September 2016 Observations and Discussions

[Tom]

Regarding the pattern late next week into the following weekend, with so much blocking, models are going to have a tough time trying to figure out what happens with that wound up storm system.  Nonetheless, it looks like an Upper Midwest/Lakes storm will take shape that eventually tugs down some Autumnal air.

 

12z Euro...

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/ecmwf/2016091612/ecmwf_mslpa_us_11.png

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/ecmwf/2016091612/ecmwf_T850_us_11.png

[Tom]

Go Cub's Go!  Nice come back win, walk-off home run at home to be able to celebrate the Division Title!  The wind was howling straight out to center field...needless to say,. Mother Nature had an impact.  October baseball is here again!

[OKwx2k4]

Good rounds of storms hammering their way through my area today. Glad to see it. Really needed some rain.

[gabel23]

Some places out here near Gabel's area were approaching a foot of rain!! 40 miles north of here got rekt last night. Lincoln got an abysmal amount, of course. September has had some really interesting heavy rain events around here the past couple of years. A lot of slow movers.

There is a myth around theses parts.....everything follows the Platte river! It did last night as those areas saw spotty 5-7" of rain. I caught 1.50"....... It's time for a new pattern. Areas in southern nebraska....especially in southern Nebraska from Hastings to Lincoln, have been dry for most of this LRC cycle; the new one is approaching thankfully!

[Tom]

The beginnings of the new LRC pattern????  We haven't seen a pattern as such in a very long time.  I would love to see the GEFS 500mb below verify.  CO Low/Southern Plains storm track, blocking over the top, Aleutian Low, slight SE ridge....

 

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2016091700/gfs-ens_z500a_namer_40.png

 

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2016091700/gfs-ens_mslpa_namer_40.png

 

 

Pretty impressive cooling showing up in an ensemble run for the beginning of October...

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2016091700/gfs-ens_T2ma_us_60.png

 

Very wet in the central CONUS...I like...

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2016091700/gfs-ens_apcpna_us_9.png

[Tom]

Very impressed with the agreement by both GEFS/EPS members for a true Autumn-like pattern Week 2.  Here are the EPS Day 11-15 850's...

 

 

 

Here is the Week 3 precip forecast.  If you take a close look, you can see a sliver of above normal precip near the 4 corners/Pan Handle/Midwest regions...both Pac NW/EC regions look dry.  Looking out farther, East Asia is very wet which would suggest a stormy pattern down the road through the first half of October.  Alaska also looks wet...hope to see the snow cover build up fast up north.

 

 

 

[james1976]

Nice maps Tom!!!  Does Lezak have an idea when new LRC will begin? I would assume it gradually comes on in early Oct??

[Tom]

Nice maps Tom!!! Does Lezak have an idea when new LRC will begin? I would assume it gradually comes on in early Oct??

He agrees that the pattern will be experiencing a major transition next week, esp up north. It is my opinion, we will have the beginnings of the new LRC by the very last few days of the month. I'm sure he will comment on this later next week. It seems like the ensembles are pointing to a gigantic flip to a blocking pattern, of which, we haven't seen in what seems 5 seasons!

[Tom]

12z GFS = Ridiculously chilly run for the last week of the month...several days in a row with low's in the 30's for a large part of the central CONUS and parts of MN/WI/IA may even close out the month in a hard freeze!

[OKwx2k4]

Good stuff!

[Hawkeye]

12z Euro is brrrr as well.  It will be a pretty warm period before then, though.

[Tom]

12z Euro is brrrr as well. It will be a pretty warm period before then, though.

That's as close to a direct discharge of early season Autumn Arctic air as you'all ever see. Both GFS/Euro have -10/-12C below normal temps next late next weekend.

[Tom]

Heading out to MKE to catch me some Kings!  The water up there has cooled off substantially due to the westerly winds that have upwelled some serious cooler waters.  A couple days ago, the waters were about 64F, now they are in the mid 50's!  Salmon are hot so hope to catch my limit today.

 

Meantime, hello -NAO????

 

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.sprd2.gif

[OKwx2k4]

Good luck man! That sounds like a blast. Was just about to post this in the winter thread but will post it in both since you brought up the NAO. Very good sign for winter.

 

[Tom]

Good luck man! That sounds like a blast. Was just about to post this in the winter thread but will post it in both since you brought up the NAO. Very good sign for winter.

 

nao.timeseries.gif

Thanks man! I hope I don't strikeout this time. People have been landing 20-30 pounders this weekend....beasts!

 

If you look at Wx Bells Pioneer model and compare it to the ensembles of where the ridge will pop in NE Canada and near Greenland later next weekend, they almost look identical. It's neat watching the models in advance and comparing them as we get closer to the target period and see which ones have the right ideas.

[OKwx2k4]

Yeah. I'm thinking about doing some late season bass fishing in a few days assuming the weather holds up fair down here.

 

Meanwhile, the nasa, imme, JAMSTEC, euro and cfs in their full monthlies paint us in a red torch bomb this time around. I'm still sticking with my guns for winter though. ALL of the autumns in my analogs down here were 1-3° above average. Going right according to plan as I figure I will finish right near 2-2.5° above by late Nov.

 

Meanwhile, in actual September observations, most years I'm guaranteed rain in this situation. This year there is a mysterious dry dome over my house. I bet it doesn't rain .10 in. Lol.

 

[james1976]

6z GFS still showing big cool down and a cut off low meandering around the midwest last week of the month.

[james1976]

I'm having problems posting links/images. I use the link and image options above and it just freezes. My computer is new so I wouldn't think it would be that. Any help would be great. Thanks guys.

[Tom]

I'm having problems posting links/images. I use the link and image options above and it just freezes. My computer is new so I wouldn't think it would be that. Any help would be great. Thanks guys.

Try saving the files on your desktop, then click "More Reply Options", then click "Choose File", then click "Attach This File"

[james1976]

Thanks Tom

[james1976]

82 sunny and windy. Leaves are flying around with the wind.

[Tom]

Didn't strikeout!  We ended up casting at first, but then started trolling around the area.  I landed the first one just outside where the river begins in the harbor of MKE.  

 

The lake was dead calm, like glass...much better than last weekend where we had to endure huge swells from the northerly winds the previous day.

[Niko]

Didn't strikeout!  We ended up casting at first, but then started trolling around the area.  I landed the first one just outside where the river begins in the harbor of MKE.  

 

The lake was dead calm, like glass...much better than last weekend where we had to endure huge swells from the northerly winds the previous day.

Nice!

[Niko]

One more week of warm weather (temps in the 80s, to high 70s) and then, next week, my highs are in the 60's and lows in the 40's. Hello Autumn. Tbh, i would not mind for October to be mild (being normal temps) and having lows in the chilly 30's. Thats great foliage weather.

BTW guys, next week we turn the calendar to Autumn season. Yayyyyyy!!!!

[Hawkeye]

I was hoping my fall beets would have some nice avg temps of low 70s/mid-upper 40s in late September while the root is maturing.  The 80s/60s we'll see for the next week will prevent them from being as sweet as I'd like.

[Tom]

I was hoping my fall beets would have some nice avg temps of low 70s/mid-upper 40s in late September while the root is maturing.  The 80s/60s we'll see for the next week will prevent them from being as sweet as I'd like.

I love beets!  I make the best beet soup in the Autumn/Winter months when its freezing cold outside...mmmm, so good.  In fact, today, I had beet salad on the boat while I was fishin'!  Fantastic detox.  Hope the crop turns out alright.  BTW, are you planning on harvesting sometime during the 1st week of October???  Or have you done most of it by now???

[james1976]

GFS is not looking nearly as cool now for next week. How is Euro looking?

[Tom]

GFS is not looking nearly as cool now for next week. How is Euro looking?

Same, it's backing off as well.  Time will tell if we continue to see a dramatic cool down to finish off the month.  We do have a re-curving Typhoon set to hit southern Japan today so given the 6-10 day theory, the cool down may be delayed a bit or models just flip flopping.  Not sure yet.

[OKwx2k4]

Same, it's backing off as well. Time will tell if we continue to see a dramatic cool down to finish off the month. We do have a re-curving Typhoon set to hit southern Japan today so given the 6-10 day theory, the cool down may be delayed a bit or models just flip flopping. Not sure yet.

I think they're just flip-flopping. One thing is pretty sure though, there's a monster omega block going to take place soon. I wouldn't hold hope for much longer lasting cool until that thing passes.

[jaster220]

Go Cub's Go!  Nice come back win, walk-off home run at home to be able to celebrate the Division Title!  The wind was howling straight out to center field...needless to say,. Mother Nature had an impact.  October baseball is here again!

 

Congrats! to you Chicago peeps. It's great when you're in the post-season. 

 

Edit: Congrats on scoring fish too! Would love to do that some day

[jaster220]

This is looking more and more like the autumn of "false alarm" cold shots. Like Okwx says though, the analogs all had mild autumns which I remember quite well growing up.  

[Niko]

The cooldown seems to be diminishing for next week. I''m forecasted to be in the 70s now for high temps, instead of 60s and lows in the 50s, instead of 40s. O well, i'd rather have mild to warm conditions now and save the cold shots for late November and throughout the whole winter season.

[Niko]

I wonder if Tropical Storm Karl will be any danger t0 the coastline of the US. I heard that its going away. Maybe some wave action for the Bermuda area.

[Hawkeye]

I love beets!  I make the best beet soup in the Autumn/Winter months when its freezing cold outside...mmmm, so good.  In fact, today, I had beet salad on the boat while I was fishin'!  Fantastic detox.  Hope the crop turns out alright.  BTW, are you planning on harvesting sometime during the 1st week of October???  Or have you done most of it by now???

 

I have not harvested any, yet.  I planted them on August 9th, thinking they should be good to harvest by early October.  However, they've grown faster than expected.

[NEJeremy]

We had a nice storm near Omaha last Thursday. Initially was going to go out and chase earlier in the day and head further northwest of town, but ended up staying at work until 4p. A cell popped just west of Omaha and I had to head home to put our dog in the house, so I called it a day then.

On my way home, a severe tstorm warning was issued for the storm. A cell that had formed about an hour earlier to the northwest about an hour also became tornado warned about the same time. I figured at that point if things were this close and were warned I was going to head out.

I first headed northwest about 10 miles towards the suburb of Bennington. There was a report of golf ball sized hail with this storm. I thought I would check it out and if nothing looked that great, than I would head on northwest to the other storm that had a great couplet on it and was still tornado warned. I came in from the south side of the storm and didn't notice anything initially that looked that impressive for rotation and the radar signature on it wasn't that suspicious either.

I started to make my way northwest further and looked back to my southeast to suddenly see a large wall cloud nearly on the ground. I pulled off the road to get a good view. The wall cloud wasn't rotating that fast but this storm now had a lot more of my interest. About this time, the tornado sirens went off! I had to fill my tank quickly and then I headed north towards the storm. 

A smaller cell had popped to the south of the storm and the precip blocked my view of what was still a decent looking wall cloud. I cleared the rain and the storm still had a nice lowering and base. As I came up to the storm, suddenly a nice area of rapid rotation formed. I took a county road off of the highway to the east and then took the first road north from there. I was basically right near the storm at this time, less than a mile away.

I got out of my car when there was a rapidly rotating funnel about 1/2 way down to the ground. I took some pics with my camera, but could soon hear the roar of the tornado! I looked at ground level and could see some gray/white vortices appearing. I watched it for a few seconds and realized I wanted to get video, so I ran back to my car and grabbed my iPhone to take some video. By the time I grabbed my phone and ran back out to the road, I only got about another 10 seconds of video of the vortices on the ground. The funnel persisted for another couple of minutes before it weakened as well.

The smaller cell had now merged with this storm and a new area of rotation formed to the southeast. A very large wall cloud formed again but wasn't rotating too rapidly. This persisted for about 15 minutes before eventually weakening. After that the storm didn't do much and I was home by 7p!

I am assuming I am the only one to witness the tornado as there has been no report on the SPC page and nothing mentioned by the NWS. I emailed the NWS and asked them if they would like my video of the tornado and they haven't even responded. As a side note, this has been my experience with the NWS a few times before. Last I heard, the NWS relies on the public for a lot of reports, it would be nice to have a better experience with them.

 

 

 

[Tom]

Hit a high temp of 88F yesterday, although, it wasn't too humid out there which was bearable.  Madison, WI got nailed with some big storms that dropped large hail from the sky.

 

 

 

 

.

[jaster220]

We had a nice storm near Omaha last Thursday. Initially was going to go out and chase earlier in the day and head further northwest of town, but ended up staying at work until 4p. A cell popped just west of Omaha and I had to head home to put our dog in the house, so I called it a day then.

On my way home, a severe tstorm warning was issued for the storm. A cell that had formed about an hour earlier to the northwest about an hour also became tornado warned about the same time. I figured at that point if things were this close and were warned I was going to head out.

I first headed northwest about 10 miles towards the suburb of Bennington. There was a report of golf ball sized hail with this storm. I thought I would check it out and if nothing looked that great, than I would head on northwest to the other storm that had a great couplet on it and was still tornado warned. I came in from the south side of the storm and didn't notice anything initially that looked that impressive for rotation and the radar signature on it wasn't that suspicious either.

I started to make my way northwest further and looked back to my southeast to suddenly see a large wall cloud nearly on the ground. I pulled off the road to get a good view. The wall cloud wasn't rotating that fast but this storm now had a lot more of my interest. About this time, the tornado sirens went off! I had to fill my tank quickly and then I headed north towards the storm. 

A smaller cell had popped to the south of the storm and the precip blocked my view of what was still a decent looking wall cloud. I cleared the rain and the storm still had a nice lowering and base. As I came up to the storm, suddenly a nice area of rapid rotation formed. I took a county road off of the highway to the east and then took the first road north from there. I was basically right near the storm at this time, less than a mile away.

I got out of my car when there was a rapidly rotating funnel about 1/2 way down to the ground. I took some pics with my camera, but could soon hear the roar of the tornado! I looked at ground level and could see some gray/white vortices appearing. I watched it for a few seconds and realized I wanted to get video, so I ran back to my car and grabbed my iPhone to take some video. By the time I grabbed my phone and ran back out to the road, I only got about another 10 seconds of video of the vortices on the ground. The funnel persisted for another couple of minutes before it weakened as well.

The smaller cell had now merged with this storm and a new area of rotation formed to the southeast. A very large wall cloud formed again but wasn't rotating too rapidly. This persisted for about 15 minutes before eventually weakening. After that the storm didn't do much and I was home by 7p!

I am assuming I am the only one to witness the tornado as there has been no report on the SPC page and nothing mentioned by the NWS. I emailed the NWS and asked them if they would like my video of the tornado and they haven't even responded. As a side note, this has been my experience with the NWS a few times before. Last I heard, the NWS relies on the public for a lot of reports, it would be nice to have a better experience with them.

 

Bennington wall cloud.jpg

 

tornado1.jpg

 

tornado2.jpg

 

Awesome pic's and nice write-up of your chase NEJ. It's really sad about your experience with the NWS office. Had a regular poster/amateur forecaster up the road in Jackson who contacted GRR numerous times to offer his services for reporting snow and precip. because the amount of data from his region was sparse. They totally ignored him so don't feel singled out for poor treatment. 

[jaster220]

Hit a high temp of 88F yesterday, although, it wasn't too humid out there which was bearable.  Madison, WI got nailed with some big storms that dropped large hail from the sky.

 

 

 

 

.

 

Tom, that's pretty crazy for Wisco! Looks more like Colorado.

 

Just a tidbit report here. My In-laws said that it's "cold" there now (not sure exact day it turned cold) and we usually will see a cold wave 8-10 days after. Last January's cold outbreak was exactly 9 days for instance. So this warm temp regime is living on borrowed time if you ask me.  

[Tom]

Looks like the models are honing in on a "muted" cool shot early next week.  GEFS are indicating another ridge to build back in for the opening days of October smack dab over the Lakes region.

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2016092000/gfs-ens_z500aMean_us_10.png

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2016092000/gfs-ens_z500aMean_us_12.png

[jaster220]

Looks like the models are honing in on a "muted" cool shot early next week.  GEFS are indicating another ridge to build back in for the opening days of October smack dab over the Lakes region.

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2016092000/gfs-ens_z500aMean_us_10.png

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2016092000/gfs-ens_z500aMean_us_12.png

 

Well, after my post I realized that the correlation is strongest in winter, not certain that the rule holds in other seasons. As a matter of fact, I was there for my B-day Sept of '08 and it was cold! (like 39º in the afternoon cold) while back home we were getting hammered with hurricane remnant (Ike I think) and never got such a cold shot so maybe GEFS is correct. I'm fine with extended summer tbh but would like to see at least normal precip in Oct.