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Category Archives: Tropical
What is warm rain?
Warm rain results from the joining together of a cloud’s liquid water droplets. For the rain to be warm, temperatures throughout the cloud must be above freezing, so ice particles are absent.
Rainmaking is not easy. A single, small raindrop is a collection of about 1 million cloud droplets. A typical cloud droplet is usually 10 times smaller than the periods in this article. Continue reading
Why are there so few hurricanes every year?
We are about five weeks away from the climatological peak of the hurricane season, which stretches from early June to November.
During that period, even in a particularly active year, not many hurricanes actually develop. Forming over tropical oceans ensures that warm sea-surface temperature (SST) provides a mature hurricane with a means to warm and moisten the air that flows toward the important eye-wall convection. Thus, it is not surprising that hurricanes struggle to develop if the SST is not 79.7 degrees or warmer. Continue reading
How accurate was the forecast for Hurricane Michael?
Five days in advance of Hurricane Michael’s landfall, the National Hurricane Center forecast showed the storm making landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, with 80 mph winds, just above Category 1 hurricane force.
As we all know by now, the storm lashed the coast with winds in the 155-mph range, or strong Category 4 intensity. Continue reading
Category: Severe Weather, Tropical, Weather Dangers
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What’s up with all the wild weather?
Another week of destructive weather around our country culminated in the passage of Hurricane Maria over the island of Puerto Rico on Wednesday of last week. Some of the rainfall totals from automated stations on the island were of truly biblical proportions.
Though still subject to verification and a check on accuracy, 12.20 inches of rain fell in one hour at Gurabo Abajo, one of several stations on the southwest side of El Yunque, the high mountainous area in the northeast. Continue reading
What are the leading threats from hurricanes?
With all the news about hurricanes over the past couple of weeks we’ve been asked a lot of questions about the various threats posed by these storms.
Hurricane Harvey is a clear example of the damage that long-duration heavy rains can inflict. Hurricane Irma provides an example of the destructive power of the winds associated with these storms. Continue reading
Category: Severe Weather, Tropical, Weather Dangers
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