and southern Plains over the next week.

From StormChasingVideos.com, heres a scary tornado, with multiple vortices,  near Lincoln, Kansas:


Here's a video inside a developing tornado circulation in Norman, Oklahoma on Wednesday:



Video of tornadoes, severe storms, and damage in Newcastle and Moore, Oklahoma:

Watch Horrible Monday New Orleans Storm Blow Train Cars Off Bridge

Train cars on the ground beneath a New Orleans bridge
after strong thunderstorm winds blew them off.
Photo from the Times-Picayune  

A line of really, really bad thunderstorms tore through much of Louisiana this morning and early afternoon.

The part of the storms that everybody is talking about is how the incredibly strong winds blew rail cars off the Huey P. Long bridge in New Orleans. It was dramatically caught on video, which you will see at the bottom of this post.  

There was widespread other trouble in New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana. Winds gusted to 70 mph at the International Airport and a tornado was spotted by sheriffs in the area.

It's not clear as of late afternoon whether other tornadoes touched down in the New Orleans, Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas, but there were reports of roofs blown off of some houses and businesses.

That damage could have been caused by tornadoes, or powerful straight line winds.

Power failures affected tens of thousands of homes and businesses and flooding was widespread.

As of late afternoon, it wasn't over yet for Louisiana.  More severe storms were developing over parts of the state, packing high winds and large hail. The threat will continue into the evening.

Some incredibly strong storms were also offshore from Galveston, Texas and were heading northeast toward coastal Louisiana. If they hold together, these storms will join the chorus of heavy rain, large hail and high winds affecting much of Louisiana.

Flash flood watches also remain in effect for much of Louisiana.

This isn't one of those famous Louisiana hurricanes, but to many residents, I'm sure it felt like it.

Here's that train video. Yikes!!

No Major Hurricanes In The United States In 9 Years A Blessing And A Curse

The last major hurricane in the United States,
Hurricane Wilma, slamming Miami Beach, Fla
in Oct. 2005. Photo from UltimateChase.com  

As The Vane pointed out the other day, the official Atlantic Hurricane season ended Sunday with a whimper making this the ninth year in a row the United States has not been hit by a major hurricane.

Only one hurricane actually struck the U.S. coastline in 2014, a Category Two story names Arthur that hit the North Carolina coast with 100 mph winds.

A major hurricane is defined as a Category 3 on what is known as the Saffir-Simpson scale. A Category 3 hurricane has sustained winds of 111 to 129 mph, so you can see such a hurricane is pretty nasty.

On one hand, it's good that the United States hasn't had a Category 3 hurricane since Wilma hit Florida in October, 2005.  We don't need the destruction.

But its also bad because many coastal residents have been lulled into a false sense of security. They don't remember what a Category 3 hurricane is like, so they might be less likely to evacuate when one is approaching.

Also, during these nine years, there's been a lot of additional home, condo, business and resort construction on the United States' coasts, so there's that much more property to endanger, and more lives to put at risk.

Of course, a hurricane need not be a Category 3 to cause much death and suffering, as survivors of Super Storm Sandy and Hurricane Irene know.

Destruction from Super Storm Sandy in
New Jersey, 2012.  

Both Sandy and Irene hit during those ongoing nine years in which the United States had no Category 3 hurricanes.

Super Storm Sandy, an immense monster of a storm, was in the midst of a transition from a hurricane to a huge non-tropical storm when it slammed into the coast of New Jersey in October, 2012.

Sandy killed 286 people, including 148 in the United States. (The rest of the victims succumbed as Hurricane Sandy passed through the Caribbean.)

Sandy caused $65 billion in damage in the United States, second only to Katrina for most destruction.

In August 2011, Hurricane Irene hit the Northeast Coast as a Category 1 hurricane, with sustained winds of less than 95 mph.  

Flooding from Hurricane Irene in Waitsfield, Vermont
in August, 2011. Via AP.  

But as it moved inland, it caused massive flooding, especially where I live in Vermont, which suffered the most severe flooding since an epic flood in 1927. The storm caused six deaths in Vermont and nearly 60 in the United States as a whole.

Extreme flooding also hit parts of New York and New Jersey during Irene.

So you see,  you don't need a Category 3 hurricane to cause incredible havoc.

The official Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, though its possible to have a rare tropical storm outside those dates.

Coastal residents of the United States can breathe easy without a threat from hurricanes until next summer. But it's only a matter of time before a monster of a hurricane slams the U.S. coast somewhere between Brownsville, Texas and Eastport, Maine.

Let's hope when that happens, people get out of the way of such a horrible storm.

If you want a taste of what a Category 4 hurricane is like, which can easily hit the United States watch this video of Hurricane Charley dismantle this Florida gas station in 2004.

Totally scary:

Another Look At Most Insane Hail I've Ever Heard Of, In Nebraska

There's a storm chaser with an outfit called Extreme Instability, with a base in Blair, Nebraska.

From Extreme Instability: The storm blasts through
Nebraska on June 3.  

On June 3, forecasts indicated a pretty nasty tornado outbreak in the southern half of Nebraska and into Iowa and Kansas. The guy with Extreme Instability (hard to find his name in the web site) decided to go after them.

Meanwhile, a supercell thunderstorm got going in southwestern South Dakota and moved southeastward into northern Nebraska.

Though that storm was heading toward his hometown, he decided not to chase it. It was north of a warm front, not the right location for the storm to drop a tornado.

The supercell was impressive looking on radar, but not enough to really get into.

He jogged north to take some photographs of it, then went off for his tornadoes.

From Extreme Instability: Hail damage in Nebraska
after the June 3 storm.  (Click on image to really
see the damage) 

But the storm got so intense, that outflow from it, interacting with the warm front, reduced the amount of tornadoes that could get going.

That supercell that had originated in South Dakota got incredibly intense, and produced one of the most spectacular, destructive hailstorms this nation has seen.

And it slammed Extreme Instability's hometown of Blair. Within this supercell, hail the size of baseballs and larger were propelled by winds of 70 to as much as 100 mph.

Picture a horde of several hundred Major League Baseball players throwing pitches at your house and that's essentially what was going on.

This storm had to be big. I happened to be in Yankton, South Dakota, just across the Missouri River from Nebraska when this monster storm passed by. At its closest approach, the core of the storm was about 60 miles away from me.  

Ruined vehicles at a Nebraska car dealership after
baseball sized hail and winds of 70 mph. Photo
from Extreme Instability. 

Even so, the storm was such a monster its anvil top came overhead. It got remarkably dark for mid-afternoon, and there was this deep, rumbling thunder that keep rolling and rolling.

This storm even managed to throw a few small hailstones all the way up to Yankton.

I could tell this was a beast, and glad it wasn't hitting my relatives' house in Yankton.

But it did hit Extreme Instability's hometown. And the photos he took are a testament to the power of this incredible hail and wind.

It must have been terrifying to be in it.

Incredible California Wildfires Bode Ill For Rest Of The Year

The wildfires in California, especially those near San Diego this week, have been, well, wild.

From @10news on Twitter, fire whirlwinds Wednesday
around San Diego.  

The wildfire season out West is usually in the late summer and early fall, and already the fires are huge, burning at least 30 houses. 

Firefighters are scrambling all over southern California as more and more fires break out amid record heat and strong winds.

The winds and heat are expected to subside toward the weekend, but today's huge fires are only an opening salvo.

From @Sappy_San_Diego on Twitter, a wildfire Wednesday
near San Diego. 

Last fall's fire season never really ended. The blazes continued through the winter, and now they're picking up in intensity as the heat of summer approaches and what little rain was falling has totally dried up.

California, I'm afraid, is going to keep burning for at least the next five months as the incredible drought there continues.








Here's a video of one of the San Diego fires causing a "firenado"

   

And another view of the fires threatening homes in Carlsbad, CA