Ice ice baby!
There is the possibility of another snowstorm again next Wednesday
It's too far away to know any details at this point. Check back on Monday, January 30.
When the goddamn National Weather Service Office calls you out for being racist...
Then you know you are a disgusting racist! This weather event will affect multiple people throughout the state. It is the job of the National Weather Service to alert the public of potentially dangerous weather conditions. That is their mission! I'm too ticked off to blog any more for the next 48 hours. See you on the flip side and be safe and follow the advice of the professionals at the National Weather Service!!!
Yes, snow is coming. How much? We don't know yet!
The snow maps for tomorrow can be trusted but the ones for next Wednesday can't be trusted. Do not trust any snow maps on twitter for next Wednesday's snow event. Snow maps will be accurate on Monday morning and perhaps Sunday night, but not right now.
Yes, snow is possible Sunday and again next week. #BOTS!
The computer models have been spitting out extreme variations in snow amounts for Sunday and next Tuesday and Wednesday. As of 4:00pm, 1-20-23, I would say that we might get an inch or two of snow on Sunday night. There is no degree of certainty about next week's storm as it is still 5-6 days out.
As usual, twitter is on fire with extreme snow totals for Indiana. Do not trust these:
On the other hand, you can most certainly trust the National Weather Service's Twitter feed which has this:
As you can see, there is a disagreement here. The National Weather Service has the far northwestern part of Indiana highlighted for the best chances of impact.
If you are interested in the nitty-gritty details from the National Weather Service, you can read them here:
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Indianapolis IN 218 PM EST Fri Jan 20 2023 .Short Term...(This evening through Saturday) Issued at 217 PM EST Fri Jan 20 2023 - Mostly Cloudy and Cold Tonight - Partly cloudy Saturday Morning, increasing clouds during the afternoon Surface analysis early this afternoon shows deep low pressure exiting out to the Atlantic east of New England. An associated trough axis extended west across Lake Ontario to southern WI. Broad, cold but poorly organized high pressure found across the Great Plains. The result of these two systems was continued cyclonic flow across Indiana and the Ohio Valley. GOES16 showed extensive lower level clouds in place across Central Indiana, the Ohio Valley and points upstream within the flow. Radar shows a few areas of flurries pushing across Central Indiana within the cyclonic northwest flow. A moderate pressure gradient was noted across the area within this broad cyclonic flow resulting in some gusty winds. Tonight... Weak ridging aloft is suggested to build across Indiana and the Great Lakes late tonight before becoming a bit more predominant on Saturday. Subsidence is noted within the mid and upper levels as the ridge builds across the area tonight, as drying is seen within the forecast soundings and time heights but a different story resides within the lower levels. The ongoing cyclonic lower level flow is expected to become more just northwesterly as the deep surface low continues to depart east. However, ridging within the lower levels fails to arrive until after 12Z Saturday. Given the extensive cloud cover as seen on GOES16, we are not confident for much clearing. Time heights keep saturation within the lower levels overnight while forecast soundings try to dry the lower levels out overnight. Thus given the abundance of clouds and the lack of strong clearing signal, we will keep skies mostly cloudy tonight. Given the expected cloud cover, will trend lows to low to middle 20s. Saturday... The models on Saturday show ridging building aloft over Indiana before exiting to the eastern Great Lakes by late afternoon. Meanwhile a broad trough over the plains is expected to begin to approach Central Indiana by late in the afternoon. Meanwhile at the surface, high pressure is expected to be moving through the Ohio Valley. Forecast soundings show a dry column across the area for the day. Thus some morning clouds could be lingering from the overnight period, but as heating and mixing resumes through the morning, we should see some clearing. High clouds will then be expected to return late in the afternoon as the previously mentioned approaching trough should begin to advance toward Indiana. Isentropic surfaces show best lift arriving late in the day over Illinois, but some of the cloud cover should begin to advance as the day progresses. Thus increasing cloud cover as the afternoon progresses. Any precipitation will hold off until the Saturday night period as that is when better forcing will arrive and time will once again be needed to saturate the dry column. Given the warm air advection ongoing and some sunshine expected highs near 40 will be reasonable. && .Long Term...(Saturday night through Friday) Issued at 217 PM EST Fri Jan 20 2023 Long Term *Light Snow Accumulations Late Saturday Night/Early Sunday *Potential Impactful Winter System Mid-Week Next Week Saturday Night and Sunday. An active weather pattern will be in place for much of the long term period with two major weather systems impacting central Indiana. The first system will arrive Saturday night into Sunday as a broad and gradually deepening trough exits the Four Corners region and pushes into the Central Plains. Gulf moisture will only penetrate as far as Tennessee which will limit the available moisture across central Indiana. There looks to be 2 areas of heavier snow accumulation with the main area of surface convergence in the southeast and a secondary area associated with the more robust cold air to the northwest. Where those two line up remains uncertain so will keep the snow accumulations fairly broad brushed at 0.5" to 1.0" with the thought that there will likely be an axis of 2-3 inches somewhere across Indiana. Monday and Tuesday. There may be a few residual snow showers Monday if the system ends up being slower, but think that most of Monday and Tuesday will be dry with a gradually warming trend as surface flow returns to the south. Wednesday Through Friday. The second and more impactful system of the week then looks to arrive Wednesday into Thursday as a rapidly deepening upper level trough and associated surface low pushes into the Southern Plains and tracks to the northeast. Model ensembles generally have a solid handle on the track with the operational GFS on the northern edge of the ensemble mean. There are likely to be some sections of the forecast area that see mostly rain and some that are mostly snow, but where that sets up remains very uncertain. One thing to note with these systems is that a typical pattern for these negatively tilted systems is for the surface low to follow the track of the 500mb low more closely when deepening. This more closely matches the current GFS run while the Euro has it further southeast which is more typical if deepening is not occurring. With all that in mind, an impactful winter system looks likely across portions of the upper Wabash Valley with the main uncertainty being the rain/snow line and how intense the snow bands will set up northwest of the surface low. The system has very strong dynamics and abundant moisture to allow for significant snow amounts, but there are a couple of factors that will limit snow accumulations. The first will be the warm air on Tuesday and Wednesday which will warm the ground and help melt the initial snow. Warm air aloft will also keep the snow out of the dendritic growth zone and push snow ratios closer to 8:1. All this gets factored in well by the model guidance which is showing an axis of 6-10 inches of snow accumulations, but a snow depth of only 3-5 inches. Will have to continue to monitor the model trends, but lean more towards the lower amounts for now, especially with the uncertainty as to P-type. The primary impacts look to be during the daytime hours Wednesday, but confidence in timing is still somewhat low. The typical post frontal flurries/light snow may then continue Thursday into Friday. && .Aviation...(18Z TAF Issuance) Issued at 126 PM EST Fri Jan 20 2023 Impacts: * MVFR Cigs expected today and early this evening. Discussion: GOES16 shows extensive cloudiness across the forecast area with widespread MVFR Cigs. broad cyclonic flow is expected to remain across the area today. Tonight the cyclonic flow appears to weaken, however there is a lack of a strong anti-cyclonic signal or clearing ridge axis. Thus confidence is low for clearing of cloud cover. Forecast soundings and time heights show a saturated area within the lower levels through much of the forecast period. Thus will keep MVFR Cigs this afternoon and evening and return to low VFR Cigs tonight as the cyclonic flow weakens while lower level moisture remains.
When the barometer drops, hyperbole rises!
There are two syndicated articles from the New York Times called,
Can We Talk About How We Talk About the Weather?
and...
Bomb Cyclone? Or Just Windy with a Chance of Hyperbole? When the barometer drops, the volume of ‘hyped words’ rises, and many meteorologists aren’t happy about it.
It's a great read in my opinion. I think that a lot of conspiracy theories about vaccines exist because most people are lacking in science education and when they don't understand what's being said to them, they fill in the blank with whatever they think it means or whatever they hear from others who also lack a basic science education. Just my two cents,.
______________________________
DENVER — Last week, days after a bomb cyclone (coupled with a series of atmospheric rivers, some of the Pineapple Express variety) took devastating aim at California, a downtown conference center here was inundated by the forces responsible — not for the pounding rain and wind but for the forecast.
Scores of the world’s most authoritative meteorologists and weather scientists gathered to share the latest research at the 103rd meeting of the American Meteorological Society. The subject line of an email to participants on the first day projected optimism — “Daily Forecast: A Flood of Scientific Knowledge.”
But there were troubling undercurrents. Scientists are in consensus on the increasing frequency of extreme weather events — the blizzard in Buffalo, flooding in Montecito, Calif., prolonged drought in East Africa — and their worrisome impacts. At the Denver meeting, however, there was another growing worry: how people talk about the weather.
The widespread use of colorful terms like “bomb cyclone” and “atmospheric river,” along with the proliferating categories, colors and names of storms and weather patterns, has struck meteorologists as a mixed blessing: good for public safety and climate-change awareness but potentially so amplified that it leaves the public numb to or unsure of the actual risk. The new vocabulary, devised in many cases by the weather-science community, threatens to spin out of control.
“The language evolved to get people’s attention,” said Cindy Bruyere, director of the Capacity Center for Climate and Weather Extremes at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. She sat with two fellow scientists at a coffee bar between sessions and became increasingly animated as she discussed what she called “buzz words” that lack meaning.
“I have zero pictures in my head when I hear the term ‘bomb cyclone,’” she said. “We need significantly clearer language, not hyped words.”
Others find that the words, while evocative, are sometimes used incorrectly. “The worst is ‘polar vortex,’” said Andrea Lopez Lang, an atmospheric scientist at the State University of New York in Albany, as she stood in a corridor between weather-science sessions. Dr. Lopez Lang is an expert in polar vortices, which technically are stratospheric phenomena that occur at least six miles above sea level. “But in the last decade, people are starting to describe it as cold air on the ground level,” she said.
Cindy Bruyere, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, speaks while seated at a table in a coffee shop. A tablemate’s laptop is open in the foreground.
“We need significantly clearer language, not hyped words,” said Cindy Bruyere, director of the Capacity Center for Climate and Weather Extremes at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.Credit...Stephen Speranza for The New York Times
A conference attendee sits looking at a phone. On the wall behind them are three large photographs -- of the open sky, of a raging wildfire, and of a wild river in the sunshine.
In an effort to contain the runaway verbiage, weather scientists have begun to study the impact of extreme-weather language. How do people react to the way the weather is communicated? Do they take the proper precautions? Or do they tune it out?
It’s “a hot topic,” said Gina Eosco, a social scientist with the Weather Program Office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Literally, communication is our No. 1 concern.” In 2021, Dr. Eosco was an author of a paper with the less-than-pithy title, “Is a Consistent Message Achievable?: Defining ‘Message Consistency’ for Weather Enterprise Researchers and Practitioners.”
For the moment, the answer to the paper’s question is: cloudy. To underscore the issue, Dr. Eosco — sitting on the floor in one conference hall — pulled out her phone and showed a collection of messages from various television stations and websites that used competing graphics, colors and language to characterize the tropical storm Henri, in 2021. The presentations were not terribly distinct from one another, Dr. Eosco noted, but they hinted at the diversity in approaches to branding intense weather.
To fully understand the impact of how people talk about weather, Dr. Eosco said, more information is needed. Her division of NOAA has put out calls for researchers to quantify the effectiveness of weather-messaging strategies, including “visual, verbal messages, naming, categories.”
The broader aim, she said, was to make sure that the official cascade of weather terminology promoted understanding and an appropriate response from the public, not confusion.
“I got a text from a family member this weekend that said, ‘Is an atmospheric river a real thing?’” said Castle Williams, a social scientist sitting on the floor beside Dr. Eosco; the two were joint authors on the 2021 paper about consistent weather messaging. “She thought it was a made-up word for intense rainful.” He added, “I gave her a lot of information about atmospheric rivers.” Dr. Eosco noted that researchers were exploring whether to group atmospheric rivers into categories, much as hurricanes were ranked numerically according to severity.
Some of the vivid terminology begins with the scientists — “bomb cyclone,” for instance. “The reason we called it a bomb is because it is the explosive intensification of a surface cyclone, in other words, the winds you are experiencing near the ground where people live,” said John Gyakum, a meteorologist at McGill University who helped coin the term in the 1980s. The less-pithy definition is “a 24-hour period in which the central pressure falls by at least 24 millibars,” which is a measure of atmospheric pressure.
In the term’s early days, the weather pattern “was primarily an ocean phenomenon,” Dr. Gyakum said, and it still largely is. Perhaps more people are affected these days because the coasts are more densely populated. “Why do we hear more about bomb cyclones than we did 40 years ago?” he said. “People are paying more attention to extreme weather than in the olden days.” He added, “Talking about bomb cyclones is not necessarily an indication of increased frequency.”
According to Google Trends, the phrase “bomb cyclone” was barely uttered until 2017 but has since has risen to a din, along with “weather bomb” and “weather cyclone bomb.”
Some meteorologists said they had become cautious about what they uttered, to avoid sensationalism. “Once you use a term and let the cat out of the bag, you can’t get it back in,” said Andrew Hoell, a research meteorologist with NOAA, where he is co-leader of the drought task force. “It can be used in ways you never imagined.”
He had just finished speaking at the “Explaining Extreme Events Press Conference,” which was fairly dry, linguistically. Afterward, Dr. Hoell was more emphatic about what he won’t say: “I don’t use ‘megadrought.’” Nevertheless, later in the conference he was scheduled to participate in a town-hall discussion titled, “Drought, Megadrought, or a Permanent Change? A Shifting Paradigm for Drought in the Western United States.”
“You will not hear me use that term,” Dr. Hoell said again. “It’s not relevant. I can characterize it in more plain language.”
Such as? “Prolonged drought,” he said.
In the end, the linguistic dilemma reflects a larger challenge. On one hand, scientists say, it is hard to overstate the profound risk that global warming poses to Earth’s inhabitants in the next century and beyond. But the drumbeat of language may not be appropriate for the day-to-day nature of many weather events.
Blame is typically cast in the passive voice: Weather scientists crafted attention-grabbing terms, which were drawn into the ratings-driven media vortex. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that the technical terminology was widely used without context by traditional news media and on social media “where some people might use a term half-jokingly and others are genuinely freaking out.”
He added, “Headlines literally sound like the end of the world.”
Consider the “ARkStorm.” The term emerged in 2010 in a project spearheaded by the United States Geological Survey, which explored a “megastorm scenario originally projected as a 1-in-1,000-year-event.” The term is a verbal mass combining “atmospheric river,” “k” (representing 1,000) and “storm,” with an overall biblical resonance.
“The acronym exists, as one might expect, as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Noachian flood, though the scenario frankly isn’t that far off from the biblical depiction,” said Dr. Swain, who was among the researchers involved in a 2018 report called ARkStorm 2.0.
The ARkStorm research proposes weather that could flood thousands of miles, cause hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth in damage, prompt the evacuation of more than a million people and happen more frequently than every 1,000 years, particularly on the West Coast. (The Original Forecast, according to Genesis, called for “floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.”)
However epic, epochal or apocalyptic, there was no ARkStorm underway in mid-January, despite the email to Dr. Swain from a media outlet inquiring if the ARkSTorm “is going to hit California tonight.”
He quickly called back, to keep misinformation from spreading, Dr. Swain said. He surmised that the outlet had read about the report or read its headline, but had not read the report itself. “No,” he said he told the outlet, “this is not literally the end of the world.”
What's up with wacky weather Thursdays? #WWT
Remember last Thursday, January 11th when we had thunderstorms and then snow? Well, guess what? That is going to happen again tomorrow on Thursday, January 19th.
Hang in there #BOTS! fans!
The last week of January and the first week of February look interesting. Until then...
Thursday is going to be a wild ride.
Highs in the 50's, fog, rain, thunderstorms and then snow. That's Indiana for ya!
Proof that winter is not over.
If you do a Google search for the coldest temperature on earth right now you'll find that there is some extremely cold air in the arctic circle and in Russia. You can also use these sites to find the lates coldest temperatures recorded.
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=39;112;1&l=temperature-2m
https://www.eldoradoweather.com/climate/world-extremes/world-temp-rainfall-extremes.php
Do you think winter is over?
Well guess what, it's not! Round #2 of winter will return during the last week of January and the first week of February. Check these out:
In the meantime, watch out for the possibility of a tricky ice storm to show between now and January 23rd.
Keep a close eye on the weather from January 5 - 20.
The pattern looks like one that can produce a wintery mix or ice storm because the night time temperature are all between 30 and 35 degrees. When you have warm air that tries to overrun cold air, you can get ice so pay attention to your weather apps. I think this pattern will last until January 20th. Here's what the National Weather Service says about this weekend:
Long Term...(Thursday through Tuesday) Issued at 307 AM EST Wed Jan 4 2023 - Slightly Above Normal temperatures - Chance of Rain and Snow Thursday - Wintry Mix This Weekend Thursday... An upper low will move from just east of Davenport to the Indiana/Michigan border Thursday. Impulses and a 100+ knot 250 millibar jet streak around the base of the low, frontogentical forcing and deep moisture from 10-15K feet strongly support PoPs higher than the meager blend output. So raised PoPs to 30-40% near and north of a Greensburg to Clinton line with 20% PoPs extending slightly further south and areas from near Sullivan to Seymour dry. Would also not be surprised if PoP increase even further in the next couple of forecasts but for now matching up nicely with neighboring offices. Low level thicknesses and soundings support a mix of rain, freezing rain and snow to start Thursday morning and then transition to mostly rain except areas northwest of Indianapolis, where afternoon high temperatures are only expected to be a few degrees above freezing and snow could still mix in. Thursday night and Friday... Broad area of surface high pressure will result in subsidence and combined with drier air moving in aloft on the back side of the departing upper low will grace central Indiana with dry weather Thursday night and Friday. However, moist boundary layer will prevent much clearing until Friday when some breaks will move in from southwest to northeast. Low level thermals and cloud considerations support temperatures to climb to normal or slightly above normal in the middle 30s to lower 40s by Friday afternoon. Friday night through Sunday... The next system to impact central Indiana will be a bit tricky with the thermal setup supporting a transition zone across central Indiana starting early Saturday. 295K isentropic lift will kick in ahead of a Plains/Missouri Valley low pressure system starting overnight Friday night and continuing through early Saturday as the surface low moves across anywhere from south central to north central Indiana, depending on the model of choice. This path uncertainty will lead to low confidence in PoPs and precip type. Current blend would bring a chance of rain/snow/freezing rain in early Saturday with best chances southwest, where the precip should be mostly rain and lower chances northeast, where the precip type should be mostly snow. A jet streak in the 125+ knot subtropical jet will induce a circulation that will increase upward vertical motion to the north of the jet in the exit region. Meanwhile, frontogenesis to the north of the jet will aid in the northward sloping circulation which could lead to banding at times. The precip will likely change to rain most areas Saturday afternoon as warm advection continues with potentially areas north central areas returning to a mix Saturday night. With the polar air bottled up well north, look for temperatures to be slightly above normal with highs in the upper 30s to middle 40s Saturday. Continued warm advection ahead of the surface low may allow temperatures to reach the 40s over all sections Sunday as the precip dies down and ends from west to east. Sunday night into Tuesday... Would not rule out more showers Tuesday as another low pressure system gets close, otherwise high pressure and a drier column could bring some breaks to the clouds to the area along with continued slightly above normal temperatures. &&
My thoughts on the January pattern.
Did you enjoy the thunderstorms last night? It looks like temperatures are going to waffle back and forth between 30 and 50 degrees between now and January 21st. After that, it looks like the polar vortex will try and visit us again. Stay tuned.
Did anyone in Bloomington just hear that loud boom of thunder?
That one shook the windows and rattled the dishes in granny's china cabinet.
Heavy rain and thunderstorms possible tonight.
The rain is ten minutes away so stay in if you can. Southern Indiana could see some localized flooding. Don't be surprised to hear a rumble of thunder or two.
Winter tries to make a comeback on Thursday but it will only last until Saturday.
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