Déjà Vu All Over Again

Four years ago yesterday (May 15) my area was under a threat or severe thunderstorms described as "enhanced," meaning "numerous strong to severe thunderstorms severe storms possible; more persistent and/or widespread; a few intense." The result was a derecho that blacked out our neighborhood for seven hours.  Now history looks likely to repeat itself almost four years to the day, with my area right on the line between an enhanced-risk zone a slight-risk zone, which, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), is a risk for "scattered severe storms possible; short-lived and/or not widespread; isolated intense storms possible."

"We are looking at a threat for widespread and potentially significant severe weather across the area Monday afternoon into the evening as a cold front moves across the area west to east," the NWS said.  And it added for good measure that the straight-line-winds that derechos are known for might materialize again this time.

May isn't so merry anymore, but I've at least had 46 days without a severe-weather issue.  Even if my power doesn't go out for the 65th or 66th time since November 2009 (I lost count), the storms expected could make things very harrowing.  The bright side?  Some computer projections suggest my immediate won't get the absolute worst of the storms, and it's going to be much nicer tomorrow.

Of course, if I get a tree in my living room, why should I care about that last point? 

I may be back soon.

Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

It looks like March isn't going out like a lamb, at least not where I live.  As early as Sunday - which is very early too make such a weather prediction - the national Storm Prediction Center forecast severe thunderstorms to affect New Jersey, and as of this writing my area is in a "marginal risk" zone, though it may have been upgraded to a "slight risk" zone (which usually happens before the appointed day of storms) by the time you read this.  

This comes on the heels of bitterly cold temperatures for this time of year at the start of the week, which only caused more people to stay indoors as if it were still winter (and possibly increasing the spread of Omicron BA.2 COVID at a time when we were looking forward to going outside in warmer weather while the virus would dissipate).  I can expect a possibility of et another power outage, as this line of storms is expected to be particularly strong.

And then comes April . . . the cruelest month.  

The wolves are always at our doors. 😢 

An Early Start

It was so warm yesterday where I live that when a cold front sliced through, it produced thunderstorms.  In March.

The day before, the Storm Prediction Center assured my area that we were far from the closest area under a marginal risk for severe weather - the Pittsburgh area.  Then yesterday, most of New Jersey was placed in a "slight risk" zone and we got a watch, then a warning.  The storm that blew through could have knocked down trees in my neighborhood and, in other places, did.

This is just the beginning of a much longer severe-thunderstorm season, brought to us by climate change.

Oh yeah, and there could a wind-driven rain storm this coming Saturday . . . 😠

The Trouble With Larry

First, the good news: Hurricane Larry is not going to hit the American Northeast or Nova Scotia.

The bad news? Its going to hit Newfoundland Island's Avalon Peninsula, which includes North America's easternmost city - St. John's. 

This is the National Hurricane Center's hurricane map from 8:00 A.M. Atlantic Standard Time (which is the same as Eastern Daylight Time) this morning.  The National Hurricane Center has been very consistent in is projections for where this storm will go, and St. John's continues to be in its path.  And it looks like it will not only maintain its strength, it will retain its tropical characteristics.

This is climate change in action.  Newfoundland has had hurricanes before, but never a major hurricane, and Larry could be at least a Category 3 storm when it hits St. John's.  The city, the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador, is not very big, and it's considerably remote.  There could be a lot of destruction from this.

And by the way, the good news that it won't affect the Northeast comes with a steep caveat.  Hurricane Larry is going to be steered away by a cold front that, ironically, will today bring more rain and also more thunderstorms with damaging winds through New Jersey and New York - two states that don't need any more rain and have trees that a mile-a-minute gust from a thunderstorm can knock down quite easily, thanks to the saturated ground. 

Especially in my part of New Jersey, where I'm on the edge of a slight-risk zone.

Enough is too much. 😓 😩          

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

Which seems appropriate for Halloween.

This is a map of the United States issued yesterday by the Storm Prediction Center showing the greatest threat of severe thunderstorms for today (October 31).  Bear in mind that summer ended a month ago and we're supposed to have gotten the severe-thunderstorm season behind us for at least nine months.  Nope - even on Halloween, we have to worry about something spookier than ghosts and goblins.  And, dare I say it, even though my area is only in the marginal-risk zone and not the enhanced-risk zone that seems to be prepared to swallow most of Virginia, the map may have changed for the worse by the time you read this.  See what I meant when I said that October is fast replacing February as my least favorite month?

The worst of this weather should pass through overnight into Friday morning, when a cold front sweeps through and brings heavy rain and damaging winds.  Its the damaging-winds part that scares me - even in the lesser-risk zones, where there could be gusts as high as forty or fifty miles an hour.  And it could be worse along the immediate coastline - gusts approaching hurricane force.

As I type this, of course, California is dealing with wildfires that Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) thought it could avoid sparking by shutting off power in fire-prone areas of the state, a trick that failed to prevent blazes and only inconvenienced numerous homes and businesses.  The utility is fighting calls to bring it under state control while Governor Gavin Newsom can only express his disgust for PG&E's failure to upgrade its electric lines - which the utility didn't bother to do because it was interested in saving money - and its cavalier treatment of its own customers.  This is how climate change and corporate greed are intertwined, folks.

I don't know if I'll lose power for the fifty-seventh time since November 2009 as a result of these wind-driven thunderstorms - 57 outages and nothing on! - but I should be thankful that, unlike California, I know that, if I do lose it, I'll get it back soon.  

What Severe Storms?

Okay, I'm back.

Although the worst of the nasty weather forecast in New Jersey for today was to supposed to stay south of where I live, it turned out that it went farther south than initially forecast.  What could have been the worst severe-weather outbreak in  New Jersey to date - especially with the enhanced-risk zone affecting areas just south of Trenton - was as this morning expected to be nothing more than garden-variety showers and thunderstorms for the state's northern tier, a marginal risk for most of the rest of the state, and a slight risk for just Cape May County. 

And not only did the storm system producing severe weather move south, it dissipated.  As early as this morning, central Virginia along the U.S. 17 corridor and southern Maryland between the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay were in an enhanced-risk zone, and I know someone who lives in that part of Maryland.  But now Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey's Cape May County are all in a marginal-risk zone, the slight-risk zone being pushed into southern Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee and the enhanced-risk zone eliminated altogether, as seen below. That's a reversal you don't often see in weather projections.

One caveat, though . . ..  Summer still has a month to go, and it could be abnormally warm in late September and early October (and don't get me started about the peak of hurricane season).  We need to remain weather-aware for awhile.

MORE STORMS?

My neighborhood has had at least one severe thunderstorm every week for the past three weeks, and last week we had two - and the second one wasn't supposed to materialize.  Tomorrow (Tuesday), my neighborhood will likely get another severe storm.

And each storm feels like it's been worse than the one preceding it.

See that big red blob of intense rain over northern New Jersey in the NAM 3km projection, for 3:00 PM Eastern time tomorrow, above? That's where I live. 

These storms have left me frazzled, and one more severe storm could send me over the edge. A dead tree up against the wires on my street - :-O - might be sent over the edge. It's not the lightning so much that has been a problem with these storms, but the mile-a-minute wind gusts the come with hem. Even if the overall wind is about five miles an hour or so, one gusty thunderstorm could increase the wind speed tenfold. And that's not to mention the flash flooding.

I won't be here tomorrow; I've already decided on that.  Assuming I still have power, I hope to be back on Wednesday. 

From Warm to Storm

The good news is that the heat wave is going to be broken today.  The bad news is that some trees and power lines may be broken along with it.  Thunderstorms are expected later today with not only flooding rains but strong, damaging winds.  I don't know how thunderstorms produce their own tropical-storm-force gusts when the overall wind pattern is calm, as I don't know all that much about meteorology, but what I do know about it I've had to learn quickly, in order to comprehend how serious these recent weather trends are . . . and how threatening they are to us.  A lot of people think I am interested in meteorology, but if my house hadn't had 56 power outages in a decade - and a tree on our garage - I wouldn't show half the interest I do.  And I certainly wouldn't be talking about the weather so much on my blog.       

This weather is all being fueled by climate change, which has all but replaced space exploration as our new gargantuan achievement to pursue.  But not only do we not have another President Kennedy to goad us into committing ourselves to taking control of climate change, we have very few would-be Kennedys running for President on the Democratic side willing to do so, and those few, like Jay Inslee, are at one percent in the polls for the crime of being boring white males (Kennedyesque without the Kennedy part).  Climate-change deniers, meanwhile, are too busy bitching about a bunch of environmental crybabies in France telling America what to do about the environment and tell anyone here who doesn't like their attitude to move to France.

I can't, it's hotter even there than here. 

So, for the short term, cold fronts crashing into extreme heat and humidity mean that a few thunderstorms may be severe.  It won't be long before such conditions mean that most thunderstorms will be severe.  :-(      

Tornado Turnpike???

You'be heard of Tornado Alley in Kansas.  How about Tornado Turnpike in New Jersey?

Last night my area of New Jersey was subject to not one but two tornado warnings as a result of the severe thunderstorms that passed through the northern part of the state.  And even though my electricity did not in fact go out in the severe storm we got - the National Weather Service is still trying to figure out if there were any tornadoes in northern New Jersey - the very fact that there were two tornado warnings in northern New Jersey and a third in southern New Jersey, which is a rare occurrence, has led me to believe that climate change is out of control.  I mean, there's a reason The Wizard of Oz  begins on the Kansas prairie and not in the New Jersey Highlands or Pine Barrens.  In fact, Kansas and Ohio, both historically tornado-prone states, are getting the sort of destructive weather that even they aren't used to.  Overall, the weather has become such a big part of the news that on PBS, Judy Woodruff is looking more like a weatherwoman than an anchorwoman.

And as for New Jersey, the show's not over yet; it's going to be a double feature.  There may not be any tornadoes today, but there will likely be more severe thunderstorms hitting the same areas of New Jersey that were pummeled last night, which means I can bet on a possible fiftieth blackout on my block.  Today's storms may be less severe than last night's storms, but to use a cliché of my own making, that's like saying Cleopatra is a better movie than Heaven's Gate.  I know, I'm dating myself there, but I can see a time when I date myself by saying that there was a time when there were no tornadoes in New Jersey.

And to make matters worse, the enhanced-risk zone for severe weather today that excluded my area now . . . includes my area.

Check back later . . . I may still be around. :-( 

April (Thunder)Showers

I'll get to the Mueller report release later.  But now, the weather.

This past weekend, my area of New Jersey was under a "slight" risk for severe thunderstorms, which is actually pretty serious for New Jersey.  When I went to bed late Sunday night, there were no severe-weather watches.  That night, I woke up with a pain in my arm; it was two in the morning. I got up, took some aspirin, and checked the latest weather watch.

That's when I saw the tornado watch for all of New Jersey.

We didn't get a tornado that night, but we did get a thunderstorm that was as severe as Catherine Deneuve is beautiful.  Yes . . . that severe.  It woke me up at 4:25 A.M.  The lightning, wind and rain were so intense that I was certain the night light across the hall and the digital clock in my bedroom would go out any moment .  Miraculously, the power stayed on, and the storm lasted only twenty minutes.  I was glad that it was over so soon.

Except that it wasn't.

A new storm system the like one last weekend is affecting the same areas of the country that were affected by the last storm.  That means more tornadoes in the South, more bow-line supercells in the Southeast, and more thunderstorms along the East Coast.  The Storm  Prediction Center, as of this writing, has most of New Jersey in a marginal-risk zone for severe weather, with far northern New Jersey in a regular-thunderstorm zone.

This time yesterday, the marginal-risk zone was farther south.  Tomorrow, the Storm Prediction Center might very well include all of New Jersey in a risk zone, with part of the state in a slight-risk zone.

But at least we won't get really bad storms like the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, right?  Well, even a marginal-risk zone can leave room for storms like the one that hit us last weekend.  The forecast for my area calls for the chance of "locally damaging wind gusts" (read downed tree limbs and power lines) and, of course. heavy rain (a flash flood watch is already out for northern New Jersey). 

Climate change is making me fall out of love with spring.  April and May used to mean benign, mild weather in which to enjoy the tulips and the flowering trees, brought to you by soft showers.  Now spring is just as treacherous as the heart of summer (which promises to be hellishly hot on the East Coast this year). The derecho we had last May (which I still haven't recovered from psychologically) is still very fresh in my mind; I'm more than convinced that we could deal with another weather "event" like that very soon.  But I didn't think I'd ever have to deal with severe, power-threatening weather during the Easter season.

We'd better get used to this, as I have absolutely no confidence in anyone - least of all Americans - to do something about climate change. 

I may be back. 

Stormy

Nothing to do with Stephanie Clifford.

Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court is in greater jeopardy after a second woman, one Debbie Ramirez, claims to have been sexually harassed by Kavanaugh while they were both at Yale, at a dorm.  He apparently flashed her.  Kavanaugh may only have two allegations against him as opposed to dozens (I wonder if you all know who I'm talking about?), but two allegations may indeed be two too many when you're talking about a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land.  (I'm not referring to the Lake County Courthouse in Leadville, Colorado, perched at an altitude of 10,145 feet above sea level.)  This could blow up big time.

Rod Rosenstein went to the White House after allegations were made  that he suggested involving the 25th Amendment too remove Donald Trump from office for being an idiot.  Rosenstein, who's no idiot himself, denies the charges and said he was being sarcastic in talking to then-acting FBI director Andrew McCabe.  Apparently Trump and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly didn't think he was being very funny, because he got a dressing-down at the White House yesterday and has been told to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when Trump returns from the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday.  A big-time blow-up, given the precarious state of the Russia investigation that Rosenstein oversees as Deputy Attorney General, is inevitable.

And if you think that's explosive, wait until Trump addresses the United Nations General Assembly today.  We could be in a war with Iran before long. :-O

Meanwhile, a strong cold front running into warm, humid air across the Northeast tomorrow could produce storms so severe, I could once again lose my electricity for I don't know how long . . . and end up with a tree in my living room.

Thursday's weather is supposed to be much better. :-p

Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a (very) bumpy ride!         

Derecho De Mayo?

A derecho-type line of severe thunderstorms ripped through - and ripped out - a good chunk of Maryland and Virginia yesterday, and another, similar line of thunderstorms is expected to tear through New Jersey, as the merriless month of May 2018 continues.  This lousy weather has forced me to cancel plans already, and it may end up canceling my electrical and/or cable service for I don't know how long. 

Stay tuned . . . I may be back. 

April Showers Bring May Rain

I waited through a dismal April to enjoy a nice warm May, but it's been cold and rainy these past couple of days, and more rain is to follow this week.  And tomorrow will feel so summery that we could get the sort of severe thunderstorms that normally come in July and August.   

As if that weren't bad enough, some computer projections are looking at a serious tropical storm affecting the American East Coast by the end of this month, before the hurricane season even starts.  

According to the projection, which I won't show here because it's too early to take it seriously and it's also too scary to look at, it could hit the Northeast almost a year to the day after Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement.

This year has been a disappointment for me and a whole lot of other people . . ..  I'm hoping the weather doesn't turn it into a disaster. :-O :-( 

Reason Number 6,549,431 To Believe That Climate Change Is Real

Temperatures in New Jersey have felt like late August and early September these past few days, and with a cold front approaching today there is a risk for severe thunderstorms.  With heavy rain.  And winds gusting up to 50 or even 55 miles an hour.  In late October.

The severe-thunderstorm risk is "slight," which means the chances for severe weather are actually astronomical.  For New Jersey, a slight severe-weather risk is as slight as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - North Korea - is democratic and for the people.  Slight is as usually bad as it gets, and we get very bad storms even when the risk is "only" slight.  Imagine what it would be like if it were enhanced or moderate!

I may be back, so long as a wind gust doesn't put a power line on my street or a tree in my living room. >:-(  

Forty Winks

I give up.

I thought we'd make it this time.  Up to this past Wednesday, we hadn't had a single electrical blackout in our house since November 2016. It looked like we'd get through the entire year of 2017 without an outage - or at least get through this November without one.  Think of it . . . a full year without an outage.

Then we got two outages.

The power went off this past Wednesday night for a moment and then it came back on.  Then it went off for more than a moment, maybe about a minute or so - before going back on again.  Outage number 39 . . . and outage number 40 since November 2009.  Forty winks.

I now officially surrender.  My mother and I will never again have a whole year, calendar or otherwise, without an electrical blackout.   And I'm going to have to get used to resetting the clocks more often than twice a year (due to Daylight Savings Time). 

This past Wednesday afternoon, a severe thunderstorm hit my neighborhood and warranted an official warning from the National Weather Service through 2:15 PM, but the power stayed on, even if the cable service went out for about five minutes.  (We got through more than a full year without a cable outage, at least - one year, one month and one day to be exact, so that ought to count for something.)   So I can't figure out why it would go out momentarily - twice - close to 11:00 PM, long after the storm - and the steady rain it ushered in - had passed.   Maybe it had to do with the 2.6 inches of rain my area got in under ninety minutes that afternoon, which may have compromised things.  Maybe it was a wayward tree branch.  Maybe it was just the electric company's incompetence.

I don't have time for more conjectures, because the forecast calls for it to be rainy and stormy today . . . and to leave it at that would be like saying that Scarlett Johansson has pleasant features.  We're getting a day-long rainfall that could include heavy thunderstorms, and the Storm Prediction Center has already put New Jersey in a severe-thunderstorm risk zone for today.  We were in a marginal-risk zone this past Wednesday, and even the smallest risk turned out to be a big deal.

If there's a silver lining here (and believe me, I know I'm grasping at straws), it's that we are expected to get about an inch of rain over the whole day, not double that and half again in a few hours.  Of course, a heavy thunderstorm could give us extra rain if it hits at the right time, and the ground may still be very saturated from Wednesday's storms, so I think we're in trouble again.  We could lose our electricity again today, and maybe for more than a moment.

It's over.  I no longer have any hope of having uninterrupted electricity for at least a year.  Especially with climate change, which causes the weather that gives us blackouts, in the offing.  And I hope Steve Bannon goes straight to hell for getting Trump to reject the Paris Agreement (more about that later).  

Most Storms WILL Be Severe!

This post may be the last you see of me for awhile.

The government's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Oklahoma placed my part of New Jersey in an enhanced-risk zone for severe thunderstorms today . . . and it placed my part of New Jersey in this zone two days out.  It is extremely rare for the SPC to forecast such a great potential for severe weather for New Jersey that far in advance.

The risks include torrential downpours, gusty, damaging winds, hailstones (the sort that can break a windshield), and even tornadoes.  As fate would have it, my local utility just finished having the limbs and branches over the power lines pruned, so they don't take the lines down in a storm.  Thanks to the ferocity of the storms expected today, and thanks also to all the rain we've been getting, none of that matters.  Because it only takes one mile-a-minute wind gust to take down an entire tree. And there are supposed to be several such gusts today, if not one big sustained 60-mph wind altogether (can you say "derecho," boys and girls?).

And we might get a tree in our living room.

Who needs a hurricane to worry about?  Oh yeah, a tropical storm that hasn't even formed yet could send its remnants up my way after hitting Louisiana early this week. 

If I'm back tomorrow, it will be a miracle.  So stay tuned.

Rain and Wind and Thunder, Oh My!

It doesn't look like much on the model map for 2 PM Eastern Time today. 

The American Northeast is getting one to two inches of rain today, as much rain as we got on Tuesday.  So what? you ask, that's obviously nothing you can't handle.

Well, what if I told you that the ground was already well saturated before Tuesday, and we're no under a flood watch for the second time this week? 

What if I also told you that a strong wind is also expected - mainly in the upper teens in terms of speed but also with gusts of 40 miles an hour possible?

What if I also told you that my area could get severe thunderstorms with even higher gusts that would almost certainly topple trees onto power lines and cause outages that could last a long, long time?

What if I also told you that I have to go out today four times? 

Well, I am telling you all that - right now.  This could be the worst storm my area has seen in a long time, even counting the recent winter storms we've had.

Since we haven't had an electrical outage of an hour or longer for awhile, and since my power utility has been reliable in very nasty weather of late, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will not lose electricity.

Our cable service, on the other hand . . . :-O

Stick around . . . I may be back.    

In With a Leonine Storm

I thought we'd been spared. Although a line of severe thunderstorms came through my area this past Saturday - the result of abnormally warm weather meeting seasonably cold air coming in from the west (producing summerlike storms in February for the second year in a row!), my immediate area didn't get the worst of it, and I thought that would be it for awhile.  But no, we've gotten more warm air pumped into our area, and another cold front is bearing down on us for today, the first day of March . . . and the threat for my immediate vicinity may be even greater this time. :-O

This is the map issued late yesterday showing the risk areas for severe thunderstorms in the lower forty-eight.  As you can see, New Jersey is in the "slight risk" zone, which means there's far more than a slight chance that we're going to get pummeled - especially when the forecast squall line is expected to push southeast rather than northeast like the one from Saturday.  The map issued the day before showed northern New Jersey in the "marginal" risk zone; the entire state, for all I know, could be in an "enhanced risk" zone by the time you read this.     

I have a feeling we're going to get an electrical blackout for an undetermined duration, or at least a cable blackout, so I may be out of commission for awhile.  Utility companies have bragged in recent years about how their infrastructural systems has been hardened to the point where they can withstand the sort of damaging winds and torrential downpours that this sort of severe weather can bring.  But trees are no stronger than they've always been, of course, and no electrical or cable wire strung from one pressure-treated utility pole to the other can withstand a tree brought down by a wind gust.

Neither can a living room window.

And if there is cloud-to-ground lightning, all bets are off.

I may be back later.  Suffice to say, we shouldn't be getting July-like storms in March.  We shouldn't even be getting the sort of storms we got last July; climate change has only made them more fierce.