Sleepless in Midland

Ice storms -- fascinating and beautiful, but there can be a down side

Out here in drought plagued west Texas these strange events whereby water falls from the sky are rare. So the ice storm that struck over the weekend caught many of not knowing what to expect. Oh, the beauty of it all. But this silver lining had some rough edges.

Tree limbs sagged and broke from the weight of the ice.

Tree pruners will have a busy week.

But mother nature sure can make some interesting art.

Who says you can't outrun a tornado?

Let's do a little myth busting here. An old wives' tale held that you couldn't outrun a tornado, so don't even try -- it would be too dangerous. The tornado would grab your car and shake you out like salt from a salt shaker.

The tornado that hit Newcastle and Moore, Oklahoma, on May 20, 2013, was big, powerful, and dangerous. The destruction in its wake was horrible with lives lost and whole city blocks destroyed. The National Weather Service declared that it was an *EF5 tornado which means the best way to survive would have been to go underground or get out of its way.

The NWS goes on to say that it touched down at 2:45 PM CDT, left a 17 mile path which was 1.3 miles wide, and ended at 3:35 PM CDT. So 17 miles in 50 minutes gives it a traveling speed of slightly over 20 MPH.

Granted, few of us could run a 3 minute mile on foot, even with a tornado on our trail. And someone trapped in a school or other building might be in trouble. But look at some of the video samples here and here. Anyone in an automobile should have been able to get away from it, even those fool hardy storm chasers in that second video. The traffic wasn't that bad.

So anyone wondering whether to hide in the hallway or jump in a car and skedaddle has the answer.

*EF5 means that three-second gusts estimated at the point of damage were over 200 MPH. See Enhanced Fujita scale.

Hurricane reporters wading the path to greatness

It's hard not to laugh at TV reporters sometimes, especially in hurricane season.

They are so earnest and exited. Newcomers to hurricane prone territories become jaded by about the second season they are there. That's the case on the Gulf Coast, anyway. Sometimes it pays to get exited, but usually most of the gusting wind comes from the reporters' mouths.

Now granted, hurricane Sandy did bring a large amount of water on land. But in the midst of it the streets of NYC looked damp but not flooded as people strolled in view of the Times Square web cam.

Back to the TV. I don't remember which network it was, but there was the typical hurricane reporter standing out in the wind and rain talking to the camera. And he remarked about all the other people out and about as the hurricane was just off coast and how they should not be there. He was so quick witted he immediately recognized that he himself was violating his own advice. But it was OK because he was a trained reporter. Hilarious!

Dan Rather blazed the hurricane reporting trail, and intrepid reporters have been following the soggy footprints of that questionable roll model ever since.

Tornado map

The other day we linked to a Wind Map which presents an amazing digital display of wind across the U.S.

Today it's tornadoes. John Nelson at IDV Solutions gathered the raw data and put together maps showing tornado strikes in the U.S for the years 1950 - 2011. The one you see on the right is a small sampler copied from his page and doesn't really do the project justice. To get the big (humongous) picture click 5393 x 2939.

But don't stop there. He's also got them sorted by F scale and by season.

Haven't had enough? This video show strikes by month where he notes, "Animation shows the annual migration of tornadoes northward throughout the season." And this one shows strikes by year.

Some parts of the country appear to be at minimal risk. But the rest of us might be tempted to start digging our own shovel ready project.

Via  via.

Digitizing the wind for a cool looking map

The image on the left was snipped at about 4:00 pm Eastern today at Wind Map. What you see here is a static image which really doesn't do the site justice. Go there to see the wind flow.  Zoom in on one of those spirals and you can almost feel it.

 
The image on the right is an old fashioned weather map snipped at Accuweather.com at around the same time, although it says 5:00pm Eastern. Note how the low pressure line on that map correlates so nicely to all of that activity on the wind map.

Blow, blow like the wind.

A white Christmas in dry West Texas

Snow! Yes snow!

Someone dreamed of a white Christmas. And with snow falling all day Christmas eve and freezing overnight temps, it was a dream come true.

Here in drought plagued West Texas the moisture was indeed welcome. And at Christmas!

What a sight. Luckily most of the streets were free of ice.

Merry Christmas everyone!

First frost

The record keepers missed it, so it will remain "unofficial." However the town of Midland, Texas, experienced it's first freeze of the 2011/2012 winter season on the morning of Saturday, October 29, 2011. Proof, while not in the record books, was seen on the frosty grass and glistening rooftops.

Does this serve as a predictor of another ultracold winter? Perhaps. Someone suggested that the drought contributes to the cold winters by removing moisture from the air that might have helped to retain heat.  Wear layers.

Remembering the blizzard of '11

Man, we had some blizzards back in the day. It was the first week in February of '11, and I remember it like it was yesterday. What a severe cold snap that was. The temperature didn't get out of the teens for a full day.

We had to walk over a thin layer of snow just to get the morning newspaper.

It was so bad the TV cable went out, and we had to resort to movies on the VCR. What a terrible time that was. I hope you never have it so bad.

Hail roils swimming pool -- Oklahoma City

This is a fascinating video of someone's back yard pool during a hail storm in Oklahoma City a couple of weeks ago. The hail stones are huge, they come down hard, and the pool water roils like a rough sea. Watch it here or here and appreciate a good roof.

A little bit of El Nino shouldn't hurt anybody

West Texas is experiencing a mild cold front at the moment, and there's a possibility a light freeze might occur tonight or tomorrow. There was frost on the roof the other day, so this won't be the first freeze, although it will be the coldest so far this winter.

Recently some folks were saying that the word in Northern New Mexico is that El Nino will bring in lots of moisture this winter, with the result being plenty of snow on the slopes. Well maybe. NOAA's winter outlook speculates that the region will be basically El Nino neutral with "Equal Chances" in regard to precipitation.

So, good for sight seers, bad for skiers.