KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

High pressure over the SE U.S. will push to the southwest ushering deep tropical moisture and a potential tropical system westward into Texas and Mexico over the next several days.  This means rain chances will gradually decrease across Acadiana through Friday with typical July heat and humidity and surpressed rain chances Friday into the weekend. 

In fact, the pattern looks rather sedate finally with respect to the tropics for the better part of a week (after the system in the Gulf moves inland by Friday) with no major suspect areas anticipated through the second week of July.  We could see a more active tropical pattern redevelop for the 3rd week of this month…with the eventually that it will likely get very busy in the tropics from mid-August on.  For now, enjoy the heat and humidity, but not too much, as heat indices will likely reach the 105-108 degree mark this weekend.

The tropical moisture plume will re-establish across Southern Louisiana this week as two areas of weak low pressure will be players in Acadiana’s weather.  The front burner system is a weak (1010mb) low just south of Atchafalaya Bay which is expected to drift northwestward through Wednesday.  Although this system is not truly tropical in nature nor is it expected to strengthen much, it will be responsible for enhancing Acadiana’s rain chances (daytime and night-time) for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Locally heavy rainfall will be possible as this system will open the door to deep tropical moisture through mid-week. 

A secondary system in the Northwestern Caribbean is associated with a broad area of surface low pressure with deep disorganized tropical showers and storms.  This feature will push in the central Gulf of Mexico by mid-week and should help to provide another day of enhanced showers and storms for Acadiana Thursday. 

The bottom line is that this week will be another wetter and cloudier than normal one…at least this will keep our high temperatures closer to the mid-upper 80s.  Few storms and hotter temperatures should return for the weekend.

Flood Watches are in effect for much of Southern Louisiana through Thursday morning including the I-10 and coastal parishes in Acadiana.  Rainfall totals over the next several days will generally be in the 2-3″ range with isolated areas possibly receiving 5″ or more through Thursday. 

KATC’s FutureCast is actually indicating much more rainfall over the next 72 hours across portions of Louisiana with hot spots over Southeast Louisiana and possibly coastal Acadiana exceeding 10″.  What happens in “real-life” and on the computer are almost always two different things but the model is highlighting the potential for heavy rains….hopefully most of this will remain offshore.

Meanwhile Alex continues to churn and slowly intensify in the Southwestern Gulf of Mexico with landfall expected south of the Texas border Wednesday evening/night.  Alex should become a hurricane later tonight as drier more stable air on the northwestern flank of this system has kept the system a tropical storm today.  That drier air appeared to be getting sealed out of the system late this afternoon so the storm is likely very close to a hurricane as of this evening.

Gusty easterly winds offshore the Louisiana coast will likely ramp up Wednesday while swells from the south make for 4-8 foot seas close to home but deep water areas toward the oil spill will likely push into the 8-12 foot range.   Tides along the coast were running 1 foot above normal today and should continue to near 2 feet above normal Wednesday.  A Coastal Flood Advisory continues as of this evening for elevated tides expected through Thursday.

You may have noticed that  haven’t been on air this week and many thanks to KATC I have been attending the American Meteorological Society’s Broadcast conference in beautiful Miami Beach.  This conference combines presentations obviously about weather, but also how to be a better broadcaster and communicator of scientific information including topics outside of the weather realm. 

Roughly 200 attendees had the opportunity to take a course in tropical meteorology which was quite informative and we are looking forward to touring the National Hurricane Center…the mecca for tropical meteorologists! 

In addition, Hurricane Center Director Bill Read will be the keynote speaker at lunch today provided the tropical wave in the Western Caribbean doesn’t develop too quickly… if not we may be seeing him and his team in action at the NHC.   

This morning the subject of climate change has been the focus…always interesting perspectives…with disaster mitigation on the docket through the early afternoon.  Hopefully that will be followed by a little sand and surf later this today. 

Incidentally the talk of the conference amoungst many of us meteorologists has been the oil disaster in the Gulf.  Visually my flight out of  Houston was quite interesting where I did see what I believe were ribbons of oil roughly 20 miles off the Bolivar Peninsula  near Galveston along the upper Texas coast.  Flying over the main spill area south of Venice Monday was also quite interesting with colors more a kin to the dispersant rather than oil.  Again these are more casual observations and the visual inspection offshore the Louisiana Coast was from 30,000ft.  Obviously the big story over the last couple of days has been the thick stuff washing up onto Pensacola Beach…rough to watch. 

The new wild card of late is what Dave and Chris have been watching in the Western Caribbean…this system continues to show slow signs of development with models carrying this “something” into the Central Gulf by early next week…a tropical storm may be quite possible…never dull in our world.  Stay with KATC for the latest on the system as Hurricane Hunters should be on their way to investigate later today.  I will see you Monday!

Acadiana is our home so when close to 2,000 square miles of land disappear a natural disaster becomes a national crisis.   Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act a Federal protection plan would be able to work directly with those charged with cleaning and restoring the coast because of the oil spill.  So I am going to say it, and maybe you thought the same.  Why is that every time a disaster effects our coast either man made or natural the entire Nation and even the world notice after the fact?  Lets take part of that delayed reaction as a compliment and an example of how important Louisiana is to the world, and not just economically. The other  excuse ,”out of site…out of mind”.   We are stuck between two extremes, the collapse and preservation.  The middle, lies a natural wonder that supports almost one-fourth of the domestic oil and gas production, and the largest seafood harvest in the lower 48 states.   The Natural Gas resources have only just begun to be researched and geologist say the supply is one of the largest in the world.  Wetlands protect the  shipping and fuel production corridors in the U.S. from hurricanes  and open gulf conditions one of those ports receives over a million barrels of oil every day, that’s more than 13% of  our foreign oil supply.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita really showed America how dependent they were to Louisiana.  I know first hand the panic Southeastern States were under when even a mention of gas not being available.  Prices were over $6 a gallon at the pump and the lines were down the road.  This was said to have cost Americans $1 BILLION dollars a day.  That crisis lasted only days as gas become undeliverable to major cities immediately following the storms.  More than likely most people you ask that live outside this area don’t even remember those days, I will give some credit, maybe they would recall if mentioned.  We are the ones that stay to repair….work….succeed….live….learn….play….love….and die here.              The resources are present and available and the technology to harvest improves everyday.  To just stop drilling would be to choke us.  I am going to put myself out there and say this.  Yes, we need to make improvements and learn more about drilling a mile below the Gulf surface.  Today the worlds deep water  remains an unknown and  unexplored part of the world that we know very little about.  But we must move ahead and learn from the tragedy.  Action + Progress = Success to us all.   Don Briggs, L.O.G.A.  President, said it best…”think about this after Katrina and Rita there were several rigs that were damaged some destroyed the amount of spilled oil was minimal”, he reminds me that he does not want to speculate on  what happened but said “this was a devastating failure and we lost 11 people”.  Those men gave it all.

The value we have here in Acadiana also lives in the estuaries,  the unique mixture of salt and fresh water are the nursery for shrimp, crabs, and several fish species.  The dockside harvest value averages $310 million, and the recreational boating and fishing is a billion dollar industry.   We came here and they laughed…we settled here and they said it could not be done.  We found success here and now they want to take it away.   My experience tells me it’s in the best interest now for oil companies to be safe, responsible and profitable.  Not careless.  The businesses  in Acadiana that are strong and working are the ones that operate honestly and safely.  It just does not fly any other way here.

A cultural heritage made famous with Mardi Gras is rooted much deeper than just parties and parades.  It is a heritage of family and friends, hunting and fishing, cooking and community.  Yes also we must give thanks to the prosperity that comes from living near the rich marshes, estuaries and fossil fuel mines below.   I have always been  proud of the independence Louisiana has when faced with a disaster…..we take care of our own.  Would you say $14 billion was high price to protect the coast, but think about if nothing was done the cost is estimated to be $100 billion.  Our nation can not afford to lose this critical infrastructure for energy production, commercial shipping, oil and gas distribution, and seafood harvests.  Yes we can have it all…a pristine and vital coast that produces, protects and brings us all glory.

C.W.P.P.R.A

* Attend public meetings

*  Subscribe to Water Marks

*  Study coastal wetland loss and restoration issues

*  Volunteer

More information:  www.LaCoast.gov  (337) 266 8623

So TruVu Max is up and running and we are pleased with where we stand. Together with the most experienced weather team, this new weather system is the best of the best and will serve to protect and inform Acadiana.  Obviously the crude disaster has kept us in an elevated state of weather and news coverage and the approaching “busy” hurricane season has us preparing for the active months ahead.

By adding this  major software and hardware upgrades to our weather facilities as well we stand stronger and well prepared. This is also in addition to recent processor upgrade to Power Doppler 3000 (which gives us the highest definition radar in all of Southern Louisiana) we have unveiled the KATC Interactive Stormtracker.   The interactive tracker takes National Weather Service Doppler radar imagery and allows the user zoom down to neighborhood level and gives full control to the user to watch weather in Acadiana or anywhere in the U.S.  In addition, other tools such as user controlled animation, satellite imagery, land and water temperature contours and lightning data, there are exclusive tools for tracking severe storms, including the same TITAN storm tracking capabilities that we use here at KATC.  And if that isn’t enough, there is an integrated hurricane tracking program included and the utility even has overlays for tracking the oil spill in the Gulf.   Check it out and give it a spin!

Finally Dave, Chris and I are now working weather with products with the latest “state of the art” platform of TV weather graphics.  This system is definitely the “next” level platform that will bring high definition satellite, radar imagery, and graphics to Acadiana.  The “TruView Max” system (from WSI, the leading commercial weather graphics and data company) features a continuous live weather engine that ingests the latest satellite-delivered weather and computer forecast data with no rendering time.  The weather imagery and graphics to be simply put, are awesome!

Let us know how you feel…

You might have noticed over the last several weeks that we have been somewhat remiss on the number blog entries…but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been working in the Weather Lab!  Obviously the crude disaster has kept us in an elevated state of weather and news coverage and the approaching “busy” hurricane season has us preparing for the active months ahead. 

But we are also adding major software and hardware upgrades to our weather facilities as well.  In addition to recent processor upgrade to Power Doppler 3000 (which gives us the highest definition radar in all of Southern Louisiana) we have unveiled the KATC Interactive Stormtracker.   The interactive tracker takes National Weather Service Doppler radar imagery and allows the user zoom down to neighborhood level and gives full control to the user to watch weather in Acadiana or anywhere in the U.S.  In addition, other tools such as user controlled animation, satellite imagery, land and water temperature contours and lightning data, there are exclusive tools for tracking severe storms, including the same TITAN storm tracking capabilities that we use here at KATC.  And if that isn’t enough, there is an intergrated hurricane tracking program included and the utility even has overlays for tracking the oil spill in the Gulf.   Check it out and give it a spin!

Finally Dave, Chris and I have been working weather products on the latest “state of the art” platform of TV weather graphics.  This system is definitely the “next” level platform that will bring high definition satellite, radar imagery, and graphics to Acadiana.  The “TruView Max” system (from WSI, the leading commercial weather graphics and data company) features a continuous live weather engine that ingests the latest satellite-delivered weather and computer forecast data with no rendering time.  The weather imagery and graphics to be simply put, are awesome!  Look for the debut of this system in June…we can’t wait to show it off!

The Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS) out of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (SAR) has been providing exclusive high resolution satellite imagery of the Deep Water Horizon Spill.  The satellite shots are processed in such a way that the imagery can shoot through clouds and precipitation.  The recent imagery as of late last night clearly shows the expansiveness of the oil spill with a plume getting entrained into the Florida loop current.  If you go to the site you can also see a relatively grainy shot of oil as far west as offshore the Cameron Parish coastline.  

Experts are predicting that the oil slick plume extending into the Florida Loop current could affect areas such as the Florida Keys in a few weeks.  While smaller oil plumes off the Louisiana coast could reach portions of the Texas coast in roughly the same time frame.

After many partly to mostly cloudy overflights of the ongoing oil slick by the NASA Polar Orbiter today we got a clear shot and visual confirmation of the slick getting involved with the Florida Loop current in the East-Central Gulf of Mexico.   Today’s image shows a large plume that extends at least 75 miles (and appears about 5-10 miles wide) to the southeast of the main slick.  This was likely helped by shifting winds and currents in the Gulf.  Interestingly enough the main slick off the immediate Southeast Louisiana coast has expanded but not to such a great extent.  Some significant surface evaporation may be helping this but I defer to the experts in this area.  Up to 30% of the surface light sweet crude may be evaporating however.  Unfortunately this image is just a 2 dimensional representation of the slick with recent findings showing sub-surface plumes extending hundreds of feet down and miles wide/thick so the true representation of the slick has yet to be fully visualized.

As expected, the U.S. Drought Monitor upgraded all of Acadiana’s status to a “Moderate Drought”.  Rainfall deficits have been running about 8-12 inches below normal this year with most areas receiving less than one half of an inch over the last 6-8 weeks.

Fortunately rain chances will increase this weekend but activity will be mostly scattered in nature but there could be a few spots that could get some relief.  Sunday into Monday may be a little more interesting as the atmosphere may become more conducive to meso-convective complex development.  These are larger scale thunderstorm clusters that can generally get a much larger area wetter.  Upper level winds will be on the rather light side combined with a healthy plume of deeper tropical moisture some areas may actually get some relief from the drought.   Check with our FutureCast Models and Power Doppler 3000 for the very latest throughout the weekend

Rain chances should decrease somewhat into next week, but it appears that Acadiana’s overly dry pattern should change favoring at least some slight rain chances and the prospects for more meso-convective complexes as we finish off the last couple of weeks in the month.