It was during the height of the Cold War and a powerful solar storm could have led to a disastrous military conflict between the US and Soviet Union if not for the early efforts of the US Air Force to monitor solar activity. On May 23rd, 1967, a solar storm took place that was so powerful, it jammed radar and radio communications in polar regions and the US Air Force actually began to prepare aircraft for war thinking the nation’s surveillance radars were being jammed by the Soviet Union. Fortunately, space weather forecasters in the military suspected there might be another cause and they relayed information about the possibility that a solar storm could have been the reason for the disrupted radar and radio communications. As it turned out, this information was enough to keep the planes on the ground and the US avoided a potential nuclear weapon exchange with the Soviet Union.
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Weather played an important role in the 1912 disaster of the sinking of the Titanic and it likely played a direct role in another disaster that took place 25 years later – at least that is the prevailing belief. On May 6th, 1937, while the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg was attempting to land at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, a flame appeared on the outer cover of the rear of the ship. Within 34 seconds, the entire airship was consumed by fire and the golden age of airship travel was over.
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This is certainly one of those stories that has been a long time in the making...a 53-year-old Soviet spacecraft that was originally bound for Venus is set to crash into Earth in ten days or so. The spacecraft suffered an engine anomaly and failed to escape low Earth orbit, and it is now expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry around the 10th of May. This spacecraft was built to withstand extreme heat so it is likely that parts of the spacecraft can survive the descent through our atmosphere and crash on Earth.
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Tuesday marks the 113th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic (April 15, 1912) and I thought I’d revisit the overall weather pattern that played a key role in the tragedy. By studying weather maps and written records from that time, some definitive conclusions can be drawn about the weather during the trip across the Atlantic, and there are also some interesting relatively new theories involving atmospheric conditions and their possible effects.
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It was a year ago on April 8th, 2024, when many Americans experienced a total solar eclipse for the first time (or were “clouded-out”) and some are wondering where and when there will be other opportunities in coming years. The next total solar eclipse on US soil won’t come until August 2044 and the next one in North America will take place in March 2033 across portions of Alaska. There are, however, several opportunities to view total solar eclipses between now and 2034, but most will require significant planning and extensive travel.
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The risk is high today for a severe weather outbreak across the Tennessee Valley, Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley, and Mid-South and this threat includes the possibility of multiple strong (EF-3+) tornadoes. Numerous ingredients are coming together to result in a widespread severe weather outbreak later today and tonight including strong jet streaks at multiple levels of the atmosphere, a clash of air masses with cold, dry air to the north and west and warm, humid air to the east and south, and a strong surface low pressure system with its attendant cold front. In addition to the severe weather, it appears that a multi-day extreme rainfall event is on the way for much of this same part of the nation from later today through the first half of the weekend with widespread flooding a serious concern.
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An on-going active weather pattern will result in strong-to-severe thunderstorms later today and tonight across the middle of the country and there can be isolated tornadoes as well. On Wednesday and Wednesday night, the severe weather threat will become enhanced across the Middle Mississippi Valley/Tennessee Valley and Ohio Valley and, this time, multiple strong tornadoes will be on the table. In this same part of the nation, it appears that a multi-day extreme rainfall event is on the way from later tomorrow through the upcoming weekend with widespread serious flooding a real concern.
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We all know the words…
“the weather started getting rough, the tiny shipped was tossed…”
Indeed, stormy weather played a critical role in the shipwrecking of the S.S. Minnow on that fateful day in late September 1964 onto an uncharted “desert” island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The ship set sail that day on a three-hour tour with five passengers, the captain of the S.S. Minnow, Jonas Grumby (aka Skipper), and his first mate named Gilligan. A sudden storm interrupted the tour, damaged the tiny ship, and the two-man crew somehow managed to steer the boat to safety onto an uninhabited island not far from the Hawaiian Islands.
For years, there has been a cloud hanging over the head of the Skipper as the result of conjecture that he was somehow at fault on that day in putting the passengers at risk. However, new evidence has come to light that should exonerate the Skipper once and for all from any wrongdoing.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is a collection of technologies that allow computers to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, and it is increasingly impacting the world of weather forecasting. The European Center for Medium-Range Forecasting (ECMWF) has made strides with its Artificial Intelligence Forecasting System (AIFS) as it has recently become fully operational and is now run side-by-side with its traditional physics-based Integrated Forecasting System (IFS). According to the ECMWF, the AIFS has outperformed the physics-based model for many measures including, for example, tropical cyclone tracks. The increasingly important role of AI in weather forecasting will be to supplement and enhance traditional NWP models…and not to replace the. In addition to the ECMWF AIFS, there are at least four other known “A.I. trained” weather models including NOAA/Google GraphCast, Microsoft’s Aurora, NVIDIA’s FourCast, and Huawei’s Pangu-Weather.
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March is known to feature some crazy and surprising weather and the 1958 blizzard that occurred in the Mid-Atlantic region between March 18th and 23rd was indeed rather unexpected. In general, forecasts on the morning of March 18th had no mention of snow. This was in an era before computer forecast models were being utilized by weather forecasters on a daily basis and it was even before satellite imagery existed which could aid in the forecast. By afternoon on that particular day, the light rain had changed into huge, wet snowflakes and - for the next few days - history was being made.
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