View allAll Photos Tagged millibar
This image is of a 7 meter sandstone tower that was formed by nature, over perhaps thousands of years. The structure was called the "Teacup" and was tucked away on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. It was a popular spot for Instagrammers but also for nature lovers and only accessible after a short hike along the beach. I took this picture in Sept 2019 about 1 week after Hurricane Dorian ravaged PEI.
In Sept 2022, Hurricane Fiona hit the Canadian Maritime provinces and the Teapot is now gone forever. Also these red sandstone "cliffs" that frame the teapot in this image are gone forever. All that remains is flat sheet of sandstone on this edge of the North Atlantic to define the shoreline. All of the rubble was carried out to the ocean.
WIKIPEDIA - "Fiona is the deepest low-pressure system ever to be recorded on Canadian soil, with a pressure of 932.6 millibars.[94]
Teacup Rock, a rock formation and local tourist attraction on the coast near Thunder Cove, Prince Edward Island, was destroyed after Hurricane Fiona struck. Fiona also caused severe erosion to the province's dune system, particularly within Prince Edward Island National Park
Insured losses from Fiona in Canada are estimated to be between $300 and 700 million USD, which would make it the costliest hurricane in Canadian history."
Luck was on my side for this shot. Not only was it a spring tide, but caught at its height and the sun harsh against the stormy clouds. Well worth the soak!
Taken as Storm Dennis reached his peak. One of the most intense extratropical cyclones ever recorded, reaching a minimum central pressure of 920 millibars.
The iPhone performed well in these conditions.
A eastbound BNSF Q train is approaching Boone, Colorado as a bomb cyclone intensifies bringing extreme weather to Colorado and much of the country. The train is very near the center of low pressure in this photo. 2 minutes before it's arrival, there was sunlight here and blue skies could be seen overhead. The low pressure set records for this part of Colorado. The barometer bottomed out at 974.2 millibars at the Pueblo airport. To put that in perspective, that's a reading that one would find with a category 1-2 hurricane.
The rest of the day would see very strong winds and horizontal rain in this part of the state and blizzard conditions north of Pueblo.
Elgol, Isle of Skye, Scotland. An afternoon with Storm Dennis
Storm Dennis was a European windstorm which, in February 2020, became one of the most intense extratropical cyclones ever recorded, reaching a minimum central pressure of 920 millibars.
You can see how this image was captured here flic.kr/p/2iDUaMs
A southbound Disney Cruise Line ship passing by Cocoa Beach, Florida, just after leaving Port Canaveral. Their ships look somewhat unreal. Like something out of an animated film.
This was shot on 5 October 2024. On the same day, a tropical depression had formed in the Gulf of Mexico that would very quickly grow into Hurricane Milton and head east towards Florida. The next day, 6 October, the governor of Florida would declare a state of emergency for several counties, including Brevard, where this place is. I remember thinking: "Nice weather, a bit muggy though" around the time when I was shot this, between drinks at a pier restaurant. Note the scattered squalls over the sea.
On 21 September 1938, a hurricane hit Long Island NY, killing 682 and destroying or damaging 57,000 homes in four states in the Northeast.
I remember reading about a Long Island man who had a new barometer sent to his post office C.O.D. on 21 September 1938. When he received it, it was indicating an atmospheric pressure of 98.3 inches of mercury. That's 958 hPa (or millibars of air pressure, if you're not into the SI units thing). The man thought it was defective and decided to send it back. Then he drove home. When he arrived at his house, he found that it was gone, as were all the neighbouring houses.
When I first read that, I didn't believe it. Surely one must have "felt" an impending hurricane. Now I know better. The weather was just fine in Florida on the 5th. It rained on 6 and 7 October, but on 8 October it was again fine. Milton made landfall on 9 October.
Boundary Bay before the big storm.
Meteorologists are calling the weather event a "bomb cyclone."
“In order for it to be a meteorological bomb, it has to have a pressure drop of 24 millibars in 24 hours. This has dropped 50 millibars in 24 hours so it's like a double kind of a mega storm,” said Dave Phillips, a senior climatologist for Environment Canada.
The storm system is expected to bring extremely high winds.
“These are historic winds. I mean they're almost the kind of wind you'd see in a hurricane,” Phillips explained.
October 17, 2019
The view North-West over Cape Cod Bay from Brewster, MA. The clouds are part of a Mid-Atlantic cyclone that developed over the coast on Wednesday night. Not a true "eye of the storm" shot, with a nice stadium effect, but it kinda' looked like that if you only looked in this direction.
I was finishing up a project at 9:40 pm. The wind was beginning to really pick up, and a check of the barometer showed a pressure of 1000 mb and falling. By 11:00, the wind was roaring, and the house was shaking. The pressure had already dropped to 990mb. At midnight it was 987mb. I woke up at 2:00 to the sound of branches clunking onto our roof and cars, and a check of the pressure showed 976mb!! Shortly after I checked the pressure, there were successive flashes of light out the front window. Probably a transformer blowing somewhere, because moments later, our power went out.... and would STAY out for the next 29 hours.
I didn't see if it ever went LOWER than 976mb, but by morning it was still pinned there. That's at least a 24 millibar plummet in less than 4 1/2 hours, indicating s a VERY powerful storm.!
This kind of weather event is called a Bombogenesis or “bomb birth.” It is somewhat unigue to our coastal North-East region. The storm formed right in top of us as old dry air from the north collided with moist tropical air moving up from the tropics.
The Nor-Easter of October 16th & ,17th, 2019.
Paine's Creek Beach
Brewster, Massachusetts
Cape Cod - USA
Photo by brucetopher
© Bruce Christopher 2018
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This low pressure storm in the Bering Sea is on track to setting a new record for lowest pressure ever recorded in the North Pacific waters.
Looking at the low pressure system and the high pressure cell in northern Yukon, the gradient is nearly 100 millibars different. Incredible.
929 Mb is expected to sink even lower tonight, to 924 Mb.
Hurricane force winds, and seas expected to almost unimaginable 56 feet. (17 meters)
Screenshot taken from our statewide TV Alaska Weather from the National Weather Service.
This full-disk image from NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite was captured at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT) and shows Hurricane Patricia off the coast of Mexico on September 23, 2015.
At 8 a.m. EDT on October 23, 2015, the National Hurricane Center said that Hurricane Patricia had grown into a monster hurricane. In fact, it is the strongest eastern north pacific hurricane on record.
At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC) on Oct. 23, the eye of Hurricane Patricia was located near latitude 17.3 North, longitude 105.6 West. That's about 145 miles (235 km) southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico and about 215 miles (345 km) south of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico.
Patricia was moving toward the north-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph) and a turn toward the north is expected later this morning, followed by a turn toward the north-northeast this afternoon. On the forecast track, the core of Patricia will make landfall in the hurricane warning area today, October 23, 2015 during the afternoon or evening.
Maximum sustained winds remain near 200 mph (325 kph) with higher gusts. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that Patricia is a category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Some fluctuations in intensity are possible today, but Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous category 5 hurricane through landfall. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 30 miles (45 km) from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 175 miles (280 km). The estimated minimum central pressure is 880 millibars.
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I hesitated to post this photo, but did so under pressure. A toast to all of you celebrating sensibly in millibars.
Aircraft Altimeters are actually Barometers that are calibrated to represent each change of 27 millibars as a 100' height change. The reference pressure is set using the knurled knob to the lower left of the instrument and the reference pressure is on the right. This pictures was taken at 2850 feet above Pontypridd on Sunday. The reference pressure (the pressure at Sea Level at Cardiff), referred to by pilots as the QNH, was 1024 mBar, seen in the small window on the right hand side of the display.
Stockholm Arlanda 1982-02-13
737-2L9 c/n 22734
Registrations used by this airframe: OY-MBW, VR-HYM, N171PL, N271FL, 5N-BFN
Note: This aircraft was written off on October 22, 2005
117 killed, RIP
"Bellview Airlines flight 210, a Boeing 737-200, crashed near Lisa Village, Ogun State, Nigeria, following a loss of control, killing all 117 occupants.
Bellview flight 210 was the return flight from Abidjan (ABJ), Ivory Coast to Abuja (ABV), Nigeria with en route stops at Accra (ACC), Ghana and Lagos (LOS), Nigeria.
In preparation for the last leg of the flight, the pilot of Flight 210 contacted Lagos Tower at 20:17 and requested clearance for start-up.
The controller gave him the temperature and QNH, which were 27 degrees Centigrade and 1010 millibars respectively. At 20:24, the pilot requested and got approval for taxi to runway 18L.
The tower controller then issued the route clearance via Airway UR778, Flight Level 250, with a right turn-out on course. The pilot read back the clearance and the controller acknowledged and instructed the pilot to report when ready for takeoff.
At 20:27, the pilot requested "can we have a left turn out please?" and soon afterwards his request was granted by the controller. One minute later the tower cleared flight 210 as follows: "BLV 210 runway heading 3500ft left turn on course" Which was read back by the pilot who also reported ready for takeoff. After reporting the wind condition as 270 degrees at 7 knots the controller cleared Flight 210 for departure at 20:28. The pilot acknowledged the clearance, and at 20:29 requested "And correction, Bellview 210, please we will take a right turn out. We just had a sweep around the weather and right turn out will be okay for us." The controller responded "right turn after departure, right turn on course" and the pilot acknowledged.
At 20:32 the pilot made initial contact with Approach Control and reported "Approach, Bellview 210 is with you on a right turn coming out of 1600 (feet)". The Approach controller replied "report again passing one three zero." The pilot acknowledged at 20:32 and that was the last known transmission from the flight.
The airplane struck the ground on flat terrain in a relatively open and wooded area, 14NM north of the airport.
The next morning the wreckage was found about 30 km (20 miles) north of Lagos.
CAUSAL FACTOR:
The AIB, after an extensive investigation, could not identify conclusive evidence to explain the cause of the accident involving Bellview Flight 210.
The investigation considered several factors that could explain the accident. They include the PIC training of the Captain before taking Command on the B737 aircraft which was inadequate, the cumulative flight hours of the pilot in the days before the accident which was indicative of excessive workload that could lead to fatigue.
Furthermore, the investigation revealed that the airplane had technical defects. The airplane should not have been dispatched for either the accident flight or earlier flights.
The absence of forensic evidence prevented the determination of the captains medical condition at the time of the accident. The missing flight recorders to reconstruct the flight also precluded the determination of his performance during the flight. Due to lack of evidence, the investigation could not determine the effect, if any, of the atmospheric disturbances on the airplane or the flight crews ability to maintain continued flight.
The operator could not maintain the continuing airworthiness of its aircraft, in ensuring compliance of its flight and maintenance personnel with the regulatory requirements. The Civil Aviation Authoritys safety oversight of the operators procedures and operations was inadequate."
"Late night and early morning low clouds
Chance of showers into the afternoon
With variable high cloudiness
And gusty winds, gusty winds
With a chance of fog
At times around the corner of
Sunset and Alvorado
Things are tough all over
When the thunder storms start
Increasing over the southeast
And south central portions
Of my apartment, I get upset
And a line of thunderstorms was
Developing in the early morning
Ahead of a slow moving coldfront
Cold blooded
With tornado watches issued shortly
Before noon Sunday, for the areas
Including, the western region
Of my mental health
And the northern portions of my
Ability to deal rationally with my
Disconcerted precarious emotional
Situation, it's cold out there
Colder than a ticket taker's smile
At the Ivar Theatre, on a Saturday night
Flash flood watches covered the
Southern portion of my disposition
There was no severe weather well
Into the afternoon, except for a lone gust of
Wind in the bedroom
In a high pressure zone, covering the eastern
Portion of a small suburban community
With a 103 and millibar high pressure zone
And a weak pressure ridge extending from
My eyes down to my cheeks cause since
You left me baby
And put the vice grips on my mental health
Well the extended outlook for an
Indefinite period of time until you
Come back to me baby is high tonight
Low tomorrow, and precipitation is
Expected"
Hilary is a small but strengthening hurricane, with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 10 miles (20 km) from the center. Tropical-storm-force winds extending outward up to 60 miles (95 km).
Hilary began when Tropical Depression 9E formed on July 21. By July 22 at 11 p.m. EDT, the depression strengthened into a tropical storm and was re-named Hilary. At 5 a.m. EDT on Monday, July 24, 2017, Hilary rapidly intensified into a hurricane.
NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured a true color image of Hurricane Hilary on July 24 at 11 a.m. EDT. The image revealed a better organized tropical cyclone. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted "Satellite images indicate that Hilary has a small central core of convection, with both the visible and infrared channels suggesting that an eye is trying to form. Microwave data also show an incomplete eyewall."
At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Hurricane Hilary was located near 14.1 degrees north latitude and 104.2 degrees west longitude. That's about 340 miles (545 km) south of Manzanillo, Mexico. Hilary is moving toward the west-northwest near 8 mph (13 kph), and the National Hurricane Center said this general motion with some increase in forward speed is expected over the next 48 hours. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 80 mph (130 kph) with higher gusts. The estimated minimum central pressure is 989 millibars.
The National Hurricane Center expects Hilary to become a major hurricane on Tuesday, July 25.
For updated forecasts, visit: www.nhc.noaa.gov.
NASA's Terra satellite passed over Ophelia when it was still a depression at 9:35 a.m. EDT (1335 UTC). But the image provided by the MODIS instrument, or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer that flies aboard Terra, showed that there were strong thunderstorms around the center of circulation and in a thick band east of the center.
At 11 a.m. EST (1500 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Ophelia was located near latitude 31.5 North, longitude 38.3 West. Ophelia is moving toward the southeast near 5 mph (7 kph), and this general motion is expected to continue during the next day or two. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1002 millibars.
Maximum sustained winds are near 50 mph (85 km/h) with higher gusts.
Gradual strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours, and Ophelia is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday, Oct. 12 and is expected to turn toward the northwest.
Credits: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team
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Germany, Oberhausen, Gasometer, “Big Air Package”, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, born in Bulgaria in 1935, he is just known as “Christo”. The artist generates in the accessible interior an exceptional experience of proportions, space & light with this monumental work of art, at present time it is the largest self-supporting indoor sculpture in the world. The project for the Gasometer was conceived in 2010 by Christo & is on view from March 16 to December 30, 2013.
The sculpture, which is installed inside the former gas tank, was made from 20,350 square mtr of semi-transparent polyester fabric & 4,500 mtr of rope. The inflated envelope is more than 90 meters high & 50 mtr in diameter. Its total weight is 5.3 tons & has a volume of 177,000 cubic mtr, nearly spans the distance from wall to wall of the Gasomter, leaving only a small passageway to walk around the sculpture. Two air fans creating a constant pressure of 0.27 millibar to keep the package upright, airlocks allow visitors to enter the package. Illuminated through the skylights of the Gasometer & 60 additional projectors, it creates a diffuse light throughout the interior. Inside of the Big Air Package one does not really realize the heights, outside of the balloon from the top, a 100 mtr & 10 floors high, the project shows its immense size.
Christo & Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, born in Morocco, were a married couple who created numerous environmental works of art. Their works include among others the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin, the 39 km long Running Fence in California, The Gates in New York City's Central Park & the Pont-Neuf Bridge in Paris.
They artist couple first met in Paris in October 1958, their works were credited to just "Christo" until 1994, when the outdoor works & large indoor installations were retroactively credited to "Christo & Jeanne-Claude". They flew in separate planes: in case one crashed, the other could continue their work.
👉 One World one Dream,
...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over
10 million visits in my photostream with countless motivating comments
Only a little way out of the hustle and crowds of Vail (even in the summer) is this idyllic lake nestled in a mountain valley. The mountains in the background have the romantic names of Peak C, Peak D, and Peak E. The road up from Vail is only open for 3 1/2 - 4 months out of the year; this was taken in mid-July. Where we are now is at about 9,350 above sea level. To put the oxygen situation in perspective, if the sea-level pressure is 1016 millibars, the pressure at 10,000 feet is only about 375 mb.
20250708__DSF2120
Composite image of category 5 Hurricane Patricia, off the Pacific coast of Mexico, from 06:00 UTC on Friday, 23 October 2015.
At 8 a.m. EDT on October 23, 2015, the National Hurricane Center said that Hurricane Patricia had grown into a monster hurricane. In fact, it is the strongest eastern north pacific hurricane on record.
At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC) on Oct. 23, the eye of Hurricane Patricia was located near latitude 17.3 North, longitude 105.6 West. That's about 145 miles (235 km) southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico and about 215 miles (345 km) south of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico.
Patricia was moving toward the north-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph) and a turn toward the north is expected later this morning, followed by a turn toward the north-northeast this afternoon. On the forecast track, the core of Patricia will make landfall in the hurricane warning area today, October 23, 2015 during the afternoon or evening.
Maximum sustained winds remain near 200 mph (325 kph) with higher gusts. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that Patricia is a category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Some fluctuations in intensity are possible today, but Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous category 5 hurricane through landfall. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 30 miles (45 km) from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 175 miles (280 km). The estimated minimum central pressure is 880 millibars.
Copyright: 2015 EUMETSAT. Infrared data from the geostationary satellites of EUMETSAT and NOAA overlays a computer-generated model of the Earth, containing NASA's Blue Marble Next Generation imagery
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Hurricane Gonzalo has made the jump to major hurricane status and on Oct. 15 was a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. NOAA's GOES-East satellite provided imagery of the storm. According to the National Hurricane Center, Gonzalo is the first category 4 hurricane in the Atlantic basin since Ophelia in 2011.
NOAA's GOES-East satellite provides visible and infrared images of weather from its orbit in a fixed position over the Earth. On Oct. 15 at 15:15 UTC (11:15 a.m. EDT) GOES saw Gonzalo had tightly wrapped bands of thunderstorms spiraling into the center of its circulation. The eye of the storm was obscured by high clouds in the image. NOAA aircraft data and microwave images clearly show concentric eyewalls, with the inner radius of maximum winds now only about 4-5 nautical miles from the center.
NOAA manages the GOES satellites, while NASA/NOAA's GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland created the image. The NASA/NOAA GOES Project creates images and animations from GOES data.
At 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 15, Gonzalo's maximum sustained winds increased to near 130 mph (215 kph) and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that fluctuations in intensity are expected over the next couple of days. Gonzalo's cloud-covered eye was located near latitude 23.5 north and longitude 68.0 west, about 640 miles (1,025 km) south-southwest of Bermuda. Gonzalo is moving toward the northwest near 12 mph (19 kph). The minimum central pressure recently reported by an air force reconnaissance aircraft was 949 millibars.
Tropical storm conditions are possible in Bermuda by late Thursday night, Oct. 16, and hurricane conditions are possible over Bermuda on Friday Oct. 16.
Ocean swells however, will be felt over a much larger area, reached the U.S. east coast on Oct. 16. Large swells generated by Gonzalo are affecting portions of the Virgin Islands, the northern coasts of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and portions of the Bahamas. Swells will reach much of the east coast of the United States and Bermuda on Thursday.
By late Oct. 16, Gonzalo is expected to turn to the northeast and the center is expected to approach Bermuda sometime on Oct. 17.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Hurricane Joaquin continued to intensify in the Bahamas on October 1 and NASA and NOAA satellites have been providing valuable data on the storm. NASA's GPM and Terra satellites and NOAA's GOES-East satellite provided rainfall, cloud extent, cloud height and other data to forecasters. Joaquin became a major hurricane today, October 1, reaching Category 3 status on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.
On October 1 at 1330 UTC (9:30 a.m. EDT) NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured this visible image of Hurricane Joaquin covering the southern Bahamas and extending over southeastern Cuba, and the island of Hispaniola (which includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Joaquin's eye had become completely visible now that the storm had reached Category 3 status.
On October 1, a Hurricane Warning was in effect for the Central Bahamas, Northwestern Bahamas including the Abacos, Berry Islands, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama Island, and New Providence, The Acklins, Crooked Island, and Mayaguana in the southeastern Bahamas. A Hurricane Watch was in effect for Bimini and Andros Island, and a Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for the remainder of the southeastern Bahamas excluding the Turks and Caicos Islands and Andros Island.
According to NHC, at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC), the center of Hurricane Joaquin was located near latitude 23.2 North, longitude 73.7 West. That's just 10 miles (15 km) north of Samana Cays, Bahamas and about 75 miles (120 km) southeast of San Salvador, Bahamas.
Joaquin was moving toward the west-southwest near 5 mph (7 kph), and this motion is expected to continue today. NHC noted that a turn toward the west- northwest is forecast tonight (Oct. 1), followed by a turn toward the north and an increase in forward speed on Friday, Oct. 2. On the forecast track, the center of Joaquin will move near or over portions of the central Bahamas today and tonight and pass near or over portions of the northwestern Bahamas on Friday.
Maximum sustained winds are near 120 mph (195 km/h) with higher gusts. Joaquin is a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Some strengthening is forecast in the next day or so, with some fluctuations in intensity possible on Friday. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 km) from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 140 miles (220 km).
The minimum central pressure just extrapolated by an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft is 942 millibars.
For updated forecasts, watches and warnings visit the National Hurricane Center (NHC) website: www.nhc.noaa.gov.
Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite flew over Hurricane Blanca in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and gathered infrared data on the storm that was false-colored to show locations of the strongest thunderstorms within the storm.
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite or VIIRS instrument aboard the satellite gathered infrared data of the storm that was made into an image at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The image was false-colored to show temperature. Coldest cloud top temperatures indicate higher, stronger, thunderstorms within a tropical cyclone. Those are typically the strongest storms with potential for heavy rainfall.
VIIRS is a scanning radiometer that collects visible and infrared imagery and "radiometric" measurements. Basically it means that VIIRS data is used to measure cloud and aerosol properties, ocean color, sea and land surface temperature, ice motion and temperature, fires, and Earth's albedo (reflected light).
The VIIRS image from June 5 at 8:11 UTC (4:11 a.m. EDT) showed two areas of coldest cloud top temperatures and strongest storms were west-southwest and east-northeast of the center of Blanca's circulation center.
On June 5 at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) Blanca's maximum sustained winds were near 105 mph (165 kph) with higher gusts. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast expects some strengthening during the next day or so. Weakening is forecast to begin by late Saturday.
At that time, NHC placed the center of Hurricane Blanca near latitude 14.3 North, longitude 106.2 West. That puts the center about 350 miles (560 km) south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico and about 640 miles (1,030 km) south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The estimated minimum central pressure is 968 millibars (28.59 inches).
Blanca is moving toward the northwest near 10 mph (17 kph). A northwestward to north-northwestward motion at a similar forward speed is expected to continue through Saturday night.
Blanca has been stirring up surf along the coast of southwestern Mexico and will reach the Pacific coast of the Baja California peninsula and the southern Gulf of California later today, June 5. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.
On the forecast track, the center of Blanca will approach the southern Baja California peninsula on Sunday. NHC cautions that "Interests in the southern Baja California peninsula should monitor the progress of Blanca. A tropical storm or hurricane watch will likely be required for a portion of Baja California Sur later today."
The NHC forecast track shows Blanca making landfall in the southeastern tip of Baja California on Sunday, June 7 and tracking north-northeast along the Baja California peninsula, for several days following.
Image credit: Credits: NASA/NOAA/UW-CIMSS
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Tropical Storm Kirk intensified into a hurricane today, Aug. 30, while another tropical depression was born. Satellite imagery revealed Hurricane Kirk and newborn Tropical Depression 12 romping through the central Atlantic Ocean today, while Tropical Storm Isaac continues to drench the U.S. Gulf coast and Mississippi Valley. Kirk became the Atlantic Ocean season's fifth hurricane today, Aug. 30.
On Aug. 30 at 7:45 a.m. EDT, a visible image from NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured all three tropical cyclones in a panoramic shot of the Atlantic Ocean basin. The visible image showed Tropical Storm Isaac over the U.S. Gulf coast, Hurricane Kirk and Tropical Depression 12 in the central Atlantic Ocean. Isaac was by far the largest of the three systems, with cloud cover extending from east Texas to the Carolinas. Hurricane Kirk appeared as a small, rounded , compact storm, located northwest of newborn Tropical Depression 12, which appeared larger than Kirk. The image was created by the NASA GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md
Hurricane Kirk
At 11 a.m. EDT on Aug. 30, Kirk became the fifth hurricane of the Atlantic Ocean season. Its maximum sustained winds were near 75 mph (120 kmh). It was far from land, however, about 1.065 miles (1.715) northeast of the Northern Leeward Islands near 27.2 North and 49.5 West. It was moving to the northwest at 12 mph (19 kmh) and had a minimum central pressure of 989 millibars. The GOES-13 image showed that Kirk was a compact hurricane, and hurricane-force winds only extend 10 miles (20 km) from the center, while tropical-storm-force winds extend up to 70 miles (110 km).
Tropical Depression 12 Expected to Become Tropical Storm Leslie
On Aug. 30 at 11 a.m. the warm summertime waters of the Atlantic Ocean gave birth to the twelfth tropical depression on the season. Tropical Depression 12 (TD12) had maximum sustained winds near
35 mph (55 km/h), and is expected to become a tropical storm later on Aug. 30 and could become a hurricane over the weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center.
TD12 was also far from land areas, located about 1,185 miles (1,905 km) east of the Windward Islands, near latitude 14.1 north and longitude 43.4 west. TD12 is moving quickly to the west near 20 mph (32 kmh). TD12's estimated minimum central pressure is 1007 millibars.
Satellite data shows a well-defined curved band of thunderstorms wrapping around the western side of the circulation center.TD12 is expected to move over warm waters which will help it strengthen, and it could become Tropical Storm Leslie later on Aug. 30,or Hurricane Leslie by the weekend of Sept. 2.
Rob Gutro
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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On June 15 at 19:15 UTC (3:15 p.m. EDT) the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Bill approaching Texas and Louisiana. Powerful thunderstorms circled the center in fragmented bands.
At 11 a.m. CDT on June 16, a Tropical Storm Warning was in effect from Baffin Bay to High Island Texas as Bill was making landfall.
The National Hurricane Center noted that Bill is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 4 to 8 inches over eastern Texas and eastern Oklahoma and 2 to 4 inches over western Arkansas and southern Missouri, with possible isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches in eastern Texas. In eastern Texas and far western Louisiana today and tonight, isolated tornadoes are also possible, as with any landfalling tropical storm.
Tropical storm conditions are expected to continue into the evening in the warning area. Along the coasts, the combination of a storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters. The water could reach the following heights above ground if the peak surge occurs at the time of high tide. The NHC noted that the Upper Texas coast could experience 2 to 4 feet, and the western Louisiana coast between 1 to 2 feet.
At 10 a.m. CDT (1500 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Bill was located near latitude 28.2 North, longitude 96.4 West. Bill was moving toward the northwest near 10 mph (17 kph) and that general motion is expected to continue today. The latest minimum central pressure reported by an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft was 997 millibars. Reports from an Air Force Reserve reconnaissance aircraft indicate that maximum sustained winds remain near 60 mph (95 kph) with higher gusts.
Unlike Carlos, Bill is not a compact storm. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 150 miles (240 km) from the center. Between 9 and 10 a.m. CDT, an automated observing station at Port O'Connor also reported a sustained wind of 44 mph (70 kph) and a gust to 53 mph (85 kph).
For updated forecasts, watches and warnings, visit the National Hurricane Center webpage at www.nhc.noaa.gov. For local forecasts and advisories, visit: www.weather.gov.
Bill is forecast to continue moving inland and is expected to be a tropical depression by Wednesday, June 17, west of Dallas. The remnants of Bill are forecast to move into the Midwest later in the week.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
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“Big Air Package, Project for Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany” was conceived in 2010 by Christo and is on view from March 16 to December 30, 2013. The sculpture, which is installed inside the former gas tank, was made from 20,350 square meters of semitransparent polyester fabric and 4,500 meters of rope. The inflated envelope is more than 90 meters high and 50 meters in diameter. It has a total weight of 5.3 tons and a volume of 177,000 cubic meters.
The “Big Air Package” nearly spans the distance from wall to wall of the Gasometer, leaving only a small passage to walk around the sculpture. Two air fans creating a constant pressure of 27 pascal (0.27 millibar) keep the package upright. Airlocks allow visitors to enter the package. Illuminated through the skylights of the Gasometer and 60 additional projectors, the work of art creates a diffuse light throughout the interior. Inside the sculpture, an extraordinary experience of shape, space and light is provided.
NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP and NOAA's GOES satellites showed major Hurricane Madeline nearing the Hawaiian Islands. An animation of satellite imagery showed the movement of Madeline and nearby Hurricane Lester over a two day period.
At 7:25 p.m. EDT (23:25 UTC) on Aug. 29, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of major Hurricane Madeline. The storm's eye extended up to 13 nautical miles wide in diameter and Madeline appeared very well organized.
By 11 p.m. EDT (5 p.m. HST) the storm was classified as a major hurricane when maximum sustained winds reached 115 mph (185 kph). Madeline had become a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.
On Aug. 30, Madeline has sparked a hurricane watch for Hawaii County, Hawaii.
At NASA/NOAA's GOES project office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, an animation of NOAA's GOES-East satellite imagery from Aug. 28 to Aug. 30 was created. The animation showed the movement of Hurricane Madeline intensify from a Category 2 to Category 4 hurricane. To the east of Madeline, Hurricane Lester was moving through the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
At 8 a.m. EDT (2 a.m. HST/1200 UTC), the center of Hurricane Madeline was located near 19.3 degrees north latitude and 147.7 degrees west longitude. That puts the eye of Madeline about 490 miles (790 km) east of Hilo, Hawaii and 680 miles (1,095 km) east of Honolulu, Hawaii.
NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) said that Madeline is moving toward the west near 9 mph (15 kph) and this motion is expected to become west southwesterly late today through early Thursday. On the forecast track, the center of Madeline will pass dangerously close to the Big Island Wednesday and Wednesday night. The estimated minimum central pressure is 950 millibars.
Maximum sustained winds are near 130 mph (215 kph) with higher gusts. Madeline is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Some weakening is forecast through early Thursday. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 30 miles (45 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 125 miles (205 km).
Hurricane conditions are possible over Hawaii County on Wednesday, Aug. 31, and ocean swells are expected to reach the Hawaiian Islands over the next couple of days, possibly becoming damaging along some coastlines Wednesday and Thursday.
To read the full article, click here.
Hurricane Katrina moved ashore over southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi early on August 29, 2005, as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm. With winds of 135 miles per hour (217 kilometers per hour), a powerful storm surge, and heavy rains, Katrina pounded the U.S. Gulf Coast, triggering extensive life-threatening flooding. This GOES image shows the storm as it moved over southern Mississippi at 9:02 a.m. The eye of the storm was due east of New Orleans, Louisiana. Katrina moved north into Mississippi, and was expected to track quickly northeast across the United States into Eastern Canada over the first part of the week.
By mid-afternoon on August 29, Katrina had weakened into a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 95 mph (153 km/hr). A mere 24 hours earlier, Katrina had been one of the most powerful storms ever observed in the Atlantic Basin. The above animation tracks the stormâs degradation from a Category 5 storm on August 28, to a Category 1 storm on August 29 as the storm spent its fury on Louisiana and Mississippi.
The first image in the animation was taken at 7:15 p.m. CDT on August 28. At this time, Katrina was well-organized, with a large eye. The storm had winds of 160 mph (258 km/hr) with stronger gusts and a central pressure of 902 millibars. The lower the air pressure associated with a hurricane, the more powerful the storm tends to be. Since records began, only three storms have ever had lower air pressures. Katrina was a very powerful and extremely dangerous Category 5 storm.
As the storm moved north through the night, it weakened slightly into a Category 4 storm before slamming ashore over southeastern Louisiana around 6 a.m. As the storm moved ashore during the day, it gradually lost its distinctive eye and weakened to the Category 1 storm seen in the final frame, taken at 2:45 p.m. on August 29.
For more images of Hurricane Katrina, please visit the Natural Hazards section of the Earth Observatory. For more information about Katrina, see the National Hurricane Center web site.
Images courtesy GOES Project Science Office
On Oct. 19 at 19:35 UTC (3:35 p.m. EDT) the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite saw Hurricane Olaf moving into the central Pacific Ocean with a visible eye. Powerful thunderstorms circled the eye and extended in a thick band in the eastern quadrant from north to south.
At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on Oct. 20, Hurricane Olaf's center was located near latitude 10.3 north and longitude 140.4 west. That's about 1,175 miles (1,890 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.
Despite being so far from Hawaii and because Olaf is a powerful hurricane, large swells generated by Olaf will begin to arrive along east facing shores of the main Hawaiian Islands over the next couple of days. The CPHC said that resultant surf will be large...potentially life-threatening and damaging.
Olaf is moving toward the west-northwest near 10 mph (17 kph) and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC), who has taken over forecast responsibilities now that Olaf has crossed the 140 degree longitude line, expects Olaf to turn toward the west-northwest and then northwest by October 21.
Maximum sustained winds are near 150 mph (240 kph). Olaf is a category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane wind scale. Some additional strengthening is forecast on Tuesday, Oct. 20 and fluctuations in intensity are possible Tuesday night and Wednesday. The estimated minimum central pressure is 938 millibars.
Olaf is expected to remain a major hurricane for the next couple of days and begin curving to the northeast and away from Hawaii by Friday, October 23. For updates, visit: www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc.
Credit: NASA Goddard's MODIS Rapid Response Team
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On New Year's Eve 2020 a new North Pacific record low pressure was reached in the Bering Sea over Alaska's western Aleutians. This massive winter storm is producing seas to 56 feet (imagine seas as high as 5-6 storied building) and hurricane force winds.
Official NWS estimate on this low pressure system is 921 millibars.
It is expected to begin abating overnight.
Pressure gradient is more than 100 millibars different than the high pressure system in the upper Yukon, in the upper right of this screenshot from this evening's weather report, Alaska Weather Online.
Narrator: September 28th, 1997. It is exactly 11am. At the funfair, near the ghost train, the marshmallow twister is twisting. Meanwhile, on a bench in Villette Square, Félix Lerbier learns there are more links in his brain than atoms in the universe. Meanwhile, at the Sacré Coeur, the nuns are practising their backhand. The temperature is 24°C, humidity 70%, atmospheric pressure 990 millibars.
~ Amelie
Jour 92
NASA image acquired October 26, 2010
The storm that swept across the center of the United States on October 26 and October 27, 2010, was memorable to those who experienced it because of its strong winds, rain, hail, and widespread tornadoes. Meteorologists get excited about the storm because it set a record for the lowest pressure (not associated with a hurricane) measured over land in the continental United States. At 5:13 p.m. CDT, the weather station in Bigfork, Minnesota recorded 955.2 millibars (28.21 inches of pressure). Pressure is one indicator of a storm’s strength, and this measurement corresponds to the pressure seen in a Category 3 hurricane.
This image, taken by the GOES satellite on October 26, shows the storm system circling around the area of extreme low pressure. Such extratropical cyclones form over the United States in the spring and fall, when the temperature difference from north to south is large. Warm, high-pressure air rushes toward the cooler, low-pressure air in the north. Because the Earth is rotating, the air moving in ends up circling the area of low pressure, creating the cyclone shown in the image. The intensity of the storm is determined by the pressure difference between the center and the outer edges. Extreme low pressure in the center of the storm, therefore, is an indicator that the storm was very intense.
The animation shows the storm developing starting late on October 25 and running through October 27. The cyclone formed very quickly on October 26, taking a distinctive comma shape as the day went on. The storm developed so quickly, in fact, that it is classified as a bomb, an extremely fast developing storm (dropping at least one millibar of pressure per hour for 24 hours), more common over water than land.
The storm was also huge. Though the area of low pressure is centered over the Upper Midwest, the storm reached from the Gulf of Mexico into Canada, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean.
Extratropical cyclones bring an array of unsettled weather, including strong wind, rain, hail, and tornadoes, and this cyclone brought all of that. On October 26–27, winds gusted up to 78 miles per hour in Michigan, with high winds throughout the Midwest. The National Weather Service reported 61 tornadoes over the two days. Heavy snow also fell in the north.
NASA Earth Observatory imagery created by Jesse Allen, using imagery provided courtesy of the NASA GOES Project Science Office. Caption by Holli RIebeek.
Instrument: GOES
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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The GOES-13 satellite saw Hurricane Irene moving closer to the east coast August 24 12:40 UTC thru August 26 at 12:32 UTC.
Hurricane Irene is raging the U.S. East Coast and will affect the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast through the Weekend.
At 5 a.m. EDT this morning Hurricane Irene was centered 420 miles south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, NC. (29.3N and 77.2 W) Max. winds 110 mph., moving north at 14 mph. Pressure 942 millibars
Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project
To read more go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2011/h2011...
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NASA image acquired acquired October 28, 2012
For the latest info from NASA on Hurricane Sandy go to: 1.usa.gov/Ti5SgS
Click here to see the full high res: www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/8132059262
At noon Eastern Daylight Time (16:00 Universal Time) on October 28, 2012, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image of Hurricane Sandy off the southeastern United States.
At 11 a.m. local time (one hour before the image was captured), the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that the storm was located at 32.5° North and 72.6° West, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and 575 miles (930 kilometers) south of New York City. Maximum sustained winds were 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour, and the central pressure was 951 millibars (28.08 inches).
Forecasters predicted that the storm would continue heading north-northeast until the morning of October and then take a hard turn to the northwest into the coastaline of Delaware, New Jersey, or New York. The wind field from the storm was said to stretch 500 to 700 miles and was likely to affect an area from South Carolina to Maine, and as far inland as the Great Lakes. The storm has already caused significant damage in the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti; at least 65 lives have been lost to the storm.
NASA image courtesy LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.
Instrument: Terra - MODIS
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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NASA image acquired acquired October 28, 2012
For the latest info from NASA on Hurricane Sandy go to: 1.usa.gov/Ti5SgS
At noon Eastern Daylight Time (16:00 Universal Time) on October 28, 2012, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image of Hurricane Sandy off the southeastern United States.
At 11 a.m. local time (one hour before the image was captured), the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that the storm was located at 32.5° North and 72.6° West, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and 575 miles (930 kilometers) south of New York City. Maximum sustained winds were 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour, and the central pressure was 951 millibars (28.08 inches).
Forecasters predicted that the storm would continue heading north-northeast until the morning of October and then take a hard turn to the northwest into the coastaline of Delaware, New Jersey, or New York. The wind field from the storm was said to stretch 500 to 700 miles and was likely to affect an area from South Carolina to Maine, and as far inland as the Great Lakes. The storm has already caused significant damage in the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti; at least 65 lives have been lost to the storm.
NASA image courtesy LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.
Instrument: Terra - MODIS
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Pecan Pumpkin Pie Ale brewed in celebration of the Halloween Blizzard of 1991. The craziest snowstorm I have ever seen.
My wife still talks about how her mom and dad went out looking for people stranded in vehicles after it stopped snowing
This is the Wikipedia article telling the story about how this storm developed and played out over its life
The 1991 Halloween blizzard was a powerful storm that caused a period of heavy snowfall and ice accumulation, which affected parts of the Upper Midwest of the United States, from October 31 to November 3, 1991. Over the last week of October 1991, a large storm system over the Atlantic Ocean (1991 Perfect Storm) blocked most of the weather patterns over the eastern half of the United States, and in turn, moisture from the Gulf of Mexico was funneled straight northward over the affected region. By the time the precipitation stopped falling, many cities in the eastern half of Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin had witnessed record early-season snowfall accumulations, while parts of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa were crippled by a large ice storm. Arctic air that was pulled southward behind the storm had combined with the heavy snow pack to produce many record low temperatures. Between the blizzard and the ice storm, 22 people were killed and over 100 were injured.
The 1991 Halloween Blizzard developed from a strong arctic cold front that pushed south and east through the central United States several days prior. On October 28, temperatures to the east of the cold front were above normal. High temperatures reached into the 70s from the middle Mississippi River Valley south into northern Texas, and into the 80s across much of central and southern Texas. Meanwhile, high temperatures remained below 20 degrees Fahrenheit across most of Montana and Wyoming.
The contrast between the two air masses was stark, and by the morning of October 29 the cold front was about halfway through Texas. At 6 am CST, the temperature in the western Texas city of Amarillo had dropped to 22 degrees with a strong northerly breeze. Farther east in Texas, the temperature was 64 in Dallas – a 42-degree temperature difference over about 300 miles (480 km). In the northern United States, morning lows were much colder. Temperatures were in the single digits across Montana and Wyoming and in the teens in North Dakota and South Dakota.
By October 30, the cold front had pushed east to the Texas shoreline with the Gulf of Mexico, and stalled in that location. As an upper-level shortwave trough approached the Southern Plains, it aided the development of an area of surface low pressure along the sharp temperature gradient near the Texas Gulf Coast. The development of low-pressure systems along coastal fronts in this fashion is relatively common in the cool season along the Texas Gulf Coast and along the Atlantic Seaboard near the Gulf Stream current.
From October 30 – 31, this low-pressure system slowly became better organized over Texas, before it ejected north over the Mississippi River Valley. This meridional trajectory of a low pressure track (almost due north from the western Gulf) is climatologically favorable to produce very heavy snowfall in the winter months because it allows copious amounts of moisture to flow north where it can interact with colder air. Cooler readings lingered at the very end of October across the Upper Midwest, and a re-enforcing pool of Arctic air was just beginning to push southeast through the western Canadian Provinces.
On November 1, the low-pressure system moved north from western Illinois into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the minimum pressure fell about 24 millibars in 24 hours, indicative of rapid deepening and strengthening of the cyclone. The low pressure eventually became occluded, weakened, and then continued to dissipate as it pushed east across northern Ontario in subsequent days
The precipitation from this system began falling as snow in Iowa late on October 30, and by the morning of October 31, it had changed over to ice and spread northward across southeast Minnesota. During Halloween day, the precipitation spread to the north, where it fell mostly as rapidly accumulating snow. The snow continued to develop northward, eventually spreading into the Minnesota Arrowhead. Eventually all of the precipitation changed over to snow, and in some areas it would continue falling until November 3.
The heavy snow began falling across east central Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin during the late afternoon hours of October 31. By midnight, the Twin Cities had already recorded 8.2 in (20.8 cm) of snow. This not only set a record for the largest amount of snow on that date, but also for the most snow ever recorded in the Twin Cities during the month of October. As the storm system pushed its way northward, more communities in eastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin began to experience similar conditions; and thundersnow occurred as far north as Duluth
Over the next two days the snow continued to fall, leading to additional snowfall of one to two feet (30 cm to 60 cm). By the time the snowfall ended on November 3, the storm had dropped 36.9 in (93.7 cm) on Duluth, the largest single snow storm total in Minnesota history at that time. The Twin Cities received 28.4 in (72.1 cm), setting a single-storm record for the metropolitan area. In all, at least one foot (30 cm) of snow fell in a swath approximately 100 mi (160 km) wide from south central Minnesota, northeastward into northwestern Wisconsin and into the Minnesota Arrowhead. A more narrow band of 2+ ft (60+ cm) of snow fell from the Twin Cities to Duluth and northward.
Areas of southern Minnesota and Iowa along and south of the I-90 corridor did not see as much snow, but instead saw a major ice storm. Though the precipitation started out as snow in these areas, it changed over to ice during the day on October 31 and continued falling over the next day. Ice accumulations as high as 2–3 in (6 cm–9 cm) were recorded in these areas before the precipitation changed to snow. Up to 10 in (25.4 cm) of snow proceeded to fall on top of ice accumulations from the previous day, making travel even more treacherous.[3] Up to 1 inch of ice accumulation was reported as far south as Omaha, Nebraska.
Most of Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa were heavily impacted by the storm. $63+ million in damages was reported from fallen power lines, and $5 million in crop damages were reported in Iowa. Eleven counties in southern Minnesota were declared federal disaster areas, and 52 counties in Iowa were declared disaster areas. At least 100,000 people lost power because of the weight of the ice downing power lines, and in some cases it took up to a week for the power to be restored.
Many roads were closed both from the snow and ice, including long stretches of I-90, I-35 and I-29 in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. Highway snow removal was hindered by record cold temperatures that followed the storm and transportation was hampered for many days. Nine hundred schools and business were closed in Minnesota alone. The storm occurred on a Thursday night. Schools in Minong, Wisconsin (40 miles southeast of Superior) were closed even the Monday following the storm. Twenty-two people died in this storm, twenty in Minnesota and two on the Mississippi River near La Crosse.
In eastern Minnesota, the Halloween Blizzard shattered many of the previous October snowfall records. The 28 inches that fell in the Twin Cities on October 31 was more snow than had ever been recorded in any October in its recorded history. November 1 saw similar daily records fall, but with a more wide reaching area from most of central Minnesota eastward to La Crosse and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Following the storm Arctic air poured southward from Canada to produce many record low temperatures in these same areas. Bismarck, North Dakota, sank to −10 °F on October 31, breaking their previous record low of 6 °F (−14 °C) by 16 degrees.[8] Record snow and cold was recorded as far south as Nebraska and Colorado. The Arctic air also spread over Chicago, recording a low of 11 degrees on November 4.
Four weeks later on November 29 – 30, another large storm system dropped as much as 18 inches of snow over these same areas. These two storms combined to set a single-month record for most snowfall in the Twin Cities and Duluth.
Oliphant Brewing Company
Somerset Wisconsin
NASA image acquired August 28, 2005
“Katrina is comparable in intensity to Hurricane Camille of 1969, only larger,”warned the National Hurricane Center on Sunday, August 28, 2005. By this time, Hurricane Katrina was set to become one of the most powerful storms to strike the United States, with winds of 257 kilometers per hour (160 miles per hour) and stronger gusts. The air pressure, another indicator of hurricane strength, at the center of this Category 5 storm measured 902 millibars, the fourth lowest air pressure on record for an Atlantic storm. The lower the air pressure, the more powerful the storm.
Two hours after the National Hurricane Center issued their warning, the Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) captured this image from NASA’s Terra satellite at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time. The massive storm covers much of the Gulf of Mexico, spanning from the U.S. coast to the Yucatan Peninsula.
The large image provided above has a resolution of 500 meters per pixel. The image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team.
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at Goddard Space Flight Center
Instrument: Terra - MODIS
Click here read more on Hurricane Katrina: The 5th Anniversary NASA Retrospective
Click here to read more on the subject from the Geeked on Goddard Blog
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As Hurricane Sandy made a historic landfall on the New Jersey coast during the night of Oct. 29, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on NASA's Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite captured this night-time view of the storm. This image provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison is a composite of several satellite passes over North America taken 16 to18 hours before Sandy's landfall.
The storm was captured by a special "day-night band," which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as auroras, airglow, gas flares, city lights, fires and reflected moonlight. City lights in the south and mid-section of the United States are visible in the image.
William Straka, associate researcher at Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains that since there was a full moon there was the maximum illumination of the clouds.
"You can see that Sandy is pulling energy both from Canada as well as off in the eastern part of the Atlantic," Straka said. "Typically forecasters use only the infrared bands at night to look at the structure of the storm. However, using images from the new day/night band sensor in addition to the thermal channels can provide a more complete and unique view of hurricanes at night."
VIIRS is one of five instruments onboard Suomi NPP. The mission is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Department of Defense.
On Monday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. EDT, Hurricane Sandy made landfall 5 miles (10 km) south of Atlantic City, N.J., near 39 degrees 24 minutes north latitude and 74 degrees 30 minutes west longitude. At the time of landfall, Sandy's maximum sustained winds were near 80 mph (130 kph) and it was moving to the west-northwest at 23 mph (37 kph). According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricane-force winds extended outward to 175 miles (280 km) from the center, and tropical-storm-force winds extended 485 miles (780 km). Sandy's minimum central pressure at the time of landfall was 946 millibars or 27.93 inches.
Suomi NPP was launched on Oct. 28, 2011, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. One year later, Suomi NPP has orbited Earth more than 5,000 times and begun returning images and data that provide critical weather and climate measurements of complex Earth systems.
Suomi NPP observes Earth's surface twice every 24-hour day, once in daylight and once at night. NPP flies 512 miles (824 kilometers) above the surface in a polar orbit, circling the planet about 14 times a day. NPP sends its data once an orbit to the ground station in Svalbard, Norway, and continuously to local direct broadcast users.
For storm history, images and video of Hurricane Sandy, please visit the following websites:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2012/h2012...
cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/event.php?id=79504
Image Credit: CIMSS/Univ. Wisconsin-Madison/NASA/NOAA
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This visible image of Tropical Storm Miriam was captured by NOAA's GOES-15 satellite on Sept. 26, 2012 at 10:45 a.m. EDT off the coast of Baja California. The strongest thunderstorms were in a large band of thunderstorms north and northwest of the center. Miriam is banked to the north and west by an extensive field of stratocumulus clouds. Credit:
NASA/NOAA GOES Project
----
Once a powerful hurricane, Miriam is now a tropical storm off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. Tropical Storm Miriam was seen in the Eastern Pacific Ocean by NOAA's GOES-15 satellite, and the visible image revealed that the strongest part of the storm was north and west of the center.
NOAA's GOES-15 satellite sits in a fixed position over the western U.S. that allows it to monitor the Eastern Pacific Ocean and it captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Miriam on Sept. 26, 2012 at 10:45 a.m. EDT off the coast of Baja California. The strongest thunderstorms were north and northwest of the center in a large band, wrapping around the center of the tropical storm. Miriam is banked to the north and west by an extensive field of stratocumulus clouds
Wind shear is taking its toll on Miriam. The National Hurricane Center noted there is an increasing "separation between the low- to mid-level centers of the storm (think of the storm as having multiple layers) due to 20-25 knots of southwesterly shear associated with a shortwave trough (elongated area of low pressure) rotating around the northwestern side of the storm.
At 11 a.m. EDT on Sept. 26, Tropical Storm Miriam had maximum sustained winds near 65 mph (100 kph), dropping from 70 mph (100 kmh) just six hours before. It was located about 425 miles (680 km) west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California Miriam was moving slowly at 6 mph (9 kmh) to the north-northwest and away from the coast. Miriam's minimum central pressure was near 992 millibars.
A Miriam continues to pull away from Baja California, rough ocean swells will keep affecting the south and west coasts today, Sept. 26, and tomorrow, Sept. 27. By Sept. 28, Friday, the ocean swells will gradually begin to subside.
Miriam is moving into a region where wind shear is forecast to increase and sea surface temperatures will fall. Those are two factors that will contribute to the weakening of the tropical storm over the next several days.
Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Image: NASA GOES Project
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Governor Gavin Newsom announced a state of emergency ahead of Thursday's level 5 pineapple bomb cyclone, a meteorological term for a double whammy of atmosphere river plus a storm dropping to a pressure of 24 millibars under 24 hours. A flood watch has been issued for all of south west California. The main impact of the storm is mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Santa Barbara County, a mobile RV park is under a mandatory evacuation. The storm brought 2 inches of rain within an hour to Los Angeles and Orange County, and isolated tstorms are expected later through the afternoon.
NASA image captured June 25, 2010.
CAPTION
This GOES-13 Satellite imagery from June 25 shows the powerful Hurricane Celia (left) with the larger eye, and behind it is Hurricane Darby (right) with a much smaller eye.
Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project
GOES-13 Captures 2 Major Hurricanes: Darby Trailing Celia
There are now two major hurricanes in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and they appear to be chasing each other in imagery from the GOES-13 satellite. Hurricane Celia is a Category Five hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, and Hurricane Darby to Celia's east has just become a Category Three hurricane (a major hurricane).
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-13 captured a visible image of both the Category 5 Hurricane Celia and the Category 3 Hurricane Darby (located to Celia's southeast). In the satellite image from June 25 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT) Celia had the larger eye of the two hurricanes.
The satellite image was created by NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. GOES-11 is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
On Friday, June 23, at 11 a.m. EDT, Darby was classified as a major hurricane by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) as it had maximum sustained winds near 115 mph (185 km/hr). Darby was about 245 miles (395 km) south-southwest of Acapulco, Mexico, near 13.6 North and 101.2 West.
Darby was moving west-northwest near 7 mph (11 km/hr), although the NHC expects that to change over the weekend. NHC expects Darby to dip to the south then curve back toward the east by early next week while weakening. Darby's minimum central pressure is near 962 millibars.
Although Darby doesn't pose a threat to any land areas over the weekend, residents of western Mexico, including the Acapulco area, should closely monitor the track of this storm. Based on the National Hurricane Center's forecast track map, Darby could bring the western Mexican coast some rainfall and gusty winds by early next week.
Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
NASA / NOAA GOES-13 satellite image showing Hurricane Irene on August 26, 12:32 UTC.
Hurricane Irene is raging the U.S. East Coast and will affect the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast through the Weekend.
At 5 a.m. EDT this morning Hurricane Irene was centered 420 miles south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, NC. (29.3N and 77.2 W) Max. winds 110 mph., moving north at 14 mph. Pressure 942 millibars.
Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project
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When I moved to Pacific Beach in April of 1970 they were still talking about it: the epic swell of winter 1969. To the locals I had just missed the swell of the century. A swell whereby three separate North Pacific storms merged to create near-hurricane force winds blowing across a broad stretch of the North Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of Alaska to Hawaii creating one of the most unique storms ever. Over the first few days of December, La Jolla Cover peaked at 20 feet, homes along California’s coast were destroyed by high surf and 30– to 40-foot waves hammered parts of Kauai and Oahu, with the North Shore being partially evacuated. Often remembered as the “Swell of the Century,” weather records have confirmed that the ’69 swell event was among the most powerful in history (Encyclopedia of Surfing):
“While it’s been said that surfers from the period remember the swell of 1969 as bigger than it really was,” Matt Warshaw wrote in the recently released Encyclopedia of Surfing, “satellite images, along with atmosphere-gauging millibar charts and on-the-beach photographs, all prove that the swell was, in fact, the most powerful on record. (Steve Hawk, 2004).
During that swell, with most of the north shore closed out and was flooded by giant waves, Greg Noll paddled out at Makaha with a few others and waited to surf what was at that time “the biggest wave ever ridden” and the last big wave of his career. A record which remained for over twenty years. A big part of the lore is that supposedly no photograph exist of the famous wave, which adds to its charm as a singular event (Owers, 2011, but see below).
I repost Noll’s story here, from Legends of Surfing, to remind us of the challenges these big swells present and the surfers that rise up to face those challenges despite tremendous fear. These are lessons we should never forget, which is too easy these days given our big-wave obsessed, media-fueled events which make it seem an everyday event. It is not. Because in the end it is just you and the ocean. To those that faced these early challenges, in my opinion, we owe a great deal of respect. I start with a quote from Noll on why he did it:
I thought to myself. ‘If I don’t do this, I’ll be eighty years old. Banging my cane around. Still pissed off that I’d gone chicken-shit on the one day I’d worked for all my life.’ So I really didn’t have a choice. — Greg Noll (Warshaw, History of Surfing)
Makaha, December 1969
“In many ways the winter of ’69 was the peak of my life,” Greg Noll declared. “I was thirty-two. I had built a successful career of surfing and making surfboards… As usual, we stayed with Henry Preece in Haleiwa. I had stayed at Henry’s house nearly every year, since I first met him and Buffalo Keaulana in the fifties, when I had first started coming to the islands. Here I was, fifteen years later, still coming to the Islands each season for the big winter swell.
“Henry’s little wood-frame house is about four blocks from the water, where you can hear the surf and feel it when it gets big. About two o’clock one morning, I woke up to the sound of a far-off rumble, rumble, rumble and the rattle of dishes in the kitchen. Half asleep, I thought, ‘Hell of a time to run the tanks though.’ Every once in a while, the Army would drive its tanks down from Wahiawa, through Haleiwa and out to Kaena Point. I got up to take a whiz, and suddenly realized there were no tanks. It was the rumble of huge surf, breaking from the horizon.
“I started pacing, tried to sleep, paced again. By sunrise my stomach was full of butterflies. My adrenalin was pumping. I was ready to go take a look at Waimea Bay. As soon as Laura and I got there, I could see that the whole North Shore was closed out. Solid whitewater as far as you could see. You can’t go out when it gets that big. For the most part, on the very rare occasion when it gets that big, it’s done all over the island.”
“Laura and I decided to go take a look at Makaha [on the west side] just for the hell of it,” continued Noll. “Every once in a while, when the North Shore closes out, Makaha Point still has rideable surf. Less often, when the North Shore closes out, Makaha does this wonderful, magical thing that I had heard about over the years from older surfers like George Downing and Buzzy Trent. If God sees fit to have that north swell come in at an absolute, perfect direction, Makaha gets unbelievably monstrous swells, as big or bigger than the ones that attack the North Shore, except they’re not peak breaks. These Makaha giants peel off from the Point in precise, seemingly endless walls.”
“In the fifteen years that I had been coming to the Islands to surf,” Noll went on, “I had never seen Makaha do its magic. Sure, I had ridden a number of big Makaha Point days when the waves were breaking twenty feet, but compared to Waimea’s hang-on-to-your-balls super-drop, Makaha Point surf just didn’t have it for me. I had heard the stories. Supposedly the really huge surf at Makaha only happens about once every eleven or twelve years. I had missed the day in ’58 when Buzzy Trent and George Downing rode some monster surf at Makaha. I was convinced that Waimea is where it’s at. The ultimate go-for-broke spot. There’s not a bigger place on the face of God’s earth to ride than Waimea. That’s the way it is and always will be, world without end.
“Was I wrong!
“Still, there was nothing to do on the North Shore, so we headed to Makaha, taking the road that led around Kaena Point. We figured the worst thing that could happen is that it would become a good excuse to see my old pal Buffalo, do a little beer drinking and talk stories Hawaiian style…”
“I felt the intensity of twenty years of surfing bigger and bigger waves pent-up inside me that day,” Noll said of December 4, 1969. “As we approached Kaena Point we noticed several places where gigantic storm surf had already washed across the road. I told Laura to walk across the bad spots while I drove the car across. I held my door open, ready to bail out if a wave hit the car.
“As soon as we reached Kaena Point, I knew this day was going to be different. Terrifying waves of fifty feet or bigger were pounding the end of the island [Oahu]. We stopped at a couple of places to take pictures. One memorable photo from that day shows a giant wave dwarfing a couple of beach shacks in the foreground. SURFER magazine printed it in its March 1970 issue with the description, ‘Kaena Point at forty, fifty, sixty or seventy feet.’ That day, the waves demolished several shacks on Kaena Point and nearby areas as well as a great portion of the road.
“As we got nearer to Makaha Point, I said, ‘Holy shit. It’s happening.’ Makaha was doing its magic.”
“Usually,” Greg Noll continued, “no matter how big the north swell is, by the time it gets around to the Makaha side of the island [west], it dissipates or you’re looking at full-on stormy, windy, nasty weather. The horizon off Maili Beach, south of Makaha, becomes what the old-timers call Maili cloudbreak. The rate of speed of big swells creates wind and spray that rains down on the ocean. On this day, the water was nearly as smooth as glass, beautiful, and the waves were so big that they literally put the fear of God in me.
“The radio began to broadcast evacuation orders for people in homes on Makaha Point. The police had just started to put up barricades on the road, but we made it through and out to the Point. And there it was, not just rideable Makaha — great, big, horrifying Makaha.”
“You couldn’t even see the break from the normal place on the beach,” Noll described. “You had to get back up on the hill above the beach. On a normal, smaller day, the break comes off an inside reef. On a big, twenty-foot Point day, the break comes around the Point in a long wall and forms into a huge section referred to as the Bowl. The unique thing about Makaha is that under perfect conditions, waves will hold their shape at twenty-five feet or — so the stories go — bigger. Today, that’s what it looked like, bigger.
“The waves were breaking on a set of reefs I didn’t even know existed, just inside where the blue water began. They looked like they were breaking out twice as far as usual. I started going into a mental freeze-up at this point. A haze settled over my brain like I was in a dream.”
“There was just a handful of guys out in the water,” continued Noll, talking about that big day at Makaha, December 1969. “Along the shore and on the hill above the beach, people were already lining up to watch. With the break so far out, it was almost impossible to see the surfers in any detail, let alone take clear pictures.
“I got my board waxed up, started looking things over, setting up a plan. I saw that the cross-current was raging, so I knew that, to survive, I would have to swim like a sonofabitch for the Point or I would end up way down the beach, past Clausmyer’s house. This house marks the place that is your last hope of getting in in one piece before the shore turns to solid rock. On a big day like this, if you don’t eat it in the surf, the rocks can easily get you.
“I got waxed up and headed into the water. It was surprisingly easy to get out. People have asked me, ‘How in the hell did you even get out?’ Most of the breaks that would have been normal Makaha waves were just backed-off soupy slop and not that difficult to paddle through. It was like that almost out to the Point. Beyond the Point is where the waves were actually breaking…”
“I paddled way over to the left of the bowl,” continued Noll, “then headed straight out for a long ways past the break before I could paddle over to where a group of guys were sitting. They all were well-known big-wave riders, including Fred Hemmings, Bobby Cloutier, Wally Froiseth, Jimmy Blears. I had surfed different places with these guys for years. You could tell that this was no normal day. Usually, we’re out there laughing, joking, giving each other a hard time. When the surf gets really big, all that bullshit goes out the window. At Waimea, for instance, when the surf starts coming up, guys’ attitudes would change. Peter Cole would get a little more hyper, Buzzy Trent would start talking faster, Pat Curren would get quieter. Peter likes to joke about how I’d start hyperventilating extra loud to try to psych guys out.
“Today it was serious business. No laughing, no joking. Some of the guys were glassy-eyed and there was talk of calling in the helicopters. Since that morning, when many of the guys had first paddled out, the surf had been steadily building. Now, it was at a size where all but the most experienced big-wave riders call it quits.”
“I sat there with the guys for at least forty-five minutes,” recalled Noll, “watching these big, thunderous giants coming down out of the north, from Yokohama Bay, towards us. At times they looked so perfect you’d swear you were looking at waves at Rincon or Malibu, only these waves were thirty feet high with a lip that threw out thirty yards or more. At other times the waves broke in sections of two or three hundred yards across. They were horrible, absolutely horrible. As they peeled off towards us, a giant section would dump, and we’d count, ‘One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three…’ then, BOOM! The wave would bottom out and, even though they were a quarter to a half-mile away, the impact of the breaking waves was so tremendous that it made beads of water dance on the deck of our boards. I’d never seen that happen before. The whole situation gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“And the surf was still coming up! A few guys caught waves off the backside of smaller sets, hit the channel and paddled in. Nobody was going for the big ones…”
“The bottom line,” underscored Noll, “was obvious to every one of us out there: if you took off on one of the big waves and missed it, and there was a bigger wave behind it, you’d get caught in the impact zone where your chances of drowning were probably about eighty percent or better. If you paddled for one of these monstrous bastards and you didn’t get to the bottom, but instead got caught high by catching an edge or hesitating for even a second, you’d tumble down the face of the wave and the whitewater would just eat you alive. It would be like going off Niagra Falls without the barrel. It looked to me like my only chance was to paddle as though the devil himself was on my ass, then get to my feet and drive as hard as possible straight down the face of the wave. If I could at least get to the bottom before the lip folded over, then maybe I’d have a chance of drilling myself a hole at the bottom of the wave, and the mass of the wave would pass over me instead of pummeling me along until I just ran out of air.
“I analyzed the situation a little longer and gave myself better than a fifty-percent chance of surviving one of these monsters. I just figured I had an edge, since all my surfing had been devoted to big waves. My motivation was also competitive. Deep down inside I had always wanted to catch a bigger wave than anyone else had ever ridden. Now, here was my chance. After a lifetime of working up to it, the time had finally come to either shit or get off the pot. The chances of this type of surf occurring again might be another eleven or twelve years away, and out of my grasp.
“Even though I had put a lot of time into riding big waves, I knew there was no chance of actually riding one of those waves all the way through. Not the way they were folding over in such huge sections. The best I could expect would be to get down the face to the bottom of the wave, make my turn, then put it in high gear and get as far as I could before the whole thing folded over on me. Then I’d have to take my chances on the swim in. Getting in would be half the danger — if I survived the impact zone, I’d have to fight my way through that strong side current and into the beach before I reached the rocky shoreline.”
“By this time,” Greg Noll went on, “the crowd in the water had thinned way down. I paddled about fifty yards away from the other guys to sit and do some more thinking. That’s my whole deal. I can wait. Like Peter Cole and Pat Curren, I’ve always been willing to wait for the bigger sets. I always preferred to wait it out, catch fewer waves but, I hoped, bigger ones…”
Noll got down to the essence of what it all meant to him: “What it came down to was that I realized that I’d come all this way all these years, for this moment. This ‘Makaha magic’ was only going to happen once in my lifetime and that time was NOW. The next time it happened I’d either be hobbling around on a cane or dead of old age. In either case, I’d forever miss my one chance to catch a wave this large.
“I’ve always had one kind of approach to surfing big waves. That is ‘Don’t hesitate. Once you decide to go, GO. Don’t screw around.’ You get into more trouble trying to change your mind midstream — or mid-wave — than you do if you just make a commitment and go for it.”
“I spent about half an hour going through this mental battle,” Noll admitted, “before I came to my decision: ‘I want to do this. It’s worth it to me.’ Above all, if I let this moment slip by, I knew I would never forgive myself. As cornball as it sounds, this probably was as close to the moment of truth that I would ever get.
“I paddled back to my lineup. I was oblivious to the fact that I was now the only guy left out there. All my thoughts were focused on catching THE WAVE. The wave that might be my biggest and my last. Finally, a set came thundering down that I thought looked pretty goddamn good. ‘O.K.,’ I said to myself, ‘let’s give this thing a shot.'”
“Every board I built for big waves was designed to catch waves,” Noll explained. “That meant that each board had to include three main things: length, flotation and ample scoop in the nose. The scoop enabled me to point the nose down the face of a wave and paddle hard without worrying about the nose catching a little water and causing me to hesitate. You can lose a good wave by having to pull back at the instant of takeoff, just to prevent the nose from going underwater. I wanted enough scoop in front so that when I laid that sonofabitch down and started grinding, I’d never have to hesitate.
“Boards can do funny things at high speeds. If the board isn’t shaped right, or the fin is set even slightly wrong, the board can track or catch an edge, sending you ass over teakettle. I was very familiar with my board. I had made it for big waves and used it for three seasons. For me it was the perfect big-wave board. At eleven feet, four inches long with a one-and-a-half-inch scoop in the nose, it was a big gun for big waves…”
“The first wave in the set looked huge,” Greg Noll retold in his autobiography. “Something inside me said, ‘Let it go.’ As I paddled over the top of it, I caught a glimpse of my wave. It was even bigger. I turned and began paddling, hard. I felt a rush of adrenalin as the wave approached, lifted me and my board began to accelerate. Then I was on my feet, committed.
“You could have stacked two eighteen-wheel semis on top of each other against the face of that wave and still have had room left over to ride it. I started down the front of the wave and my board began to howl like a goddamn jet. I had never heard it make that noise. I was going down the face of the wave so fast that air was getting trapped somewhere and the vibration was causing an ear-shattering WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“I flew down the face,” continued Noll, “past the lip of the wave, and when I got to the bottom, which is where I wanted to be, I looked ahead and saw the sonofabitch starting to break in a section that stretched a block and a half in front of me. I started to lay back, thinking I could dig a hole and escape through the backside of the wave. The wave threw out a sheet of water over my head and engulfed me. Then for a split second the whole scene froze forever in my mind. There I was, in that liquid green room that [Bob] Simmons [pioneering modern surfboard shaper from 1940s and early 50s] had talked about so long ago. I had been in and out of this room many times. Only this time the room was bigger, more frightening, with the thunderous roar of the ocean bouncing off its walls. I realized I wasn’t going to go flying out the other end into daylight. This time I was afraid there might be no way out.”
“My board flew out from under me,” Noll went on. “I hit the water going so fast that it felt like hitting concrete. I skidded on my back and looked up just as tons of whitewater exploded over me. It pounded me under. It thrashed and rolled me beneath the surface until my lungs burned and there was so much pressure that I felt my eardrums were going to burst. Just as I thought I would pass out, the whitewater finally began to dissipate and the turbulence released me. I made it to the surface, gulped for air and quickly looked outside. There was another monster, heading my way…”
“There have been many times at Waimea,” remembered Da Bull, “when I’ve lost my board while trying to catch a wave and had to dive deep to avoid getting caught by the whitewater, or soup, of the next wave. As a big wave passes overhead, it causes tremendous pressure to build in your ears and you have to pop them to clear it.
“Here at Makaha I waited for each wave to get within fifty to seventy-five yards outside me, then I dove down about twenty feet and waited for it to pass. When the first wave broke overhead, I popped my ears and waited a couple of seconds before I heard the muffled sound of rumbling whitewater. The underwater turbulence of the giant wall of whitewater overhead caught me and thrashed me around. These waves were so big and there was so much soup in them that, each time I went under, the pain from the pressure in my ears was almost unbearable. In waves like these, if you can’t equalize the pressure by popping your ears, you can lose an eardrum.”
“I figured the best I could do,” continued Noll, “was to try to remain oriented towards the surface and let the turbulence carry me away from the main break. By the time I cleared the impact zone, the waves had carried me inward about three hundred yards. I started swimming hard for the Point.
“I knew the current was bad and that my survival now depended on reaching the shore quickly. I reached for every ounce of strength I had left. I was still a hundred yards or so off the beach. I could see Clausmyer’s. I could see the rocky beach coming up. I was never a great swimmer, but on that day I had a real incentive to make it. I swam my ass off.”
“Even the shorebreak was breaking big,” Noll said. “I kept thinking, ‘If I don’t make it to the beach before the rocks, I’ll have no place to come in. Did I go through all this hell just to lose it in the rocks?’
“By now I was swimming almost parallel to the beach. I could see my good friend Buffalo in his lifeguard jeep, following me on shore. The current was so strong that the beach looked like it was smoking by me. I finally hit shore about fifty feet before the rocks began. I crawled up on the sand and flopped there on my stomach, just glad to be alive. Buff was there with the jeep and a cold beer. He got out, stood over me and shoved the beer in my face.
“‘Good ting you wen make’em, Brudda,” he said. ‘Cause no way I was comin’ in afta you. I was jus goin’ wave goodbye and say “Alooo-ha.”‘
The atmospheric pressure on Earth at sea level is about 1 bar. On Mars, the pressure is 6 to 10 millibars, or 1/100th that of our planet. But even in this atmosphere, wind still flows around obstacles.
Read more: www.uahirise.org/ESP_057930_1720
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Germany, Oberhausen, Gasometer, entrance to the “Big Air Package”, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, born in Bulgaria in 1935, he is just known as “Christo”. The artist generates in the accessible interior an exceptional experience of proportions, space & light with this monumental work of art, at present time it is the largest self-supporting indoor sculpture in the world. The project for the Gasometer was conceived in 2010 by Christo & is on view from March 16 to December 30, 2013.
The sculpture, which is installed inside the former gas tank, was made from 20,350 square mtr of semi-transparent polyester fabric & 4,500 mtr of rope. The inflated envelope is more than 90 meters high & 50 mtr in diameter. Its total weight is 5.3 tons & has a volume of 177,000 cubic mtr, nearly spans the distance from wall to wall of the Gasomter, leaving only a small passageway to walk around the sculpture. Two air fans creating a constant pressure of 0.27 millibar to keep the package upright, airlocks allow visitors to enter the package. Illuminated through the skylights of the Gasometer & 60 additional projectors, it creates a diffuse light throughout the interior. Inside of the Big Air Package one does not really realize the heights, outside of the balloon from the top, a 100 mtr & 10 floors high, the project shows its immense size.
Christo & Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, born in Morocco, were a married couple who created numerous environmental works of art. Their works include among others the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin, the 39 km long Running Fence in California, The Gates in New York City's Central Park & the Pont-Neuf Bridge in Paris.
They artist couple first met in Paris in October 1958, their works were credited to just "Christo" until 1994, when the outdoor works & large indoor installations were retroactively credited to "Christo & Jeanne-Claude". They flew in separate planes: in case one crashed, the other could continue their work.
...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over 650.000 clicks in my photostream with countless motivating comments
The Coastal Nor'easter along the NY New England North Atlantic Coast reached inland to Rochester NY. Here is a picture out the front window.
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A powerful coastal storm will unleash soaking rain and howling winds through Thursday from the Mid-Atlantic to New England.
The strong winds – potentially gusting up to 60 mph – may cause some tree damage and power outages, the National Weather Service said. Up to 3 inches of rain could fall in this storm, especially from eastern New York to southern Maine, where flash flooding is possible.
The latest forecast shows the storm will strengthen at a fast enough pace from Wednesday to Thursday to be classified as a "bomb cyclone," AccuWeather said. The barometric pressure has to fall at least 24 millibars, or 0.71 inches, in 24 hours for the bomb cyclone criteria to be met, in a process known as bombogenesis.
The lower a storm's barometric pressure, the more intense the storm. Weather Channel meteorologist Greg Diamond said some record low barometric pressures for October could be set.
CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen said, "The system will have the equivalent low pressure of a Category 1 hurricane." www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/16/bomb-cyclon...
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image by Photo George
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