U.S. Cities With the Most Extreme Weather Conditions

If you are searching for diverse weather or extreme temperatures and precipitation, the U.S. is certainly one of the places to be. Have you ever wondered what U.S. city is the coldest or the warmest? What city experiences the most rainfall or the most thunderstorms? I thought that it would be interesting to come up with … Read more

The Tools and Concepts for Forecasting Winter Precipitation

Introduction This informative forecast writing will focus on the weather forecasting tools and concepts that are used to predict winter weather events. There are various types of winter weather events that are analyzed and forecasted including mid-latitude cyclones, ice storms, lake-effect snows and sleet storms. Each of these will be discussed separately. In addition, bust … Read more

Current Drought Map

New data will be added in the coming weeks.  To kick things off, I have created a very cool 5-year Drought Monitor loop. The animation is fast, so you may want to watch it a few times.  The trends in drought migration are interesting. The long loop above contains 257 images – one for each … Read more

What is virga? There’s rain on radar, but it’s not raining!

The fluid dynamics associated with atmospheric disturbances cause the downstream air (ahead of the disturbance, before it arrives at a location) to rise, and the upstream air (behind the disturbance, i.e., after the disturbance has passed) to sink.  If there is sufficient moisture in the area of rising air, clouds and precipitation may form.  Necessary … Read more

What is the water cycle and can the cycle be disrupted?

A follower asked, “if the water cycle is real, how can there be water shortages?” In light of the recent drought in Texas, which ultimately ended with the historic rainfall during the month of May 2015, and the ongoing devastating drought in California, I thought I would make this brief post. What is the Water … Read more