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of weather and changing climate...

firestorm

As New South Wales became the hottest place on the planet,  Saturday/Sunday 11/12 February, 2017, a few questions arise from the ashes of the burnt land and houses:

 

Is god using natural disaster to punish sinners?

         YES, if you believe in god.

But if you believe in god, this does not make sense anyway. Usually it’s the poor and the uneducated believers who get hit for six, because they live in most danger prone areas, while it’s the rich who don’t care and sin as much as possible with massive greed and sex-romps who get away with little damage since their houses are cyclone-proof. Sin pays. Being poor, god punishes you for the sins of the rich. Work this one out, even with His mysterious ways.

So the proper answer is NO. God doest not use natural disasters to punish people. God does not exist. Natural disasters happen because the planet is “dynamic”.

Due to complex interaction between its internal forces and the crust, earthquakes and volcanoes happen.

Due to the complex interactions and the long history of evolving change between the sea, the land, the atmosphere, the bio-kingdom and the sun, the surface of the planet has “variability” that sometimes becomes extreme and kills people and life, with no intent. So what are the variabilities?

 

Is there an observable climate change?

         Climate changes all the time within limits. Weather patterns are part of these changes. But presently there is an added change that is called global warming. This new change is pushing the boundaries of climate beyond the natural limits. So. Is there a warming of the atmosphere?

         NO if you are a denialist, an idiot and a snake-oil merchant.

         YES if you are a serious scientist. All the studies of climate are showing there is a warming of the atmosphere. Other studies can show that this warming has an impact on the behaviour of climate, which in turns has an influence on weather extremes.

 

Is the weather going to become more “brutal”?

         NO if you are a denialist. Changes are natural and the increase of devastation is an illusion, even if you loose your own house to floods, fire or a rising tide.

         YES if you are a serious meteorologist. Though in present extreme events, there are less fatalities than in the past traumatic events. This is due to better warming systems and people taking shelter, despite an increase in strength and number of traumatic events. The damage in terms of destruction and insurance payouts is thus increasing at a rapid rate.

 

Where have the “Sydney Southerly Busters” gone?

         During many summers past, Sydney was famous for its Southerly Busters.

Sydney sits at the confluent of four major weather patterns.

         Westerlies : HOT wind in summer coming from the inland furnace.

                           COOL to cold winds in winter coming from the Snowy Mountains.

         Southerlies : Cool in summer. Can appear at the end of a single hot day up to 42 degrees Celsius. Strong winds coming from the southern ocean bringing rain and storms. One can see it coming as a cold front from the south with a rolling dark cloud at the head. Twirling clouds behind, strong cool wind up to 50 knots (80-85 km/h) with gusts up to 60 knots on the ground can follow a dead calm. Temperature can drop 15 degrees in a matter of one minute (42 down to 27, then down to 21 a few hours later at night). A “normal” southerly buster comes in for about three days and peters out. Strong wind and temperature below 20 degrees. Cool in winter but not as cold as winter westerlies.

During a hot summer day, when the light breeze shifts to the south without clouds or with only light clouds cover, the Kookaburra singing is a sign of rain within the next three days. Rain comes usually 2 days after the song. Animals are like that, they know. Ants will enter kitchen from the garden and look for a dry spot to start a new colony, with the same two days warning.

Recently most southerlies have been pissweak, as the huge amount of unusual inland heat that slowly moves out to sea is a) preventing the southerly to reach northward and b) the southerly has to push a lot of this heat, now cloudy (moisture from the sea) but without rain, back onto the land. It creates weird weather of to and fro.

         Easterlies : do not last long as the wind shifts from the south (southerly) and turns into a Nor’easter after three/four days. The easterlies can bring unstable weather.

         Nor’easters : Summer and winter, the Nor’easter brings more warm CLEAR air from along the northern coast. The Nor’easter is often a sea-breeze following a weak morning westerly. Nor'easters are refreshing in Summer and crisp in winter but pleasant nonetheless. Lately, due to the warm sea (well above average) some Nor’easters have brought unshapened clouds near ground level: I call these “fluffus”.

 

 

Why did the last major devastating lasting storm in Sydney come from the North-East?

         A strong Nor’easter combined with a deep trough from the west at the same time as king tides. The nord-easter became loaded with moisture and the usually gentle sea-breeze blew at up to 150 km/h which created BIG waves. Some of the biggest waves along the coast of Sydney were measured at about 12 metes while a couple of 17 metres waves were recorded off the coast. These waves and the king tides destroyed northerly and easterly facing beaches and their houses. These places NEVER got more than a 25 knot sea breeze (40 km/h) once or twice a year.

         For the past few years, especially in Autumn, Winter and Spring the Nor’easters have carried more and more moisture in clouds , “fluffus” as already mentioned. These are undefined LOW clouds formed from the warmer (and getting warmer) sea surface. There are also increasing wind-shears which can confuse the landing direction of aircrafts at Mascot Airport. The lower sea breeze is pleasant and warmish, while at about 100 metres above ground, a storm-like wind is forcing these fluffus towards the south and the west where they accummulate along the mountains. They rain there should the temperature be conducive. The DEW point is paramount.

 

 

Why was there an unpredicted devastating rain storm on Tuesday 7 February in Sydney?

         The BoM “predicted” a storm about 16 minutes after the storm started. The main event of the storm lasted 10 minutes and droped about 50 mm of rain. It was pouring buckets! So how come the BoM did not see the storm coming?

         There are various cloudbursts that lead to rain, hail and tornadoes. Some of these, despite highly sophisticated measuring devices, including radars, cannot be predicted. Tornadoes can be often predicted with sophisticated measurements, but not the downburst.

A strong cold wind from an upper level of the atmosphere can penetrate inside a large cloud (usually a cumulonimbus) from the side. Due to the differential of temperature between the cold wind and the warmer temperature inside the cloud, this strong cold wind can accelerate within the cloud in a downward motion, sometimes taking with it water droplets and ice crystals. It suddenly burst below the cloud at speed. In April, 2015, such burst brought down hail at the speed of bullets. This hail is smaller (olive sized) than the big golf ball/orange-sized which fall by gravity alone.

The downburst can have speed up to 270 km/h downwards (75 m/s) while the updraft inside the cloud can be at 40 m/s. The downburst can make a lot of damage in the air (aircraft fatalities) and with a radiating strong flow once it hits the ground. As the downburt cloud passes, the wind direction will twirl according to the shift of the centre in the radiating ground wind. The debris will always fly away from the centre of the downburst while the debris usually fly towards the centre in a tornado. Imagine the different ends of a vacuum cleaner or a leaf-blower. One end sucks (tornado, reduced pressure), the other side blows (downburst, added pressure).  Downburst can often be mistaken for tornadoes, but the damage although as extensive, has a different pattern and a larger footprint on the ground. Microbursts are very localized downbursts and are also very hard to predict.

 

 

 

Why are there floods in Western Australia at the same time as the bushfires in NSW and super heat in Queensdland?

         Here I would suggest that there is a bit of turbulence “arrested”. The heat bubble is in the middle of a low pressure system that cannot take off. Normal trough and high pressure systems that would cross the centre of Australia are derouted by this stationary heat bubble which is moving slowly east while gaining heat in the west. Cold winds from the southern oceans accumulate in the southern part of Western Australia and all the moisture becomes locked and “sliding” back southeast. The cold air, ladden with moisture, drops rain on the spot rather than warm up and retain moisture as it normally would while reaching the warmer centre of the continent.

         All weather patterns are subjected to horizontal and vertical turbulences, eddies and waves. As the atmosphere heats up to new records, these transformations that have been “patternable” by record of many past years, become unpredictable and out of kilter. The atmosphere is a complex mix of diminishing pressure with altitude while humidity varies from clear and cloudy vapour, vertically and horizontally. There is also an array of interfering gases such as CO2 and methane. Changing characteristics of any of these factors can change local and general climate. The temperature of CO2 can interfere with the temperature of water vapour leading to unpredictable change.

         We know that the warmer it gets, the more water vapour can become clear rather than cloudy, but the warmer the atmosphere gets, the more water vapour it can absorbs. All this leads to increase in “instability” factors between cloudy and clear vapours, factors that are already hard to estimate despite our technology and super computers.

         BUT THE TRENDS ARE MEASURABLE.

 

In the end, the adding of EXTRA CO2 in the atmosphere creates the main warming trend. There is enough EXTRA CO2 presently to lift atmospheric temperature by 6 to 9 degrees Celsius within the next 150 years. This EXTRA CO2 is not part of the natural carbon cycle and comes exclusively from humans burning fossil fuels. 

 

More to come

 

Gus Leonisky

 

Your local weather man

south pacific floods...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/rains-across-south-pacific-continu...

a prick of a storm...

weather mapweather map

RESIDENTS have been left in stitches after an unusual-shaped weather system was seen approaching Toowoomba.

The storm was seen advancing on Toowoomba from Armidale and had an unusual resemblance to male sexual organs, The Chronicle reports.

Nicko Mickle noticed the system on a weather website and capture the hilarious moment.

“Crazy storm on its way to Queensland, looks likes old Toowoomba is about to cop a flogging too.”

read more:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/weather-pattern-shaped-like-penis-

the heat, nothing but more heat...

Attributing the heat

The useful thing scientifically about heatwaves is that we can estimate the role that climate change plays in these individual events. This is a relatively new field known as “event attribution”, which has grown and improved significantly over the past decade.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/16/climate-change-doubl...

downbursts, not cyclone

 

The news bulletins about the new Sydney storm damage on 17/2/17 talk about "tornadoes".

Despite having seen water spouts off the coast in Umina, the Sydney damage was caused by DOWNBURSTS. Read article from top.

Downbursts can cause as much damage as tornatoes.

It is likely that there will be more and more downbursts in the future. It's time to let Malcolm know that "clean" coal is a stupid idea.

another downburst...

At least three people have died after one of California’s strongest storms in years brought torrential rain and flash floods to the state.

More than 100 homes have been evacuated over fears of mud slides near Los Angeles after the pacific storm, dubbed a “bombogenesis” or “weather bomb”, parked itself over southern California, opening sinkholes and cutting power to thousands of people.

More than 300 flights at Los Angeles international airport have also been cancelled or delayed. The storm stretched far out into the ocean and was at its strongest late on Friday afternoon. It is expected to last until Saturday afternoon.

One man was found dead in a submerged vehicle in the desert town of Victorville after several cars were washed down a flooded street, San Bernardino county fire spokesman Eric Sherwin said. 

A second man was electrocuted in the Sherman Oaks area of LA when a tree falling in heavy rain downed power lines that hit a car.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/18/california-weather-bomb-...

 

Read from top...

meanwhile in the alternative facts factories...

 

the murder-inc merde-och press..

 

we'll fight facts on the beaches...

 

Do the sums. It ain't looking good...

record february warm...

The weather this February keeps getting weirder. At a time when Arctic blasts usually sweep across the nation and Northern states are covered in snow and ice, historically warm air has flooded the eastern two-thirds of the nation.

All-time February record high temperatures are falling and the air feels more like early May.

Wednesday’s average high temperature over the Lower 48 was forecast to soar to a balmy 59 degrees – “the near warmest February day during the last three decades”, said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics.

A stunning 2,805 record high temperatures have occurred across the nation this month compared with just 27 record lows.

read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/02/21/m...

weather anomalies are getting less anomalous...

 

Melbourne's start to autumn is so hot, the average temperature is so far exceeding that normally experienced in January and February.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Dean Stewart said it was an extraordinary start to March.

 

Meanwhile:

Sydney March weather is crap. Temperature so far are average but weather is wet wet wet... and more wet.

 

Meanwhile:

It's going to be 31 degrees Celsius in Hobart today !!! (Hobart is to Sydney a bit like Boston is in relation to Miami, Florida)

 

Meanwhile, after a record warm February:

 

According to the Capital Weather Gang, at least a foot of snow is in the forecast from Philadelphia to Maine, a packed swath of the country encompassing millions of people, miles of highly trafficked roadways and some of the country’s busiest airports.

Forecasts called for as much as two feet of snow in New York City, which is under a blizzard warning through midnight on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

“Falling and blowing snow with strong winds and poor visibilities are likely,” the service said in a warning Monday morning. “This will lead to whiteout conditions … making travel extremely dangerous. Do not travel. If you must travel … have a winter survival kit with you.”

read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/13/northeast-preps-for-major-storm-that-could-drop-up-to-two-feet-of-snow-on-new-york/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-low_pn-usstorm945p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

 

 

 

record humidity is a strong sign of global warming...

At this point, it can’t come as much of a surprise. It’s raining. Again.

“We have had a conveyor belt of warm, moist air into Western Washington for days now,” said Chris Burke, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Here is the infrared satellite loop ending at 530 AM for the wet front moving across the region today. #wawxpic.twitter.com/0pxgKvMGaU

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) March 15, 2017

In fact, Seattle just surpassed normal rainfall totals for March. You needn’t check your calendar; it’s only the 15th. “We’re at 200 percent for rainfall in Seattle,” Burke said.

Seattle has already surpassed its normal rainfall for March (3.72") this AM & should pass the water year normal today. Ides of March? #wawx

 

read more:

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/weather/flooding-a-concern-as-conveyor-belt-of-wet-weather-hits-western-washington/

 

Sydney, Australia, is in the same boat...

record drought is a strong sign of global warming...

More than 87 per cent of Queensland is officially in drought, with the driest 12 months ever recorded in the Fraser Coast adding that region to the list amid a warning things could get worse before they get better.

 

Queensland Agriculture Minister Bill Byrne said the Fraser Coast, Gympie, Cherbourg, Somerset, North and South Burnett, along with the remainder of the Shire of Banana had been officially drought declared.

He said that meant producers in those regions were now eligible for drought assistance, including relief from water and electricity costs.

He said the latest declarations bring the total drought affected area in the state to its highest level ever recorded.

"These latest declarations bring the total area of Queensland where drought is declared to 87.47 per cent," he said.

"That is the highest ever and I am still waiting for some committees to send me their recommendations.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-13/drought-declared-in-more-southern-...

Meanwhile the rest of Queensland is flooded...

Meanwhile the Great Barrier Reef is dying...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/science/great-barrier-reef-coral-climate-change-dieoff.html

see also:

 

a simple explanation...

 

 

Meanwhile in Fiji...

 

 

HEAVY rain in Gau in late December has placed a 60-student hostel at Gau Junior Secondary School at risk of being swept away in a landslide.

And teachers, who live below the hostel, have had to vacate their quarters which have started to tilt as a result of the rain and a minor landslide in the area.

When a team from this newspaper visited the school, visible on the ground were huge cracks. This was in addition to a shift in the topsoil caused by a tremor and heavy rain that led to the minor landslide.

read more:

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=392955

 

 

 

more rains...

The new floods and mudslides over the past three days followed a series of other storms, and officials said a total of 62 people have died and 12,000 homes have been destroyed so far this year.

Authorities said they expected the intense rains — caused by the warming of surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean — to continue for another two weeks.

Schools nationwide are suspending classes and in Lima the swelling Huaycoloro river swept away two trucks and threatens to destroy a bridge.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said late on Wednesday that authorities were prepared to provide shelter and relief to those left homeless.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-17/peru-floods-and-mudslides-kill-doz...

downpour...

 

A clean-up is underway across much of Queensland's Wide Bay and Fraser Coast after wild winds and torrential rain damaged properties and cut power.

Bundaberg received 340 millimetres in the deluge in its wettest October day on record, with nearby Woodgate receiving 306mm and Maryborough 240mm.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said conditions had been conducive to producing a tornado, but because it had no witness reports of seeing a funnel, it could not say it was definitely a tornado that swept through the region.

"Looking at the damage that's occurred it was just so incredibly localised and that really does say to us … it looks like it could have been a water spout that moved ashore or a tornado," BOM forecaster Michelle Berry said.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-03/residents-clean-up-deluge-soaks-bu...

 

It could have been a downburst... Read from top...

 

uncommon downbursts are becoming more common...

Ergon is working to restore power to more than 15,000 homes this morning.

More than 27,000 properties lost power late yesterday afternoon as the storms rolled in, ripping roofs off homes and blowing sheds off their footings, damaging about 200 power lines.

Rod Rehbein from Ergon said extra crews had been brought in to help restore supply.

"As a standalone storm, it would probably be the worst in the Wide Bay region in about 10 years," he said.

Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) forecaster Michael Knepp said storm spotters in the area reported wind gusts in excess of 100 kilometres per hour.

"So that's probably why we're seeing quite a bit of reports of trees down and damage to structures," he said.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-08/bundaberg-storm-leaves-thousands-w...

wrong attitude...

It's not every day you hear that the climate change debate needs to be "more political and less scientific" — but that is exactly what Mike Hulme is calling for.

The 2015 Paris agreement was declared "a victory for climate science", but Professor Hulme — who used to work for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — is not convinced that the Paris deal will work.

In fact, he said he thought climate change was in danger of becoming a "fetish" and that rallying cries to "save the planet by limiting global warming to 2 degrees" could distract us from the "political logjam" in front of us.

 

"We can't solve climate change with numbers," Professor Hulme told Natasha Mitchell on ABC RN's Science Friction. 

 

"We can actually only deal with climate through the human imagination."

 

Read more: 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-05-02/why-science-cant-solve-cli...

-----------------------------

This article is rubbish... A) Less science is not what Mike Hulme is calling for. B) Scientists have to lead on this issue because most (99.99 per cent) "politician" don't want to know. C) this is an opening for the denialists to influence politics. D) Sciences brim with far more imagination than fucking politicians! Angry? Me? Sure!

 

Read from top.. Oh and did I mention record April temperatures in Sydney?

the arctic bananas...

By Mark Serreze, University of Colorado

Scientists have known for a long time that as climate change started to heat up the Earth, its effects would be most pronounced in the Arctic. This has many reasons, but climate feedbacks are key. As the Arctic warms, snow and ice melt, and the surface absorbs more of the sun’s energy instead of reflecting it back into space. This makes it even warmer, which causes more melting, and so on.

This expectation has become a reality that I describe in my new book Brave New Arctic. It’s a visually compelling story: The effects of warming are evident in shrinking ice caps and glaciers and in Alaskan roads buckling as permafrost beneath them thaws.

But for many people the Arctic seems like a faraway place, and stories of what is happening there seem irrelevant to their lives. It can also be hard to accept that the globe is warming up while you are shoveling out from the latest snowstorm.

Since I have spent more than 35 years studying snow, ice and cold places, people often are surprised when I tell them I once was skeptical that human activities were playing a role in climate change. My book traces my own career as a climate scientist and the evolving views of many scientists I have worked with. When I first started working in the Arctic, scientists understood it as a region defined by its snow and ice, with a varying but generally constant climate. In the 1990s, we realized that it was changing, but it took us years to figure out why. Now scientists are trying to understand what the Arctic’s ongoing transformation means for the rest of the planet, and whether the Arctic of old will ever be seen again.

 

Read more:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/30/melting-arctic-sends-message-clima...

 

Read from top.

global warming is real and anthropogenic...

Roughly 20 years ago, climate scientist Michael Mann published his famous “hockey stick” graph that he says “galvanized climate action” by showing unprecedented global warming.

Mann used the 20-year anniversary of the graph to opine on the “industry-funded” attacks “to discredit the iconic symbol of the human impact on our climate,” which Mann claimed had withstood criticism.

“Yet, in the 20 years since the original hockey stick publication, independent studies again and again have overwhelmingly reaffirmed our findings, including the key conclusion: recent warming is unprecedented over at least the past millennium,” Mann wrote in Scientific American on April 20.

However, the two Canadian researchers who found serious flaws in the “hockey stick” study’s data and methodology disputed Mann’s characterization of the graph’s legacy.

“For everyone else the debate was about data and statistical methods,” Ross McKitrick, an economics professor at the University of Guelph in Canada.

Read nothing more... 

The conclusion is:

Mann asks ‘What more noble cause is there than to fight to preserve our planet.’ How about the noble cause of not misleading readers with biased methods and bad data?” McKitrick said.

---------------------------

Leaving the last word to McKitrick is a nasty trick. Michael Bastasch, the writer of this deceitful piece, is a reporter for the conservative news site The Daily Caller where he focuses on energy and environmental issues. Bastasch has published over 3,000 articles on The Daily Caller and has regularly provided a platform for climate change skeptics. Wow! 3000 articles! Has this guy got a diarrhoea problem! 

McKitrick is well known to this site... He appears in our selected list of climate denialists as a idiot who has no clue as to what is happening. Twenty years since the "hockey stick" graph? And we're not cooked yet? That's a stupid argument. Actually, the hockey stick is happening nonetheless, as a hyperbolic curve. But what else can we say? These guys like McKitrick and Bastasch, only have to piss on sciences and they feel happy in their little bladder. Sciences have to do a lot of research and computation, even before making a single noise. But should you be enclined to know the reality of the gizmo go to: 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33287

You might learn something...

a suspected downdraft...

The Piper PA-31 Navajo plane went down about a mile off shore near Indian Wells Beach at about 2:50 p.m., officials told The Post.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, but local pilot Bill Gardiner noted that the weather had turned stormy.

“There was a very nasty thunderstorm going on. It was unexpected. There were very strong downdrafts.”

The Krupinskis had owned the plane since at least the 1980s, Gardiner added.

 

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2018/06/02/builder-to-the-stars-among-those-feared-de...

Read from top: downdrafts are hard to predict.

 

downburst in DY...

 

One person is dead and two critically injured after a storm swept through Sydney's Northern Beaches.

Emergency services crews are at multiple sites across the area where trees, roofs and power poles have been ripped out.

The death occurred at the Narrabeen [hospital] with another two people taken to Royal North Shore Hospital.

There are reports of damage from Forestville to Mona Vale.

 

NSW Police said the area is still considered hazardous and members of the public are advised to stay away.

Locals on social media likened the weather event to a "tornado", saying it lasted no more than five to 10 minutes.

Steven Smith from Dee Why wrote on Twitter that it was unbelievable.

"Massive squally winds, heavy rain and hail," he said.

"Seemed like it was a cyclone. Never seen anything like it."

 

READ MORE:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-19/one-dead-two-critical-after-sydney-storm-northern-beaches/100712606

 

downburstdownburst

Typical picture of a "downburst"...  in which the air is pumped out of the cloud rather than being sucked in like in a tornado. Downburst can do much damage...

 

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

Note: This seems to have been a downburst (see above), not a tornado... I noticed the black cloud moving northward (?) and thought that this could be a nasty one...

 

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