<<After Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico, it quickly became clear that the destruction would pose daunting challenges for first responders. Most of the electric power grid and telecommunications network was knocked offline. Flooding, downed trees, and toppled power lines made many roads impassable. And that is exactly why teams of scientists at NASA are working long days to make sure that groups like the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) get high-quality satellite maps of power outages in Puerto Rico.
These before-and-after images of Puerto Rico’s nighttime lights are based on data captured by the Suomi NPP satellite. The data was acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared, including reflected moonlight, light from fires and oil wells, lightning, and emissions from cities or other human activity.
Note that these maps are not showing raw imagery of light. A team of scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Marshall Space Flight Center processed and corrected the raw data to filter out stray light from the Moon, fires, airglow, and any other sources that are not electric lights. Their processing techniques also remove as much other atmospheric interference—such as dust, haze, and thin clouds—as possible.
To make the VIIRS data more useful to first responders, the Goddard team scaled the observations onto a base map that emphasizes the locations of streets and neighborhoods. The base map makes use of data collected by the Landsat, Sentinel-2, TanDEM-X, and TerraSAR-X satellites.>>
Re: Weather!
Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 5:00 pm
by Chris Peterson
Got a couple of centimeters of snow yesterday morning. Quite early for that. We still haven't had a freeze, but it's gotten cool enough for snow, except this time of year is usually very dry. There's still grass and flowers underneath the white.
Re: Weather!
Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 5:02 am
by Fred the Cat
First snow here too. At least on the surrounding mountains. Taken at the same magnification 10 minutes apart, it's interesting how towers the appears larger in the first image than the second.
Because of the light or perspective
p.s. - Thunderbirds in town today. Whole different POV
<<The seventeenth tropical cyclone, fifteenth named storm, and the sixth major hurricane of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, Hurricane Ophelia had non-tropical origins, developing on October 9 out of a decaying cold front that had stalled over the North Atlantic in early October. After becoming a Category 2 hurricane and fluctuating in intensity for a day, Ophelia unexpectedly rapidly intensified into a major hurricane on October 14, while south of the Azores. Shortly after achieving peak intensity, Ophelia began to quickly weaken as it accelerated towards Britain and Ireland, becoming extratropical early on October 16, thus becoming the second storm of the 2017–18 UK and Ireland windstorm season.>>
Former Hurricane Ophelia rocks Ireland with 100-mph wind gusts
By Jason Samenow, Washington Post, October 16 at 11:31 AM
<<Former Hurricane Ophelia plowed into southern Ireland early Monday, unleashing wind gusts as high as 119 mph, ripping off roofs and downing trees. The Irish Meteorological Service said it could be the country’s strongest storm in 50 years. The BBC reported the storm had caused at least three deaths. The Journal, an Irish news outlet, said an “unprecedented” 360,000 customers were without power. Hurricane Ophelia became a rare Category 3 storm in the eastern Atlantic on Oct. 14 roiling the oceans south of the Azores and on target to strike Ireland. (NOAA)>>
Re: 2017 Antarctic Ozone Hole: smallest in ~30 years!
<<Past and projected future changes in reactive halogen concentrations in the atmosphere. Past concentrations are derived from NOAA measurements of both chlorine- and bromine-containing chemicals; “WMO scenarios” are from the WMO/UNEP 2014 Ozone Assessment, which are tied to NOAA observations in the past and, for the future, assume full adherence to controls on production and consumption of ODSs in the fully revised and amended Montreal Protocol (Harris and Wuebbles et al., 2014). Measured tropospheric changes are indicated with dashed curves and points, while inferred stratospheric changes are indicated as solid curves. Estimates are provided for different regions: the mid-latitude stratosphere and the Antarctic stratosphere. The down-pointing arrows represent the estimated dates that concentrations of stratospheric halogen will return to the benchmark levels present in 1980.>>
Re: Weather!
Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 11:41 pm
by Doum
yes, that graphic lookgood. it seem to work. That's great.
Re: 2017 Antarctic Ozone Hole: smallest in ~30 years!
<<Higher temperatures over Antarctica this year shrank the hole in the ozone layer to the smallest it's been since 1988. Natural variability affects this healing year-to-year, however. "The Antarctic ozone hole was exceptionally weak this year," Paul Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "This is what we would expect to see given the weather conditions in the Antarctic stratosphere."
In the upper atmosphere, CFCs break apart, freeing chlorine to react with ozone molecules, a reaction that creates oxygen and chlorine monoxide. Similar reactions occur with bromine. Polar stratospheric clouds, which form in frigid temperatures, speed up this process by providing surfaces for the reactions to occur on. That's why the ozone hole worsens in the Southern Hemisphere winter. Higher temperatures in the stratosphere, on the other hand, allow ozone to remain more stable in the atmosphere, meaning they keep the ozone hole smaller on a year-to-year basis. This year on Sept. 11, NASA measured the maximum extent of the hole at 7.6 million square miles, 2.5 times the size of the United States. That was smaller than in 2016, when the maximum extent was 8.9 million square miles, also a below-average size. According to NASA, the average maximum extent of the ozone hole since 1991 has hovered at about 10 million square miles.
However, scientists said that two years of lower-than-usual ozone hole extent isn't a sign that the ozone layer is healing faster than expected. Instead, it's a side effect of the Antarctic vortex — a low-pressure system that rotates clockwise above the southernmost continent — undergoing a few years of instability and warmth, which prevented the proliferation of polar stratospheric clouds.
Using an instrument called a Dobson spectrophotometer, NASA researchers monitor the concentration of ozone over Antarctica on a regular basis. On Sept. 25, the concentration of ozone reached a minimum of 136 Dobson Units, which is the highest minimum since 1988. However, that concentration is still low compared with the 1960s, before man-made compounds created the ozone hole. In that decade, ozone concentrations over Antarctica were between 250 and 350 Dobson Units.>>
Meaning "caustic, opinionated, and critical rhetoric" is from c.2002, probably from snarky and not directly related, if at all, to Lewis Carroll's use of snark.
snarky (adj.) "irritable, short-tempered," 1906, from snark (v.) "to find fault with, nag" (1882), literally "to snort" (1866), from an imitative source akin to Low German snarken, North Frisian snarke, Swedish snarka; and compare snarl (v.2), sneer (v.). Back-formation snark (n.) "caustic, opinionated, and critical rhetoric" is from c.2002.
Semi-frozen Niagara Falls.
Aaron Lynett/The Canadian Press via AP
Is any member of Starship Asterisk* suffering from extreme cold? Swedish newspapers claim that it is terribly cold in parts of the United States and Canada right now.
Ann
Re: Weather!
Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:02 pm
by Chris Peterson
Ann wrote:Is any member of Starship Asterisk* suffering from extreme cold? Swedish newspapers claim that it is terribly cold in parts of the United States and Canada right now.
We haven't had any winter to speak of here in our part of Colorado. Just a few inches of snow total (nothing that has stuck more than a few hours). Sunny. Most days in the 40s or even 50s, nights around freezing but seldom much below. Nice for going out hiking and riding, maybe not so nice in terms of getting moisture and killing pests. We're all hoping for a snowy spring, which is when we get most of our water.
Re: Weather!
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 1:15 am
by rstevenson
There's been a major arctic air mass hanging around eastern Canada and the northeast US for the last few weeks giving colder than average temps, while yesterday and today a somewhat larger than average storm rolled up the east coast and is passing by me tonight, generally leaving a mess in its wake. But other than the low temps so early in the winter, it's more or less... um, winter.
Rob
Re: Weather!
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 2:45 am
by bystander
Chris Peterson wrote:
We haven't had any winter to speak of here in our part of Colorado.
I don't know how you missed the Arctic front that moved into Oklahoma after Christmas with daytime highs in the teens and lows in the single digits. I guess it was all East of the Rockies. We're out of the freeze now (during the day anyway) and should be back to normal mid 50s by Sunday.
Chris Peterson wrote:
We haven't had any winter to speak of here in our part of Colorado.
I don't know how you missed the Arctic front that moved into Oklahoma after Christmas with daytime highs in the teens and lows in the single digits. I guess it was all East of the Rockies. We're out of the freeze now (during the day anyway) and should be back to normal mid 50s by Sunday.
Like the rain cloud that follows Joe Btfsplk cold air perpetually surrounds Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe in order that he can always make snowballs in order to deny global warming:
It’s Cold—And Hot—in North America
January 4, 2018
<<It is frigid in much of Canada and the Midwestern and Eastern United States. Daily low-temperature records have dropped like snowflakes. New Year’s polar plunges have been canceled due to the cold, and many people in the Southeast are in a battle to keep their pipes from freezing.
In the Western U.S., Alaska, Europe, and Asia—not so much. December and January have been abnormally warm for most of the world. People in California have been worrying about wildfires in what should be the wet season, and Alaskans are ice skating in T-shirts.
This temperature anomaly map is based on data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. It shows land surface temperatures (LSTs) from December 26, 2017 to January 2, 2018, compared to the 2001–2010 average for the same eight-day period. Red colors depict areas that were hotter than average; blues were colder than average. White pixels were normal, and gray pixels did not have enough data, most likely due to excessive cloud cover. Note that it depicts land surface temperatures, not air temperatures. Land surface temperatures reflect how hot the surface of the Earth would feel to the touch in a particular location. They can sometimes be significantly hotter or cooler than air temperatures. (To learn more about LSTs and air temperatures, read: Where is the Hottest Place on Earth?)
The map of North America underscores one of the realities of weather—when a cold snap hits one region, warmth often bakes another one. A giant meander (or Rossby wave) in the jet stream is the common thread that connects the warm weather west of the Rockies with the chill east of them. As the crest of a Rossby wave—a ridge—pushed unusually far toward Alaska in December, it dragged warm tropical air with it. In response, the other side of the wave—a trough—slid deep into the eastern United States, bringing pulses of dense, cold Arctic air south with it. The Rocky Mountains have boxed in much of the coldest, densest air, serving as a barrier between the cold and warm air masses.>>
Re: Weather!
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 5:00 am
by Chris Peterson
bystander wrote:
Chris Peterson wrote:
We haven't had any winter to speak of here in our part of Colorado.
I don't know how you missed the Arctic front that moved into Oklahoma after Christmas with daytime highs in the teens and lows in the single digits. I guess it was all East of the Rockies. We're out of the freeze now (during the day anyway) and should be back to normal mid 50s by Sunday.
We had one cold day, the solstice, where it only hit a high of about 30°, and low teens overnight. And a dusting of snow. Warm before that, warm after. (Warm meaning flannel shirt weather, not parka weather.)
Re: Weather!
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 6:15 am
by owlice
It's 12°F (-12°C) here at 1 AM. Nome Alaska is warmer (27°F/-3°C at 21:00). Our high for the day was 18°F, so yeah, still colder than Nome. Colder than Tromso (-6°C) and Bergen is having a heat wave... it's 0°C there right now. At least I'm not on Boston. My kitchen pipes tend to freeze when the temperature stays below 20°F for more than 24 hours, but so far, so good. (I swear my next house will have insulation in the walls.)
I like living someplace with four distinct seasons, but does one of those seasons have to be so freaking cold?! Frankly, I'm blaming our bitterly cold weather on the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting, starting soon at the Gaylord in National Harbor (almost but not quite DC). The last time we had weather like this was four years ago, during the first AAS meeting held at the Gaylord in National Harbor. I know correlation doesn't mean causation, but ...
<<Past and projected future changes in reactive halogen concentrations in the atmosphere. Past concentrations are derived from NOAA measurements of both chlorine- and bromine-containing chemicals; “WMO scenarios” are from the WMO/UNEP 2014 Ozone Assessment, which are tied to NOAA observations in the past and, for the future, assume full adherence to controls on production and consumption of ODSs in the fully revised and amended Montreal Protocol (Harris and Wuebbles et al., 2014). Measured tropospheric changes are indicated with dashed curves and points, while inferred stratospheric changes are indicated as solid curves. Estimates are provided for different regions: the mid-latitude stratosphere and the Antarctic stratosphere. The down-pointing arrows represent the estimated dates that concentrations of stratospheric halogen will return to the benchmark levels present in 1980.>>
