Paul Douglas update on Colorado and the hurricane watch in the Gulf.
While we’ve been watching Colorado, to the south, historic flooding from an unprecedented double whammy of tropical storms has devasted Mexico.
Tropical Storm Manuel lashed Mexico’s northwest coast with heavy rains on Thursday, prompting evacuations and adding to flash floods that have unleashed chaos across Mexico and killed at least 97 people.
Storms have inundated vast areas of Mexico since late last week, wrecking roads, destroying bridges and triggering landslides that buried homes and their occupants. Roads became raging rapids in the Pacific resort of Acapulco, stranding some 40,000 tourists.
Emergency services said heavy rains were beating down on the northwestern state of Sinaloa and that hundreds of people had been evacuated from coastal communities.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said an area of low pressure over the oil-producing southern Gulf of Mexico had a 60 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone over the next 48 hours and could dump heavy rains on already flooded areas in southern and eastern Mexico.
The fresh misery comes after tropical storms Ingrid and Manuel converged on Mexico from the Gulf and the Pacific over the weekend, triggering the flash floods.
Ingrid dissipated, but Manuel then strengthened and gained hurricane strength before it was downgraded again to a tropical storm. Manuel was expected to weaken further to a tropical depression later on Thursday.
More than a million people have been affected across the country, and 50,000 have been evacuated from their homes.
As I understand it, a melting arctic leads to elongated distortions in the jet stream. elongated distortions of the jet stream lead to weather patterns (rain or drought) that park over areas for longer periods of time making for more weather extremes
Could it also be that these jet stream distortions lead to changes in the currents within the upper atmosphere that help steer tropical storm systems? And that hurricanes and tropical storms might have less predictable paths as the warming continues?
I was very impressed by the Climate Denial blog “The Top 5 Things that Keep Me Awake at Night. Jennifer Francis Testimony July 18, 2013 and have just watched it again, although Ms Francis’s conclusions on the Jet Stream behaviour and climate change are disputed by Elizabeth Barnes of Colorado State University, Jennifer defends it and states “in an email message to Climate Central, Francis said the new study does not significantly contradict her research tying Arctic warming to extreme weather patterns well outside of the Arctic.
“The mechanisms linking Arctic amplification with large-scale circulation patterns are clearly not simple and we still have much to learn. These new results provide additional insight into those linkages,” she said.”
Of course predictably Judith Curry puts Jennifer down in her climate etc. blog, but as Ms Curry is presently blasting the IPCC, providing yet more mis-information to David Rose of the Mail and her supporters are celebrating a recent right swing in Australia and Norway, I cannot take Ms. Curry seriously any more.
this is the hottest area of discussion in Atmospheric science right now. There is a dispute as to whether it is arctic ice, or tropical el nino effects, are skewing the jet stream. there is a dispute as to whether the jet will steer hurricanes into, or away from, the US or other populated areas.
Much of this won’t be solve right away. the biggest area of agreement is that we are in a “new normal”.
first: meteos are already casting an eye to an increase in hurricanes in the UK.
“Environmental Research Letters
Environmental Research Letters Volume 8 Number 3
Future changes in atmospheric rivers and their implications for winter flooding in Britain”
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/034010/article
second: i’ve been watching the jet streams for a long time now, and what they show you on TWC or accuweather or whatever is absolute bollocks. they keep showing this loooong ribbon of a jet stream over the US and canada, BUT, the reality is, if you go directly to the jet stream maps (real time), it tends to look more like a roll of toilet paper after the cat got to it.: http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream.html right now it looks a bit more cohesive than it has done over the summer, also be sure to check the southern hemisphere jet streams, it’s been consistently massive for some time. almost as if it is getting stronger as the arctic falls to shyte. another thing to watch is our ongoing stratospheric warming event, has been going all summer, never really got back to ‘normal’ after last winter’s sudden strato warming event (SSW). it is the SSW from last year that pushed the polar vortex to collapse over siberia, which was the beginning of the nasty nasty cold spell/extended winter much of the planet experienced, the warmer air in the arctic also triggered some early melt.
third: please be specific when discussing the ‘upper atmosphere.’ the troposhpere is the layer closest to earth, which is where our weather patterns form and exist. atmospheric rivers run in this layer of the atmosphere. the jet stream generally rides above that, upper troposphere/tropopause (the ‘buffer’ layer between the trop and the next layer of atmosphere above).
“A jet stream is defined as a current of rapidly moving air that is usually several thousand miles long and wide, but is relatively thin. They are found in the upper levels of Earth’s atmosphere at the tropopause – the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere (see atmospheric layers). Jet streams are important because they contribute to worldwide weather patterns and as such, they help meteorologists forecast weather based on their position. In addition, they are important to air travel because flying in or out of them can reduce flight time and fuel consumption.”
http://geography.about.com/od/climate/a/jetstream.htm
note that the jet stream is a current of air, while the atmospheric rivers, which are below it, are water vapor. i’m still fine-tuning my knowledge of all this, but i hope this explanation helps.
Thanks for the reference to Jet Stream maps, I have been struggling to find a good site for this , and it includes the Southern Hemisphere streams and shows my country too.
no prob. 🙂 pretty interesting to keep an eye on. you might enjoy exploring the atmospheric river/total precipital water vapor maps as well. and of course, the ionospheric maps are always a hoot…:P
i am shocked that NO ONE is discussing this as an atmospheric river event, but it was. that ties it directly to climate change in that it reflects a much much higher percentage of tropical water vapor. the AR’s run in the troposphere, while the jet stream runs above them. also what hit mexico was an atmospheric river. don’t expect that to let up any time soon, south mexico and the gulf are really getting a huge impact from the AR’s right now, just look at the map. be aware the mimic TPW does not show the AR’s over land, but if you also check a moisture map you can get an idea of the rest of the picture…it’s not difficult to mentally juxtapose the TPW mimic http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mimic-tpw/global/main.html with http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/satellite/ssec/world/world-composite-wv-sat.html also, the system hitting the east coast from south to north across the entire country is an AR system.
the increase in tropical water vapor, i feel, is our first big indicator that the oceans are releasing heat. correct me on that, but, PNW has had AR activity all summer, out of season, and while i have only lived in portland area for 7 years, i do not ever recall summer being at 100% humidity just about every day…friends also report extreme humidity in northern california, which is where i am from (mendocino) and as i grew up there i know for certain that that is highly anomalous. supercell warnings went up for interior no cal yesterday, coast experienced a lot of rain.
a bit on the side, my housemate heard thousands of geese last night, portland oregon, he says he’s never heard so many and he is convinced it is going to be a brutal winter.
i report and research practically 24/7 here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WeirdWeather/
“researching climate and earth changes” with scientific sources, no huff, sott, ene, etc. i am very big on the boots on the ground reports, migration, fracking and oil issues, geoengineering the climate (aka climate engineering), volcanoes, EQ’s, deep sea creature sightings, animal bird and fish die-offs, etc. we also cover nuclear issues but i only allow posts from qualified researchers like helen caldicott. we have a lot of climate activists in the group. 🙂