Maria brushes Bermuda; 24-hour blitz by Climate Reality Project underway
Tropical Storm Maria is roaring past Bermuda, bringing winds near tropical storm force. At 11 am local time, winds at the Bermuda airport were sustained at 36 mph, just below the 39 mph threshold of tropical storm strength. Outer spiral bands of Maria have brought a few brief heavy rain squalls to the island, as seen on Bermuda radar. The core of Maria is now at its closest point of approach to the island, about 150 miles (240 km) to the west, and the island may yet see an hour of two of sustained winds of 40 - 45 mph. Maria is headed north-northeast, and will brush Newfoundland, Canada on Friday afternoon. Since Newfoundland will be on the weak (left) side of a rapidly weakening Maria, I'm not expecting much in the way of wind damage from the storm in Canada, though heavy rains may cause isolated minor to moderate flooding. Top sustained winds in St. Johns will probably be in the 25 - 35 mph range Friday afternoon, though a few hours of tropical storm force winds of 40 - 45 mph are possible if Maria ends up tracking farther west than expected.
Figure 1. Radar image of Tropical Storm Maria taken at 10:13 am EDT September 15, 2011. Image credit: Bermuda Weather Service.
Elsewhere in the tropics
Even the busiest of hurricane seasons have lulls, and we're hitting one this week during what is traditionally the busiest week of hurricane season. A westward-moving tropical wave a few hundred miles south of the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of Africa, has a modest amount of poorly organized heavy thunderstorm activity. This wave is under a moderate 10 - 20 knots of wind shear, is in a moist environment, and is over warm waters, so has the potential for some development, though NHC is currently not mentioning it in their Tropical Weather Outlook. The UKMET and NOGAPS models predict this wave could develop into a tropical depression 5 - 6 days from now. The NOGAPS model continues to predict the Western Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua could see the development of a tropical depression 6 - 7 days from now, but the other models are showing little support for this scenario.
Figure 2. Heidi Cullen of Climate Central introduces Boulder, Colorado teacher John Zavalney, one of the presenters of the Climate Reality Project's 24-hour live streaming special.
The Climate Reality Project
The Climate Reality Project (climaterealityproject.org) is a little more than halfway through their live, 24-hour streaming video effort that features 24 different presenters for 24 hours, representing every time zone around the globe. The presentations began last night at 7 pm EDT, and will end tonight at 7 pm EDT. It's worth checking out; there have been some interesting presentations and some dull ones. Interspersed with the presentations are panel discussions with some slick Google Earth graphics; last night's discussions were led by Heidi Cullen of Climate Central, who is a rarity--a very personable and well-spoken scientist, and someone you'll be seeing on TV much more in coming years. The Climate Reality Project showed one excellent video tracking the history of industry-funded denial of science that began with the tobacco industry, something I've discussed as well in post called The Manufactured Doubt Industry and the hacked email controversy. Also shown were two cute 15 - 30 second comedy videos. But while the Climate Reality Project's 24-hour blitz has already gotten 3 million people to tune in, its documentary-style tone and Powerpoint lectures will not be engaging enough to keep most visitors around for more than a few minutes. Ph.D. oceanographer Randy Olson, who left a tenure-track professorship to become a Hollywood film maker, has written an excellent book called Don't be Such a Scientist, about the failure of scientists to communicate in way that will engage people (I thought so highly of the book that I bought 20 copies of the book to give away to students at the University of Michigan's Department of Atmospheric Science this year.) In the latest post in his blog, The Benshi, Olson outlines how the climate community has failed in the main way needed to engage an audience: create a likable voice through the effective telling of stories, which is a less literal means of communication and is less cerebral and thus reaches a mass audience. Future efforts at communication by the climate science community really need to work on using the telling of stories by likable voices in order to get their message across, and I highly recommend that all climate scientists who do public outreach read Olson's book "Don't be Such a Scientist."
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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I grew up in Ohio and remember snow in October, now in May ...I travel home to see my mom from Texas at Christmas time and it always amazes me when there isnt any snow ...I always remember being a kid and there always being snow at Christmas
Well, I wasn't trying to "one up" PHM, or prove him wrong; I just eagerly ran to the TCR to verify what he'd said, as I've been searching for just such a record, and was actually disappointed that it didn't qualify.
left? probably a lot. banned? probably none.
Its a topic for today's blog entry, and yesterdays.
Speaking of weather, any change down there?
I think Dr. Master's does this for a reason. Even though there is bickering and even though there are some that say they are leaving ...awareness of the subject is brought to attention ...even if you dont buy in to the GW I bet many on here think about respecting the planet more. And that is a good thing. I want to leave my kids and grandkids a beautiful world
But do you believe in respecting the planet and leaving it (hopefully) a better place ecologically?
Edit
You dont have to be on either side for that to happen
I really do feel for you boho ...seeing you have to be out in this every day. Hope it changes for us soon
On July 13th, 1995 the highest heat index ever recorded in the US occurred in Appleton WI: 148 degrees
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian /article.html?entrynum=36
Discussion yes, but the ignorant name calling and the lack of respect of other ideologies is another thing.
It's still okay to AGREE to DISAGREE...but we can all do it without being a you-know-what...IMHO
The Earth doesn't have a constant climate. Its been really really cold, and really really hot. In my opinion, we are in the period where temperatures are warming. However, I think eventually, it will cool down again..Maybe in my lifetime, maybe not.
JMO.
You better go while you can, Seattle and the Pacific NW is 30yrs overdue on the BIG one.
well yes it leads to that eventually but the AGW is listed in the header so it is allowed
Lefties using a wrong term explaining a scientific issue, and righties denying the obvious. GW is a wrong term and climate change is so true, as tomorrow is going to be the saturday yesterday.
Behind Typhoon Lionrock from last year in the Western Pacific. :-)
And, I just checked the Royal Gazette (Bermuda periodical) and it says they sustained very minimal damage, with no reports coming in and only sporadic power outages. But that article also states that Maria hasn't yet attained Hurricane Status, and I also read on BerNews that a tree fell on someone's house due to a lightning strike.
It was a severe tropical storm, not a typhoon.
They differ in track, but the important fact is that they both develop something.
Doing better now, still finishing up on rebuilding some things. I was very blessed with alot of good friends from around the world who all helped me in different ways.
Paper published today in Science has announced the first circumbinary exoplanet around nominally Sun-like stars... which is of course being hailed as the first step towards us finding a real Tatooine :)
Here's the story :) Enjoy :)
Well we have a possible west caribbean system, and a possible tropical wave formation...
The Nogaps, which atatches to monsoonal developments likes for a storm to develop in the caribbean and would likely follow a weakness into the east gulf, and then turn NE into west florida or if the trough is amplified, into cuba. The canadian still hints at some development too, but these are both inaccurate models.
A tropical wave that is going to emerge off of Africa in the next day is forecasted by the Euro, GFS, Canadian, and Nogaps to form is looking like a possible caribbean runner. The storm is going to stay weak well into the central atlantic before beginning to organize and development, which will keep it west. Then it should form and head into the caribbean. The Bermuda High is forecasted to rebuild strong around this time, which will keep it westerly through the eastern caribbean, then a shortwave trough is forecasted to come through, but if "Ophelia/Philippe" is too far south then it would only feel a slight tug to the north which would bring it to around 15/16 N. Then the High could move back in and a westerly track would resume. A second trough over the plains around that time would likely pick it up, but at this point the storm would've gotten itself to deep into the caribbean to not affect land somewhere. This is just my take on a possibility, and we will get a more clear thinking of what will happen as the next 7 days roll on.
Friends like that ...you are very blessed
Thanks
----- Current Analysis -----
Date : 15 SEP 2011 Time : 224500 UTC
Lat : 36:01:27 N Lon : 64:57:49 W
CI# /Pressure/ Vmax
4.4 / 974.3mb/ 74.6kt
Final T# Adj T# Raw T#
4.4 4.4 3.5
Center Temp : -63.0C Cloud Region Temp : -60.9C
Scene Type : UNIFORM CDO CLOUD REGION w/ MW EYE
Positioning Method : FORECAST INTERPOLATION
I guess a bump in intensity is possible.
It was actually pretty bad. He's nice guy but his opinion is based upon nothing of substance.
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