Starship Asterisk*

Beyond wrote:Good bicycling weather Ann

Ann wrote:

Beyond wrote:Good bicycling weather Ann

Yes, it's nice for bicycling. Unfortunately I have so much to do at work at this time of year that I have no time for bicycling.

Ann

Off The Rails
Mother Nature is off her meds again. I've seen a lot of things in 30 years, but I don't think I've ever witnessed frost to 100F in 58 hours. Like turning on a light switch: instant blast-furnace heat. It was 102F at St. James, but only 44F in Grand Marais. The Twin Cities broke the old record of 95F in 1932. We're taking weather whiplash to a whole new level.

New Record May Temperature Swing? Monday morning's official low at MSP was 41; Tuesday's high a sauna-like 98. Higher math: 57 degree swing - that breaks the old record of 55 degrees set in 1909. Is there a record for obscure records? That said - I think we've just seen the definition of a hot front. Graphic: Climate Central and WeatherNation TV.

Ann wrote:It's warm here today, about 24C.

Ann

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/05/19/oklahoma-braces-for-severe-storms/ wrote: Tornadoes hit Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa as storms sweep through Midwest
FoxNews.com, May 19, 2013

<<A severe storm system that is sweeping through the Midwest has generated tornadoes in Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa and has left at least one person dead in Shawnee, Okla. Dozen of counties in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri have been placed under tornado watches and warnings.

A tornado grazed the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond Sunday afternoon, dropping hail as large as grapefruit and damaging roofs and structures before heading east. Aerial flyovers in Wellston, northeast of Oklahoma City, showed significant property damage. Major damage was also seen at a mobile home park in Shawnee, Okla, where a search and rescue effort is underway.

A storm spotter told the National Weather Service that the tornado "scoured" the landscape in the park and an area along Interstate 40. The highway has been closed because of overturned tractor-trailers that now litter the road. "I knew it was coming," said Edmond resident Randy Grau, who huddled with his wife and two young boys in their Edmond's home's safe room when the tornado hit. He said he peered out his window as the weather worsened and believed he saw a flock of birds heading down the street. "Then I realized it was swirling debris," Grau said. "That's when we shut the door of the safe room. I probably had them in there for 10 minutes."

In Katie Leathers' backyard, the family's trampoline was tossed through a section of fence and a giant tree uprooted. "I saw all the trees waving, and that's when I grabbed everyone and got into two closets," Leathers said. "All these trees just snapped."

In Kansas, an "violent and extremely dangerous tornado" was spotted in the southwest side of Wichita near the Mid-Continent Airport, according to the National Weather Service. Carl Brewer, the mayor of Wichita, told Fox News that the city was hit harder by high winds and golf ball sized hail than anything from the tornado. "That alone, and the rain, actually just really did a number on the city," he said. "It was so bad you think a tornado came through." Brewer said hail ripped through the sides of houses in Wichita, in addition to breaking windows and damaging cars. But Randy Duncan, Wichita's emergency management director, told Fox News that he has not yet heard of any local reports of injuries of deaths stemming from the storm.

In Iowa, a tornado touched down 30 miles west of Des Moines, the National Weather Service said, according to the Des Moines Register. More severe storms are also in the forecast in Oklahoma a day after large hail fell in the state's southwest and electricity was knocked out to thousands.

The Storm Prediction Center said Sunday there was a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms forming Sunday evening. “The overall environment appears quite favorable for tornadoes,” the SPC outlook stated, according to the Kansas City Star. The center says the greatest risk for storms in Oklahoma is in the far north, around the Bartlesville area. Overall, the cities included in the area of moderate risk are Kansas City, Wichita, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. In Enid on Saturday, a police officer was injured in high winds when his cruiser was struck by an object. Area emergency manager Mike Honigsberg told The Oklahoman that the car may have been hit by a cattle trough lifted by the wind. In Oklahoma City, an officer was trapped for a time when surrounded by fallen utility lines.>>

geckzilla wrote:That kind of weather is not entirely unusual for Oklahoma and tends to be isolated. So even though it sounds like it's nearby it's probably not. Used to get tornado warnings when I lived there all the time but never saw or was affected by any tornadoes. Ice storms are probably the worst and those are out of season.

Here's a very preliminary map showing the approximate tracks of the two most significant tornadoes. We realize that this does not include the tornado near Prague, and we know that there were multiple tornadoes along the path from Edmond to Carney. This is just to give you a rough idea of the scope of the event. We will have more details tomorrow afternoon.

bystander wrote:
As per normal, the tornadoes avoided Oklahoma City proper. I think the heat shield of the city diverts them. They usually go west and north, or south and east of the city. The tornado in Edmond yesterday (north storm) touched down just 500 feet south of a friend's house and tracked very close to friends in Arcadia, Luther, and Wellston.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect wrote:
<<In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.>>

Why does it seem like tornadoes avoid downtowns of major cities?
Simply, downtowns cover tiny land areas relative to the entire nation. The chance of any particular tornado hitting a major downtown is quite low--not for any meteorological reason, but simply because downtowns are small targets. Even when tornadoes hit metro areas; their odds of hitting downtown are small out of space considerations alone. For example, downtown Dallas (inside the freeway loop) covers roughly three square miles, Dallas County, about 900 square miles. For a brief tornado in Dallas County, its odds of hitting downtown are only about 1 in 300. Still, downtown tornadoes have happened, including at least four hits on St. Louis alone. The idea of large buildings destroying or preventing a tornado is pure myth. Even the largest skyscrapers pale in size and volume when compared to the total circulation of a big tornado from ground through thunderhead.