Weather Chat Megathread

[ProtoJeb21]

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: umm...not to freak anyone out, but it looks like Jose may or may not be close to becoming a Category 5...

Edited September 8, 2017 by ProtoJeb21

[Cabbink]

11 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: umm...not to freak anyone out, but it looks like Jose may or may not be close to becoming a Category 5...

At least it won't hit land, right?

RIGHT?

 

[Ten Key]

2 hours ago, Cabbink said:

At least it won't hit land, right?

RIGHT?

 

 

[Cabbink]

8 minutes ago, Ten Key said:

 

Rip Bermuda. 

[Green Baron]

Why Bermuda ? The Bermudas are, if at all on the course of Jose, far in the future and probably it has lost its power until then.

It is the poor northern Leeward Islands that will receive the rest ...

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Sending this to USGS. Can solar weather affect geology? Need more data points. Sadly and perhaps fortunately, X class flares of these scales aren't common.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Maelstrom Vortex

[Green Baron]

I can't see the image you embedded ... might be an error on my side.

7 minutes ago, Maelstrom Vortex said:

Can solar weather affect geology?

Well, the effect of a momentary event on geology (here: sedimentary geology) is limited if at all visible. Solar activity rather not. Some tsunamis do, or debris flows.

OTOH cycles that result from orbital parameters are visible. They are called Milankovitch - cycles.

Whether a speculative sun spot cycle has a representation in deposits ... hmm, i don't know, never heard of, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist if the sun spot cycles exist.

[ProtoJeb21]

Umm....IRMA IS STRENGTHENING AGAIN! Winds are back up to 155 mph, just as the GFS model predicted - slight weakening before returning to Cat 5 status. It's only a matter of time before Hurricane Irma re-attains Category 5 intensity. After that, it is still predicted to become a 900-890 mbar storm prior to Florida landfall.

[cratercracker]

*slowly freezing in Moscow*

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Super rare phenomena, only occurs during geomagnetic-ally induced quakes:

https://twitter.com/SUUMA_CDMX/status/906039726959820800

[Green Baron]

Geomagnetism doesn't cause earthquakes.

I assume you mean power lines / transformers influenced by a magnetic storm as suggested in one of the comments, yeah, that exists and is rare.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Green Baron

[ProtoJeb21]

Here's a great article from Buisness Insider about Irma's intensity and the conditions leading to an above-average hurricane season this year.

http://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-irma-effect-on-hurricane-season-2017-9

There are three important things I have learned from this article: 

1.) Cuba is screwed

2.) Florida is screwed

3.) WE'RE ALL SCREWED

[RoadRunnerAerospace]

Don`t forget jose! 

Largest population center in U.S. is screwed

[ProtoJeb21]

I think Irma may be rapidly intensifying into a sub-910 mbar storm. With its Eyewall Replacement Cycle completing, Irma has become a very well-defined, annular tropical cyclone with a shrinking but deep eye. This is reminding me too much of Hurricane Wilma, and how it looked similar to this when rapidly intensifying into an 882 mbar hurricane. Right now there are two Hurricane Hunters recon flights out in the storm, so we won't have to wait long for an answer. In the meantime, the updated NHC track shows Irma re-attaining Category 5 intensity just south of the Florida Keys on September 10th.

Jose also has some impressive satellite imagery. It has a huge, clear eye and a ring of tall and powerful thunderstorms around the eyewall. I wouldn't be shocked if it becomes a Category 5.

[Green Baron]

30 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Here's a great article from Buisness Insider about Irma's intensity and the conditions leading to an above-average hurricane season this year.

http://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-irma-effect-on-hurricane-season-2017-9

There are three important things I have learned from this article:

Seems to be a thorough article i'd say. Though i wouldn't go so far to say "we all are screwed" i fear that more than anticipated actually may be.

Looking forward to adjustments in the models to account for accelerating thawing, warming and level rise we have seen lately.

[SaturnianBlue]

@ProtoJeb21 I wouldn't say Irma is annular—though its eye is quite large, it is nothing close to that of Isabel, for example. There's also a lot of outflow, and Wilma was kind of the opposite of annular—it had the smallest eye for a hurricane ever. I don't think it'll reach it's previous strength, but a category 5 is quite possible. 

Jose could prove to be a second hit for the Leewards, and it doesn't help that Irma damaged a lot of structures still standing

Surprising that Katia hasn't become a major—it intensified much slower than I would've expected, and it's got 6 hours to go till landfall. 

Even without Jose becoming a Cat 5, or Katia becoming a major, the Atlantic has produced more ACE today than any other day on record.  We're already at the average ACE for a season, and we've had three category 4+ storms in a row (1st time), and three category 2+ storms at once (2nd time). Lastly, we've had two storms at 150 mph winds at once, which has never been recorded. The 2017 hurricane season is doing things that even the 2005 season never did.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

Geomagnetism doesn't cause earthquakes.

I assume you mean power lines / transformers influenced by a magnetic storm as suggested in one of the comments, yeah, that exists and is rare.

I have a hypothesis that it does, just not all earthquakes.. it's not an all to all relationship, but a select to few, and that it hasn't been adequately tested against geo-effective flare and cme activity. If you compare earthquakes to general sunspot activity you will never find a correlation, but if you compare it to geo-effective flares and cmes, I highly suspect you would, especially at X8 and above with associated geo-magnetic storms. In particular, these events would be associated with higher yield seismic or volcananic release events. Clear examples of these incidences are Fukashima and this particular quake in Mexico which were preceded by global upheavals in geomagnetic flux induced by charged particle bombardment after high yield X class flares and CMEs. In both events, the activity occurred literally within days of recorded impact of the events on global magnetometers.

Earthquake lights are a fairly well documented phenomena and are often unrelated to any power-transformer or power-line discharges. Most laboratory tests have been centered around electrostatic discharge from rock layers, due to the friction like during a thunderstorm the clouds convey lightning. However, I'm more thinking that when the earth's magnetic field lines are impacted by particularly high velocity and high energy CME  and flare events that the field lines flex, putting stress on high ferrous concentrations of rocks in fault zones resulting in more of an aurora-like discharge at the surface with the associated quake being an event encouraged by magnetically induced stress.

Earth is a giant magnet. If you put two magnets close to each other they either generate a pull or a push depending on the orientation on pulls. Apply this on a planet wide scale and you can imagine the forces generated from even a very small current. 

Edited September 8, 2017 by Maelstrom Vortex

[Just Jim]

13 minutes ago, Maelstrom Vortex said:

Earthquake lights are a fairly well documented phenomena and are often unrelated to any power-transformer or power-line discharges. Most laboratory tests have been centered around electrostatic discharge from rock layers, due to the friction like during a thunderstorm the clouds convey lightning. However, I'm more thinking that when the earth's magnetic field lines are impacted by particularly high velocity and high energy CME  and flare events that the field lines flex, putting stress on high ferrous concentrations of rocks in fault zones resulting in more of an aurora-like discharge at the surface with the associated quake being an event encouraged by magnetically induced stress.

Funny, I was just reading this... someone got video of the "Earthquake Lights" last night

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/09/08/mysterious-lights-appear-in-mexico-sky-during-massive-earthquake.html?

[Maelstrom Vortex]

2 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Funny, I was just reading this... someone got video of the "Earthquake Lights" last night

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/09/08/mysterious-lights-appear-in-mexico-sky-during-massive-earthquake.html?

Usually exploding power lines and transformers look like bright point based flashes. If you look at those explosions closely they appear to form v's up towards the sky.. you know where else you frequently see V's  of light exploding up towards the sky? Solar flares. Do you know why? Shaped by the same forces. Magnetic field. Some of those lights look like they might be transformers going off as they-re more ball shaped originations, but most of them have this v-burst shape pattern to them.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Maelstrom Vortex

[Just Jim]

1 minute ago, Maelstrom Vortex said:

Usually exploding power lines and transformers look like bright point based flashes. If you look at those explosions closely they appear to form v's up towards the sky.. you know where else you frequently see V's  of light exploding up towards the sky? Solar flares. Do you know why? Shaped by the same forces. Magnetic field. Some of those lights look like they might be transformers going off as they-re more ball shaped originations, but most of them have this v-burst shape pattern to them.

Yeah, and I don't ever remember seeing blue or green transformer explosions... well, maybe green. But most of those had an almost aurora kind of look to them.

[tater]

ACE data is only useful for several decades, right? We know the specifics about all TCs in modern times, vs some data from some storms (those that hit land areas with decent weather stations).

[Green Baron]

Guys don't put too much interpretation in a bad quality video with funny flashes. It might just be a joke.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Green Baron

[SaturnianBlue]

13 minutes ago, tater said:

ACE data is only useful for several decades, right? We know the specifics about all TCs in modern times, vs some data from some storms (those that hit land areas with decent weather stations).

True—you'd want consistent tracking of storms, since there may be storms that aren't detected, though i'd imagine that most strong storms would be recorded. For example, the 1950 hurricane season has one of the highest ACE's, and this was before satellite imagery.

[ProtoJeb21]

Right now, there are FIVE Hurricane Hunters reconissance flights out and about. Irma missions #23 and #24 are currently wrapping up after doing a total of 3-5 passes around the eye. One flight is headed out for each hurricane - one for Irma, another for Jose, and the third for Katia. It seems like they were only launched within the last half hour, so there's still plenty of time before we'll hear anything new. However, missions #23 and #24 reported winds close to 140-145 knots (161-167 mph) with pressures between 925 and 920 mbar. Those results were recorded about one or two hours ago.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

2 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Guys don't put too much interpretation in a bad quality video with funny flashes. It might just be a joke.

If it's video editing, they did a convincing job and had quite a few people in on it. If it's a joke, it's a city wide joke that had a lot of folks in on it as there are multiple videos of this event.