Friday, March 28, 2008

It's been pretty quiet around here...

The good news is that we are in the heart of tornado season in Alabama and we are not having any life threatening weather. The bad news is that the weather is boring and dry.

During the first two and one half months of the year, we were holding our own and even making some slight progress in moving toward the end of the most severe drought in recorded history in Alabama. Now we are dipping below our average rainfall again in many parts of the state.

Looking into the future, the models are showing mostly quiet weather during the next 336 hours, or 2 weeks. The pattern is mostly a zonal, or west-to east flow and the main storm track seems to be to our north. This general pattern may occasionally get interrupted. As a matter of fact, there appears to be a chance of a little rain during the next 24 hours. Next week may have two disturbances, one on Tuesday and one on Friday. At this time the late week system shows the most rainfall potential. Another system around April 11th shows a little potential. We'll wait and see on that.

The system due in here at the end of next week may occur during the Mississippi State University's Southeast Severe Weather Symposium. I plan on registering for that today. I am really looking forward to it. I am on a very tight budget right now, but I have wanted to attend this for 7 years and I finally have a chance! I will certainly take a lot of notes and share what I learn here!

Despite the quiet pattern, let's keep our guard up. As mentioned before, we are in the heart of severe weather season in the South. VorTek LLC has published some very interesting scientific findings about geographic placement and frequency of tornadoes. Both Huntsville and Birmingham are in the top 10 cities for tornado frequency in April. Huntsville is actually the most tornado-prone city in the world, based on their research. Since I grew up there, it is no wonder that so many from there, including myself, are nearly obsessed with weather.

The above graphic is from VorTek.

Have a great weekend everyone!

4 comments:

Sharp said...

I'm not quite obsessed with it but I know a lot more about weather than your average American. You learn to have respect for it being a lifelong resident of the Huntsville area. I plan to read more of that study. Thanks for the link!

Mike Wilhelm said...

You know way more. I think Huntsvillians tend to be that way more than most, after so many major events in the area. I will always remember all of the storm cellars being built right after the Superoutbreak. They replayed "Day of the Killer Tornadoes" every year.
Cramer fought for and won our NWS Office back. It is a big deal up here. I could go on and on....you know...

James Payton said...

I've seen several surveys on tornado prone cities. The one think they all have in common is Huntsville & Oklahoma City are either #1 or #2 on every list. The Huntsville city channel has been playing "Day of the Killer Tornadoes" about 4 times a day every day for the last three weeks or so.

On a side note, that map could probably double up as the current drought map for the state.

J.P.

Mike Wilhelm said...

Hi James. HSV always seems to be high on those lists. We finally got a little rain today though...