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Category Archives: Severe Weather
Is wildfire season getting longer?
Wildfires are an important part of many ecosystems and an essential part of forest and rangeland health.
Fires require fuel to burn, heat to ignite and oxygen to burn. Wildfire season is defined as the time of year when wildfires are most likely to ignite and spread. A combination of high temperatures, low humidity, lack of precipitation days and high winds make wildfires more likely to spread and lengthen fire seasons. Continue reading
Does NOAA conduct fire weather forecasting?
Wildfire outbreaks require the alignment of several factors, including temperature, humidity, winds and the lack of moisture in fuels such as trees, shrubs and grasses. These factors have strong direct or indirect ties to current weather, climate variability and climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration supports weather forecasting throughout a wildfire’s lifecycle: before, during and after the wildfire.
Drought conditions can set the stage for wildfires. Continue reading
Category: Seasons, Severe Weather, Weather Dangers
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What is a “wake low”?
Wake lows are short-lived mesoscale phenomena. Mesoscale weather ranges from about 5 kilometers to 1,000 kilometers in size.
Wake lows are relatively uncommon. They produce strong winds after a storm moves out. The term “wake low” was defined by Ted Fujita, the same meteorologist who came up with the F-scale ranking of tornadoes. These areas of low-pressure form on the backside of heavy rain, causing winds to surge in at fast speeds. Continue reading
What causes a thunderstorm?
Thunderstorm development requires three basic ingredients: moisture, unstable air and upward motion.
Moisture comes from regions like oceans, lakes and vegetation that provide the water vapor necessary for cloud formation and precipitation. Continue reading
How important was the weather forecast on D-Day?
D-Day was the name given to the June 6, 1944, invasion of the beaches at Normandy in northern France by troops of the Allied Forces during World War II. The goal was to cross the narrow, often stormy, English Channel into Nazi-occupied France.
The successful D-Day invasion required a combination of environmental factors: initial invasion around sunrise and at at low tide; nearly clear skies; at least 3 miles of visibility; close to a full moon; relatively light winds; non-stormy seas; and good conditions persisting for at least 36 hours and preferably for four days. To make the task of forecasting even more difficult, the Allies needed at least two days advance notice of these conditions —and because the science of meteorology was only just beginning to modernize, at the time this was a nearly hopeless task. Continue reading
Category: History, Severe Weather, Weather Dangers
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