The KX Weather Blog

KX Weather Blog with Ryan Davidson and Tom Szymanski

06/04/09

The Cooler Week Ahead!

So no doubt by now you've seen that temperatures will be cooler in the week ahead. Well below average and normal. I mean come on!!! Upper 40s?!!? This is JUNE not APRIL! Either way its unavoidable, so might as well just give you an example of how the ENSO neutral conditions (which was discussed in the previous blog and in the previous weather extra) in the Pacific are driving our weather. With those warm spots in the Western Pacific and Eastern Pacific...(right below Mexico) the warm water helps generate weather systems because of the evaporating moisture. The lifting mechanisms act to create lows and in weather just like everything else, what goes up must come down. And that's what happens between them, the air sinks. Sinking air in the atmoshpere generates high pressure, which is ususlly associated with a ridge.

And this ridge forms just East of the center of the Pacific as my wonderful MS Paint skills clearly show here. hahah
Then Newton comes in to play, where every action has an equal and opposite reaction. When this ridge is created somewhere (relatively close) a trough has to form. And there does, on either side of the Big Pacific high a trough forms dropping cooler air. And this is how much of our summer will settle. Every now and again we may have a wiggle in the patter so we will see some hot weather, but this just may be a not-so-hot summer...but as Tom Szymanski routinely says "but then again, MAYBE NOT!"

~Ryan

Posted At 06/04/09

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05/28/09

Cooler Summer

Ag reporter Sarah Gustin heard that this summer was supposed to be cooler than the June-July-August average. And she would be right. The latest climate forecast says that this summer has a 40% chance of being cooler than normal. And that is mainly due to the change over from La Nina to what climatologists call ENSO-Neutral (El Nino, Southern Oscillation Neutral)...which means that the Pacific Ocean will be cooler in the East and in the Western Pacific it will be warmer. This ends up shifting the weather pattern by creating a ridge of high pressure and above average temperatures in the West and Southwest and a trough of low pressure with cooler temperatures in the Northern plains. This doesn't mean a stagnant weather pattern, but it does mean that we are more likely to see this pattern set up and hang around for a little while.
This could do a few things. We could be on the eastern side of the jet stream and be "slightly" cooler but have calm weather...or we could be right in the path of the jet and be like that Katy Perry song Hot 'n Cold. Hot during the day with a good chance for severe afternoon showers and thunderstorms. So we'll have to see how the pattern sets up in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

~Ryan

Posted At 05/28/09

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05/21/09

Heat Burst

So this heat burst was incredible!

I mean can you imagine all of a sudden you hear the wind blowing and you think, uh oh I better go close my windows a storm is coming. You get up to shut it and you are hit with a 50-60mph wind that's a stifling 95 degrees!!

In the weather extra I briefly touched on the movie "The Day After Tomorrow," which has a huge climate shifting weather system pour over the Northern hemisphere. Without going all nit-picky on the scientifically inaccurate pieces of the film, which there are a number of, (many specifically related to weather) most of the science is fudged around the premise that air pulled down really fast from the upper troposphere does not have enough time to "warm up." Well here is where the ideal gas law comes into play. The equation PV=nRT pretty much says that pressure P and volume V are directly related to temperature T (n is the number of moles of gas and R is the gas constant). So to break it down, the laws of physics (and chemistry) say that if I increase the pressure on a volume of gas the temperature will have to rise. With meteorology this means that air at a temperature of 10 degress fahrenheit at 10-5 thousand feet would be near 95-100 degrees when it hits the ground...not to mention that all that air is moving downward pretty fast so there is a whole lot of wind as well.

~Ryan

Posted At 05/21/09

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05/05/09

CoCoRAHS (Not an Exotic Drink)

If you are reading this...you need to join CoCoRAHS. The community, collaborative, Rain, Hail and Snow network, is in association with the National Weather Service. They aren't a branch of the NWS, its a volunteer non-profit organization aimed at providing a more complete picture of rainfall across the US!

Click HERE to see the CoCoRAHS reporst and to become and observer yourself!

The Dakota Storm Center has become a member of CoCoRAHS and will be providing the rainfall data for North Bismarck. Hopefully our station in Minot will be up and running soon as well. In the meantime I encourage you...weather buff or not to join and help bring a more complete weather data picture to everyone who can use it.

~Ryan

Posted At 05/05/09

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04/10/09

ADVECTION

So in the latest installment of weather extra, we went over (very briefly) the concept of advection. Advection is the transport of something in the atmosphere from one place to another. There's warm air advection (abbreviated WAA), cold air advection (CAA), vorticity advection (PVA), moisture advection...ok you get the idea.
What is advection? Well, in the weather extra I likened it to a tractor trailer moving large quantities of warm air from Mandan to Bismarck. Here is a simpler graphic version of that idea:

A generally undisturbed air mass over North Dakota. Warm air in the Southwest and cooler air in the Northeast. When we add the movement of wind (black arrows) the air will start to move, bringing with it the different temperatures. Notice that in the Northwest, air is moving from the 40's to the 60's...and in the Southeast the air is moving from the 60's to the 40's. It would be if a low pressure system were centered over McLean County. As the winds push the air in its respective directions places like Dunn County will see a decrease in temperature while Stutsman County will see an increase in temperature. As in the picture below:

Stustman County was in the mid-50's but now is in the upper 50's pushing 60...while Dunn county was in the 60's and is now dropping into the 50's. Notice too, that I added fronts. When warm air advances on cooler air a warm front is formed...albeit warm air advection does not always mean that a warm front is created and vice-versa cold air advection doesn't always mean a cold front is established. With the case I presented above, this type of circulation (on normally associated with a Low pressure center) would create frontal boundries.
So there you have it. A crash course in advection. Feel free to post questions if you want to know more.

~Ryan

Posted At 04/10/09

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03/04/09

The New and Improved Weather Page!!

We've made some improvements. I'm sure you've seen it. And thanks to some viewer input we also made some changes to our changes based on your impressions of the new page. And much like many new things, change is sometimes difficult, but I hope that with the latest installment of weather extra you'll have a much better understanding of how to navigate this user friendly weather page. Tune in or click on the weather extra link to find out more!!

~Ryan

Posted At 03/04/09

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02/16/09

Freezing Fog and Doing the Morning Weather

     So after doing the 10pm weather on Sunday night I rushed home to jump into bed so that I could get the most sleep possible. Doing the "turn-around" for the morning show can be rough...in two ways...you know you will only get 4 hours of sleep AND you only get 4 hours of sleep. Although I am happy that last night I said there would be a chance for some freezing fog...and on my way into the station this morning, the beauty of that prediction was all over the trees and buildings.
     If you want to know a really cool weather trick...
     You can tell which way the wind was predominately blowing last night. How you ask? Look at the trees and bushes covered in the frost from the fog...go ahead, I'll wait........
     Did you see? There is mainly ice on only one side of the trees and other objects? Its cool...but then again I'm one of those weather nerds.

~Ryan

Posted At 02/16/09

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02/13/09

Deceptive Weather

So as I did 7 the forecasts today for the morning shift I find myself beating the weather story into my own head. Which is that it will be sunny but really cold. I mean it just stinks that the sun can be out and it can still be 18 degrees. It should feel warm outside as much as it does standing in front of a big glass window with the sun beating on you! Alas the sun can't heat the air, and when there is snow on the ground, there is little chance of that heat energy sticking around to warm the air.
No this blog post isn't all woe-is me its cold out. The good thing about the winter solstice being behind us is that the sun is climbing higher in the sky. So we are getting much more potent energy from the limited daylight hours. don't you notice how if you leave your car parked facing south, go into work and then come out for lunch it isn't as cold inside yoru car as it is outside anymore? Makes the onset of spring look really good doesn't it? Getting into a warm car...ahhh...although it can get to be too much in summer where you get in your car and hopefully don't sizzle when you touch the steering wheel -or worse, you have a leather interior and your thighs sizzle when you get in. OUCH! (though compared to now...I'd take sizzle over freeze!)

~Ryan

Posted At 02/13/09

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12/03/08

Driving in Winter Weather

It is that time of year when the roads get snow and ice on them...they melt a bit and then freeze again. Check out the Driving in Winter Weather, Weather Extra. And yes, that is me driving my truck and our photographer Chris driving his front-wheel-drive car. Both of us have had plenty of experience in poor weather conditions and know how to react accordingly. For more information and tips on driving in icy weather check out this link at CBS News.com

Driving in Icy Weather

~Ryan

Posted At 12/03/08

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11/21/08

HUFF HILLS

    If you happened to see last night's weather extra and KX News at noon the following Thursday, then you undoubtedly know where my favorite place to go in the winter in North Dakota is.
Huff Hills
    I love outdoor sports (and while this could seem like an advertisement...well its not...not intentionally) and when winter arrives, there isn't much to do outside except to well ski or snowboard. I used to be a pretty good skier and after seeing how affordable it was to snowboard there, I decided to try it. It is a lot of fun and much more of a workout than skiing. Don't get me wrong skiing is great, I do still enjoy it, but snowboarding is much more challenging.
    After the blizzard it looked like we would have a great amount of snow for a good base at Huff. Well darn it if we didn't get a nice westerly wind for a few days and a chinook blew warm air across the state, turning the 9 inches of snow into soggy, muddy soil.
    But now temperatures seem to be on the way down. And that will mean great weather for making snow. And then I can finally hit the slopes and perfect my snowboarding skills!! Woo Hoo!!

Posted At 11/21/08

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About Me

Interests

Favorite Movies

Favorite Books

Favorite TV Shows

The Cooler Week Ahead!

Cooler Summer

Heat Burst

CoCoRAHS (Not an Exotic Drink)

ADVECTION

The New and Improved Weather Page!!

Freezing Fog and Doing the Morning Weather

Deceptive Weather

Driving in Winter Weather

HUFF HILLS

The KX Weather Blog | KXNet.com North Dakota