The National Weather Service issued a severe storm alert for Central Orange County this afternoon. High winds and quarter sized hail were reported. Below is a radar loop showing the short lived storm (click on the image to see animation). We are still early in the year for these types of storms but today’s high temperature (96 degrees) provided sufficient energy.
Image WeatherUnderground.com
This map provided by the Weather Channel shows how conditions may once again be right for the development of severe weather, heavy rainfall, strong winds, hail and tornadoes.
From Weather.com
It looks as though the US might be headed for a record number of tornadoes for the month of April. This past week has seen an amazing 87 confirmed tornadoes and we’ll likely see the number increase. Read more…
Students are not the only ones wanting a tropical storm to visit Florida. While students are looking for a hurricane day so they can stay home from school, firefighters are concerned that the lack of rain and current dry weather is increasing the risk of brush and forest fires.
The National Weather Service has issued Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches for much of Florida. The lack of tropical storms reaching Florida this year has resulted in drought conditions. Add to that our current low humidity levels and fires can start and spread very easily.
National Weather Service Watches and Warnings
At 5pm AST this evening, the National Hurricane Center upgraded tropical depression 17 to a named storm. Otto still does not have the closed circulation typical of tropical storms however it continues to develop. Forecasters predict Otto will become a tropical storm with 12 hours and a hurricane within 36 hours. Otto’s predicted path has not changed from our classroom discussion.
I can’t believe the timing! This week we’ll be studying hurricanes and in the Atlantic is Igor one of the strongest hurricanes in the past several years. The intensity of this storm simply exploded over the weekend with winds now at about 150 mph (close to category 5 level). Following along behind is Julia (note the names are of both genders and international, hmmmm sounds like something we learned today).
Each day this week we’ll be using the Hurricane Strike website to learn about hurricanes and how to be better prepared for them. In addition you will complete 6 worksheets using Google docs and plot current storms on a map of the Atlantic.
I know we’ve been moving right along with our weather unit. So far we’ve studied the structure and composition of the atmosphere, and we’re now working on air pressure and wind. I’ve posted power point presentations below for each of the chapters in the textbook.
Chapter 17 You should have read and noted this chapter by now so you are responsible for the content. We also created our layers of the atmosphere illustration by graphing the temperature at different altitudes. Additional resources are on the study page.
Chapter 19 You have been working on this content using different websites listed on the study resource page and using the notes outline I provided. Reading through this chapter will provide you with a better undertanding.
Chapter 20 Reading through this chapter will provide you with th basics of how we can predict the weather. You’ll learn about air masses and fronts. Then look at severe weather like Florida’s thunderstorms and hurricanes.
Chapter 18 To understand weather we need to understand the process of moisture cycling in our atmosphere. Some of this will be a review from the beginning of the year when we did the water cycle but there is some new information also.