[17680] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Weather Highlights: A Flood of Bad Weather
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (CompuWeather)
Wed Jul 5 20:34:04 2006
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Message-ID: <20060705164608.90848.qmail@mta1.m.compuweather.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 16:46:08 -0000
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
From: CompuWeather <weekinreview@M.COMPUWEATHER.COM>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
CompuWeather is pleased to provide this FREE weekly weather bulletin to our valued customers!
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WEATHER HIGHLIGHTS - TRAVEL WEATHER
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SHORT WEEK SHORT ON BAD WEATHER: Travel delays related to the weather will be in short supply for the remainder of this holiday shortened work-week. Flying in and out of Chicago’s O’Hare, now the busiest airport in the nation, should be a breeze with nothing but sunshine and nice weather in the Windy City. Ditto for other Midwest locations such as Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati. In the Northeast a few showers will dot the terrain on Wednesday but the rest of the week looks void of rain and adverse weather in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. If your travels take you through Hartsfield in Atlanta, expect a few showers on Wednesday then dry weather through Saturday. Not much happens at Dallas/Ft. Worth with thunderstorms. On the West Coast, the only problem going in or out of Los Angeles and San Francisco will be late night and morning fog.
INTENSE FLOODING HITS THE NORTHEAST: At least sixteen people are confirmed dead as a result of unprecedented flooding in parts of Pennsylvania and New York last week. At the height of the storm event, more than 200,000 people were evacuated from their homes to escape rivers which poured over their banks and into city streets. Heavy rain caused flooding from Virginia and Maryland, northward into central New York State, forcing residents onto their rooftops in scenes reminiscent of last year’s Hurricane Katrina disaster. Dozens of counties in several states were declared Disaster Areas. In New York’s Delaware County, two truck drivers were killed when their vehicles crashed into a sinkhole which had developed on Interstate 88. A 117 mile stretch of the New York Thruway was shut down due to flooding and the threat of mudslides. The City of Binghamton, in New York’s Southern Tier, was one of the hardest hit areas with more than four inches of rain in less than 24 hours. N!
Y Governor Pataki activated the National Guard to help with the recovery and called the disaster “unparalleled” in the state’s history.
FLOOD OF FLOOD INSURANCE REQUESTS LIKELY: The flooding brought on by heavy rains in the Northeast will deal a severe blow to most of the region’s homeowners who do not carry flood insurance coverage. Inside high-risk flood areas of the Northeast, only 28% of the homes are covered by federal flood insurance, compared to 49% in similar areas in other parts of the country. A typical homeowner’s insurance policy covers damages from rain that comes in from the top or side of a house, but not through basements which is where floodwaters come in. Insurance officials say that there is usually a flurry of people purchasing flood policies after a major event such as this. But if flooding isn’t a big news event in the following two or three years, many allow their policies to lapse.
TORNADO BUFFETS BUFFALO: In what was a very tough week for weather in New York, a tornado touched down in a suburb of Buffalo last Friday. The twister flipped a truck driving on the New York State Thruway and tossed a construction trailer with a worker inside onto the other side of the road as it was being pummeled with hard rain and hail. The tornado occurred just a few days after devastating floods hit the central part of the state.
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COMPUWEATHER CASE OF THE WEEK - Too cold for snow to melt?
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Three days after a storm dropped eight inches of snow across southeastern New York, a 56-year old man slipped and fell in a shopping center parking lot in Westchester County. He sustained injuries to his right hip, shoulder and head as a result of the accident. The man stated that he had slipped on a patch of ice which was present in the parking lot near a large pile of snow which had been created by the plowing of the lot three days prior. His attorney obtained the weather records from the closest observing site to the shopping center, in hopes that it would clearly show a temperature profile that would indicate a melt and re-freeze cycle in between the time the snow ended, and the time that her client slipped. If it showed that, then it could be stated that snow from the built-up pile had melted, run-off and then re-froze into an icy surface. To the dismay of the attorney, the daily temperature records indicated that it had been very cold in the days following the sto!
rm. Daytime highs were only in the mid 20s, while overnight lows were in the teens and single digits. So much for the melt/re-freeze theory, or so it seemed...
The attorney called on the expertise of CompuWeather to help explain how the ice had developed. The meteorologist assigned to the case did a complete analysis of the weather from the day of the snowstorm up through the time of the accident. Using the same data that the attorney had viewed, as well as data from other sources, the explanation for the patch of ice slipped right into place. Simply looking at the high and low temperatures was not sufficient in this particular situation. In the two days after the snow ended, the sky was clear and sunny all day long. This was a key point, as snow, and freshly fallen snow in particular, will begin to melt in temperatures as cold as 24 or 25 degrees when direct sunlight is present. But shortly after sunset, after the effect of direct sunlight is lost, melted snow will re-freeze very rapidly, while any remaining snow on the ground becomes more hard-packed. In addition, when snow is shoveled or plowed into large piles, compressi!
on takes place due to the weight of the snow. This causes snow on the bottom of the pile to compress, and under the right circumstances, to melt.
The analysis by CompuWeather made it very easy to explain how ice could have formed in the parking lot. The key point being that 32 degrees is not the "magic number" for snow to melt or water to freeze. Those two things can, and usually do, take place at a temperature lower than 32 degrees. The case never came to trial, as the information provided by CompuWeather proved pivotal in securing a favorable settlement.
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