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Snowflake Cold

Shocking summer return of poor man's polar vortex to eastern U.S. next week

James Samenow
Washingtonpost.com
Thu, 10 Jul 2014 10:35 UTC
Image
© Washingtonpost.com
Call it the ghost of the polar vortex, the polar vortex sequel, or the polar vortex's revenge. Meteorological purists may tell you it's not a polar vortex at all. However you choose to refer to the looming weather pattern, unseasonably chilly air is headed for parts of the northern and northeastern U.S at the height of summer early next week.

Bearing a haunting resemblance to January's brutally cold weather pattern, a deep pool of cool air from the Gulf of Alaska will plunge into the Great Lakes early next week and then ooze towards the East Coast.

Of course, this is July, not January, so temperatures forecast to be roughly 10 to as much as 30 degrees below average won't have quite the same effect.

But make no mistake, in parts of the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest getting dealt the chilliest air, hoodies and jeans will be required. Highs in this region could well get stuck in the 50s and 60s - especially where there is considerable cloud cover.

Wednesday morning's lows may drop into the 40s over a large part of the central U.S. Remember, this is July!

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Phoenix

Hot spot: Yellowstone road melts, sites closed


Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Thu, 10 Jul 2014 11:51 UTC
Yellowstone
© National park Service
Firehole Lake Drive superheated by surrounding thermals
The ever-changing thermal geology of Yellowstone National Park has created a hot spot that melted an asphalt road and closed access to popular geysers and other attractions at the height of tourist season, officials said Thursday.

As they examined possible fixes, park officials warned visitors not to hike into the affected area, where the danger of stepping through solid-looking soil into boiling-hot water was high.

"There are plenty of other great places to see thermal features in the park," Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said. "I wouldn't risk personal injury to see these during this temporary closure."

Naturally changing thermal features often damage Yellowstone's roads and boardwalks. Steaming potholes in asphalt roads and parking lots - marked off by traffic cones - are fairly common curiosities.

However, the damage to Firehole Lake Drive is unusually severe and could take several days to fix. The 3.3-mile loop six miles north of Old Faithful takes visitors past Great Fountain Geyser, White Dome Geyser and Firehole Lake.

Unusually warm weather for Yellowstone - with high temperatures in the mid-80s - has contributed to turning the road into a hot, sticky mess.

"We've got some ideas. We're going to try them. Our maintenance staff has really looked at the issue," Nash said.
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Cloud Precipitation

Surprising rain in Las Vegas: 'Unusual weather we're having, aint it?'

Anthony Watts
Wattsupwiththat.com
Thu, 10 Jul 2014 17:05 UTC
The title of this post is a famous quote from the cowardly lion in the 1939 movie the Wizard of Oz. Readers may remember this film was one of the very first to show "climate disruption" manifesting itself as extreme weather, as regular garden-variety tornadoes in Kansas turned ugly and started transporting people into alternate universes.

I thought that quote was rather appropriate for the kind of weather I'm experiencing in Las Vegas today, on the morning after the ICCC9 conference. This is the view from my hotel room window:
Image
© Wattsupwiththat.com
This view is looking southeast at the West end of the McCarran International Airport (KLAS). You can see puddles on the runway and on some of the surrounding land plus the rain shafts coming from the clouds. For those of you that prefer data over pictures, here's some:
Image
© www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=vef&sid=LAS&num=48
Of particular interest is the graph in the upper right. Note that it registers .08 inches of precipitation this morning but also smaller amounts of precipitation going all the way back to Tuesday. We've had sort of a monsoon season this week.
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Health

Multiple deaths reported in New York after homes collapse during severe storm


Yahoo
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 12:45 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/Oneida Daily Dispatch, John Haeger
Debris is visible at Goff Road in Smithfield, N.Y., following severe storm on Tuesday, July 8, 2014. Officials in central New York say four people are dead and four homes have been destroyed in building collapses amid severe thunderstorms
Officials in central New York said four people are dead and four homes have been destroyed in building collapses amid severe thunderstorms that rolled through the region.

A spokesman for the Madison County emergency management office said the deaths were reported just after 7 p.m. Tuesday in the hard-hit community of Smithfield, located between Syracuse and Utica. No further details were immediately available.

Madison County Sheriff Allen Riley did not identify the victims. He told The Post-Standard he was still notifying their families.

Comment: It's interesting that there is no report of a tornado causing the damage. Thunderstorms rarely cause significant damage to homes and human deaths. This would seem to be caused by a tornado, yet no mention of one touching down.

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Cloud Lightning

3 dead in Japan as Typhoon Neoguri makes landfall and sets off a landslide

Elaine Lies
Reuters
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 05:30 UTC
Neoguri Japan
© Reuters/Kyoto
Damaged cars and buildings are seen after a landslide caused by heavy rains due to Typhoon Neoguri in Nagiso town, Nagano prefecture, in this photo taken by Kyodo July 10, 2014.
Heavy rain battered a wide swathe of Japan on Thursday, sending rivers over their banks and setting off a landslide as a weakened but still dangerous storm made landfall and headed east, leaving three people dead.

Neoguri, which first threatened Japan as a super typhoon this week, had weakened to a tropical storm by the time it ploughed ashore on the westernmost main island of Kyushu. But it was still packing wind gusts of up to 126 kph (78 mph).

Heavy rains prompted the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains and closed schools. The storm also fed into a stalled seasonal rain front, threatening flooding in distant regions.
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Extinguisher

Wildfires: Forest fires sweep over 13,500 hectares in Siberia


ITAR-TASS
Thu, 10 Jul 2014 03:01 UTC
Forest fires in Siberia
© ITAR-TASS/Viktor Chavain
Seventy nine forest fires were raging on more than 13,500 hectares in five Siberian regions. The Irkutsk region and the Krasnoyarsk territory were hit most severely with 8,400 and 4,900 hectares burning, the press service of the Siberian Federal District's Forestry Department reported on Thursday.

Forty nine fires on more than 6,000 hectares were extinguished on Wednesday in Buryatia, the Altai, Trans-Baikal and Krasnoyarsk territories and the Irkutsk, Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions, where 1,860 firefighters, including smoke jumpers, and 30 aircraft fought the blaze.

The fires were caused mainly by carelessness of people and thunderstorms.

There have been 6,390 forest fires on 1,156,000 hectares in Siberia since the beginning of the warm season
      Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

Deadly storm, tornadoes batter Eastern U.S. states

John Kekis and Michael Hill
KFVS12.com
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 16:19 UTC
Image
© Daily Gazette
Debris is visible at Goff Road in Smithfield, N.Y., following severe storm on Tuesday, July 8, 2014. Officials in central New York say four people are dead and four homes have been destroyed in building collapses amid severe thunderstorms.
Residents of this rural central New York town on Wednesday picked through debris from homes battered by a deadly tornado, and utility crews worked to restore power in several Eastern states hit by severe storms.

In all, five people died Tuesday as strong thunderstorms blew down buildings, trees and utility lines and left hundreds of thousands without power into Wednesday.

Madison County Sheriff Allen Riley said Kimberly Hilliard, 35; her 4-month-old daughter, Paris Newman; Virginia Warner, 70; and Arnie Allen, 53, were killed in the rural town of Smithfield, between Utica and Syracuse.

He said four homes were destroyed and numerous others were damaged, with Allen's two-story home blown hundreds of feet before it landed on an unoccupied house.

In Manchester, Maryland, a tree fell at the River Valley Ranch summer camp, killing one child and injuring six others headed to a shelter.
      Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Severe storms leave five dead in New York and Maryland


The Guardian
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 07:37 UTC
New York tornado

A woman walks through debris of a destroyed house after Tuesday night's storm, on Wednesday, July 9, 2014, in Smithfield, N.Y.
Thousands of people in east coast states woke up to power cuts and a major clean-up operation on Wednesday after severe storms and high winds killed five people.

One of the hardest hit spots was the Syracuse-area community of Smithfield, New York, where four of the deaths were reported and at least four homes destroyed on Tuesday, Madison County undersheriff John Ball said in a statement.

In Maryland, one boy was killed and eight others, aged 15 and under, were injured when they tried to shelter from tree branches and other debris being whipped around by the wind.

The storms uprooted trees and tore down power lines across several counties in central New York, as the extreme weather raged from the Ohio Valley and parts of New England through the mid-Atlantic region, police and weather officials said.
      Read More...
Fish

Stunning videos: Huge school of anchovies swarms off La Jolla, California - attracting hundreds of thousands of seabirds

Joel Christie
Daily Mail, UK
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 12:12 UTC
Image

Unexplained, but not an oil spill: A huge school of anchovies gathered off the coast of La Jolla, in California's south, on Tuesday
The California coastline was gripped by an epic oil spill on Tuesday.

Or so it appeared.

In truth the ominous dark band that formed off the coast of La Jolla, in the state's south, was a massive school of Northern anchovies.

However the anchovy aggregation has baffled scientists, who say they have not seen anything like it in the area for over 30 years, according to The LA Times.

      Read More...
Attention

50-foot fin whale carcass found on Nova Scotia shore, Canada


Cape Breton Post
Tue, 08 Jul 2014 11:30 UTC
Image
© Gary Brinton
Photographer Gary Brinton captured this image of a deceased fin whale near shore in Port Hastings.

It's a 'welcome to Cape Breton' most tourists would probably like to do without.

As they pass over the swing bridge that bears those words, visitors to Cape Breton are being treated to a decidedly inhospitable greeting - the stench of a decomposing 50-foot female fin whale.

The whale has come to rest on the shoreline below the busy Port Hastings visitor information centre.

Dwayne MacDonald, who represents the Port Hastings area on Inverness County council, noted he has spoken with someone who works at the tourist bureau and visitors are commenting on the smell, which gets worse by the day.

"Nobody wants to be responsible for moving it," MacDonald said. "It doesn't matter what government organization you work for, any level of government, nobody wants to take responsibility for anything.
      Read More...
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