A somber late-winter day from Look Rock mountain overlook, March 5, 2011. (more…)
Weather
A day of weather in the Great Smokies
Sunday, March 6th, 2011
El Niño to make the mountains colder and drier this winter
Sunday, October 18th, 2009Predicting climate in the old days relied upon observing cues in nature. The Farmers’ Almanac finds that people looked at woolly worms in late summer in get a sense of winter. The more black hairs on the worm, the colder and wetter the winter. Of course woolly worms come in all configurations of black and orange colorings so how could a worm’s coat predict winter? It can as an analogy; you look at the forecast to decide which coat you’re going to wear before leaving home. I think you would want to wear a black coat as opposed to a white coat on a very cold and sunny day to maximize the amount of solar energy you could absorb. Woolly worms just plan far ahead.
Today we track global changes in wind patterns and sea surface temperatures to predict weather conditions. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has issued a climate forecast for this winter based on the El Niño pattern emerging in the Pacific Ocean.
Below are winter predictions for the U.S. indicating greater or lesser chances for departures in average winter temperatures and precipitation.
El Niño is a departure from average sea surface temperatures created by a change in the intensity and direction of equatorial winds. In a normal period, strong easterly trade winds blow across the Pacific and upwell cold, nutrient rich waters on the west coast of South America. These same winds also pile up water in the western Pacific so that the sea surface is about 2 feet higher at Indonesia than at Ecuador.
In an El Niño cycle, the winds are not as intense and warmer sea surface temperatures extend further to east. This change has a global impact on weather with increased precipitation on the west coast of South America and the south & east coasts of North America. Warmer than normal conditions also occur at higher latitudes in North America and over the Pacific ocean.
El Niño Sea Surface Temperatures in °C
Animations of the Atmosphere
Friday, June 5th, 2009As a lover of the atmosphere and sun, I want to see how light and sky change over the course of the day. I also want to see how large-area weather events, such as the passage of a front, impact different places in the Great Smoky mountains. The inspiration behind this page was a desire to record weather changes at different elevations on a mountain and to help the photographer in me better understand a secretive and dynamic landscape.
Enter Yesterday: a site of prior-day animations of federal web cams and satellite imagery located here at http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/yesterday. Note this page always shows conditions for the prior day since they are full-day timelines.
The Great Smokies have about one mile of vertical relief and weather conditions can be dramatically different depending on your elevation. Whatever it’s a line of thunderstorms or fog in the valleys on a calm morning, this is a visual record of evolving conditions…only of course it happens during daylight. For the weather nut who likes to take it a step further, the page gives data from park’s 5 weather stations for the same day….and it’s all archived.
How was it done? After tinkering with ImageMagick and FFmpeg, I made a script that creates full-day animations of the webcams in the Great Smokies and visible satellite images from NOAA. What will it become? Consider it a visual archive of the atmosphere and movements of the Sun in the Great Smokies. Any suggestions are welcome.
Some notes for updates: I haven’t fully utilized the flash embedded video (see the two samples below, top is animated gif and below is embedded flash video). The problem is setting animations in sync together, e.g., sun rises at the same time in all movies. With an animated .gif, I think you simply need to refresh your browser after all of the images are loaded to get a partial sync. A better solution is out there. I can also increase the sampling rate for smoother play; now it’s two samples an hour.
Weather map and webcam animation for the Great Smokies
These are also archived, so if you go to the smokies for a backcountry trip, you’ll be able to find your days here.
Rainy May: on track to be the wettest May ever
Friday, May 8th, 2009Spring is typically a wet month. However over the past week, Eastern Kentucky has experienced unusual rainfall amounts. The record for the month is 10.78 inches in 2004; and no other year has been above 10 inches for May. The only year that saw over 9 inches of rainfall for May was in 1995. May during 1983 and 1984 were the only times over 7 inches of rainfall.
From the National Weather Service in Jackson, Kentucky:
"2 TO 5 INCHES OF RAIN HAS FALLEN ACROSS EASTERN KENTUCKY DURING THE MONTH OF MAY. THIS IS OF INTEREST...SINCE WE ARE ONLY ABOUT ONE QUARTER OF THE WAY THROUGH THE MONTH. HEAVY RAINFALL IS VERY POSSIBLE AS WE HEAD INTO MOTHERS DAY WEEKEND AND COULD PUSH RAINFALL AMOUNTS UP ANOTHER INCH OR TWO. THE AVERAGE PRECIPITATION FOR THE MONTH OF MAY AT THE JACKSON WEATHER OFFICE IS 4.92 INCHES. WE HAVE ALL READY RECORDED 4.12 INCHES OF RAINFALL AS OF THIS MORNING AT 7AM. IT IS TOO EARLY TO TELL ...BUT WE ARE CERTAINLY ON TRACK TO HAVE ONE OF THE RAINIEST MAYS EVER. THE RAINIEST MAY OCCURRED IN 2004 WHEN THE JACKSON WEATHER OFFICE RECORDED 10.78 INCHES FOR THE MONTH. THIS WAS THE ONLY MONTH OF MAY THAT OVER TEN INCHES OF RAIN FELL. MAY OF 1995 HAD 9.91 INCHES AND WAS THE ONLY MONTH WITH OVER 9 INCHES RECORDED. THE NEXT HIGHEST TOTALS WERE OVER 7 INCHES AND THAT OCCURRED IN ONLY TWO YEARS...1983 AND 1984. HERE ARE RAINFALL TOTALS FROM EASTERN KENTUCKY COOPERATIVE WEATHER STATIONS AND AUTOMATED SURFACE OBSERVING SYSTEMS AS OF 7 AM EDT...FOR THE MONTH OF MAY 2009.
LOCATION / COUNTY / PRECIPITATION
BARBOURVILLE KNOX 4.38 INCHES BAXTER HARLAN 3.85 INCHES BEATTYVILLE 4N LEE 3.68 INCHES BIG SHELBY PIKE 3.01 INCHES BOONEVILLE 1SE OWSLEY 4.49 INCHES BUCKHORN LAKE PERRY 2.80 INCHES CARR CREEK LAKE KNOTT 2.73 INCHES CAVE RUN LAKE ROWAN 2.28 INCHES CLAY CITY 1WNW POWELL 2.77 INCHES CLOSPLINT 4ESE HARLAN 4.55 INCHES COLO PULASKI 3.98 INCHES CRESSY ESTILL 2.59 INCHES DRAFFIN PIKE 3.54 INCHES EZEL MORGAN 3.31 INCHES GIMLET ELLIOTT 2.60 INCHES HARLAN 1S HARLAN 3.80 INCHES HARLAN STATE POLICE HARLAN 2.95 INCHES HAZARD WATER PERRY 3.71 INCHES HAZARD PERRY 3.70 INCHES HAZARD STATE POLICE PERRY 2.95 INCHES HEIDELBERG 2N LEE 4.05 INCHES BAXTER HARLAN 3.85 INCHES INEZ 2E MARTIN 3.78 INCHES ISLAND CITY OWSLEY 5.16 INCHES IVEL FLOYD 2.27 INCHES NWS JACKSON BREATHITT 4.12 INCHES JEREMIAH 1S LETCHER 3.11 INCHES KINGDOM COME ST PARK HARLAN 3.12 INCHES LONDON CORBIN APT LAUREL 4.46 INCHES MONTICELLO 3NE WAYNE 4.00 INCHES MOUNT STERLING 5N MONTGOMERY 2.41 INCHES MOUNT VERNON ROCKCASTLE 2.77 INCHES ONEIDA CLAY 4.54 INCHES PAINTSVILLE 1E JOHNSON 3.55 INCHES PIKEVILLE ST POLICE PIKE 2.05 INCHES PRESTONSBURG 3NW FLOYD 4.09 INCHES QUICKSAND BREATHITT 3.52 INCHES RELIEF MORGAN 3.18 INCHES ROGERS WOLFE 2.82 INCHES SALYERSVILLE MAGOFFIN 4.28 INCHES SANDY HOOK ELLIOTT 2.67 INCHES SKYLINE LETCHER 3.20 INCHES SLADE 5NE POWELL 2.86 INCHES SOMERSET 2N PULASKI 3.74 INCHES STANTON 2W POWELL 2.88 INCHES STEARNS 2S MCCREARY 5.09 INCHES VICTORY 5NW LAUREL 4.13 INCHES WEST LIBERTY 3NW MORGAN 2.67 INCHES WEST LIBERTY 11NW MORGAN 2.57 INCHES WHITESBURG LETCHER 2.50 INCHES WHITESBURG 2SE LETCHER 3.21 INCHES WILLIAMSBURG 1NW WHITLEY 5.14 INCHES
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AT JACKSON WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL THE DEDICATED COOPERATIVE WEATHER OBSERVERS FOR THEIR TIMELY REPORTS."
It is all about Light: a photographers dream
Monday, April 20th, 2009The past day’s weather has included periods intense light and shadow from very low, broken stratus & cumulus clouds. Rays of love from god shine from heaven through parted clouds; and there was plenty of love in the mountains. Even in these low quality webcam images, you can see golden rays of light and clearly defined ridges. Now what if you were there with a serious camera.
Though the weather overall has been chilly and uncomfortable, it does give some memorable vistas. The more diffuse stratus clouds in the western mountains were lower in altitude and created softer light.
View from Purchase Knob