APOD: Hurricane Season Animated (2017 Nov 27)

[APOD Robot]

Hurricane Season Animated

Explanation: Where do hurricanes go? To better understand dangerous storms, NASA compiled data from several satellites into a supercomputer simulation of this past year's hurricane season. Specifically, the featured video shows how smoke (white), sea salt (blue), and dust (brown) tracked from 2017 August through October across the northern half of Earth's Western Hemisphere. These aerosols usefully trace sometimes invisible winds. In the midst of the many mesmerizing flows, hurricanes can be seen swirling across the Atlantic Ocean on the right. Some of these hurricanes lashed islands and coastal regions in North America before dissipating in the northern Atlantic. Studying this year's weather patterns may bolster more accurate storm forecasts as soon as next year.

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[santafedog]

I like the music, but I absolutely hate when the editor thinks the music is the most important thing about the video. In this case, the music should be subdued so we can hear the voice and understand it. You ruined the whole video for me. If I had wanted to watch a MUSIC VIDEO, I would have searched for one. Thank you.
Brad

[BDanielMayfield]

It certainly was a bad Atlantic hurricane season. Harvey made its first USA landfall in the county we formerly resided in; San Patricio Texas. It hastened our move to Idaho.

Bruce

[Boomer12k]

Interesting....

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[NCTom]

Had the sound turned off. The video was fascinating. Too many of these storms got close to home on the eastern coast.

[orin stepanek]

Loved the video; didn't really pay any attention to the music! The description of the narrator was very interesting!

[MarkBour]

I learned the answer to: "Why do northern hurricanes always spin counter-clockwise" from pop-science articles and Google. I can see from this detailed depiction that my understanding was incomplete.

The video shows that (at least during most of the season) the entire North Atlantic basin showed an overall clockwise circulation. If you look hard enough, near Europe, you can even see some tighter rotations occurring that are clockwise. Nevertheless, every tight circulation (hurricane) spun counterclockwise, and also spun quite rapidly compared to the rest of the activity. So, now I have a slightly deeper understanding of the Coriolis effect. Perhaps I'm the only student who missed this the first time through learning about it.

In fact the Coriolis effect causes moving air masses in the northern hemisphere to deflect into a clockwise curve. But the effect on a small-scale circulation of a low-pressure area, where air is rushing in to the center from all sides, causes the eye to spin in the opposite direction. Hence, the central storm winds spin counter-clockwise. It is the same clockwise turning on a larger scale, but it appears negative around a low-pressure center.

The video also shows some interesting interactions between hurricanes. One hurricane can strongly influence the movement of another, and there were even some interactions that looked like one hurricane destroyed another, although there are lots of factors that would make such a conclusion far too simplistic.

[empty_space]

I could (and have) watched this over and over there is so much to see. Are Texas and the southern US states puffing smoke on a daily basis? (Particular clear in September) Why more there and so much less elsewhere? Is it oilfields – I would have thought they would be 24h operation. Or just large cities going about their daily life, in which case why not similar in other places?

Would love to see a global view of the same data sets.

[alcor]

Very interesting video. Both the hurricanes and the smoke got me. I will certainly go back to the video, for more look later. It tells so much!

Even southern Sweden got a part of hurricane Ophelia, as the sky got a vague orange tint.

[BDanielMayfield]

Are Texas and the southern US states puffing smoke on a daily basis?

Quite literally, yes. Glad to be out where the air is cleaner.

Why more there and so much less elsewhere? Is it oilfields – I would have thought they would be 24h operation. Or just large cities going about their daily life, in which case why not similar in other places?

Texas does have large cities, and lots of petrochemical refineries.

[De58te]

Also unusual is that Iceland seems to have a Star Trek type force field up. None of the blue smog no matter how bright can pass over Iceland! It gets whipped around like as if the Iceland shields are up. The brown Sahara dust smoke though passes right over Iceland.

[Spiffy]

Fascinating! I'd love to see similar videos for other regions of the globe.

[suicidejunkie]

Also unusual is that Iceland seems to have a Star Trek type force field up. None of the blue smog no matter how bright can pass over Iceland! It gets whipped around like as if the Iceland shields are up. The brown Sahara dust smoke though passes right over Iceland.

To be fair, the blue is sea salt. That doesn't tend to go over land like the smoky/dusty air does.

That did prompt me to take another look at the west edge and wow, those full strength hurricanes really push the salt up far onto what used to be dry land.

[Cousin Ricky]

Too many of these storms got close to home on the eastern coast.

Two of those storms went over my home.