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Hi everyone, new topic for the 2024 US tornado season. Yesterday the first us tornado of the year struck Fort Lauderdale in southern Florida likely causing EF0-EF1 damage. 2024 will be an interesting year, looking ahead we seem to stay in EL Nino till around March/April before transitioning into a neutral state by May, could even be in a La Nina by the end of June, this will have a large impact on severe weather positioning within the US. Many believe the US will have a close to average tornado year with the most tornadoes being either in the southern plains or the deep south depending on jet positioning. Something i dont like at the moment is the state of drought over the US southwest, especially New Mexico. This drought will lead to a stronger EML, could be a problem for any outbreaks across the plains, however outbreaks within the deep south do seem to benefit from stronger EMLs. Andrew Shearer on twitter has a good thread on predictions for the season, predicting above average for south east but below for the plains. On the other hand, Reed Timmer believes the southern plains will be more active. Regardless, will be interesting to see how the season plays out, if that drought can be slightly relieved ill be much more confident in an above average plains season. Anyways, it does seem like the first potential significant outbreak of the season is setting up across the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle. The NWS SPC has issued an enhanced risk with a 10% hatched tornado risk area and a 30% hatched wind risk. The spc discussion mentions a further upgrade to probabilities should confidence increase, however questions about storm mode, temperatures, dewpoints, low level lapse rates and morning convection still remain. A QLCS with significant wind gusts is very likely with the potential for rare strong QLCS tornadoes. If discrete supercells are able to sustain themselves then a violent tornado cannot be ruled out. The Helicity across the environment is insane even for second season outbreaks, widely 600+ across warm sector. Low level jet absolutely cranking, 90 knots Bulk shear also very high. Anyone chasing storms will likely have only one choice, storm motion will be very quick, pretty impossible to catch up to. The only good thing is the warm sector will be relatively small. Very lucky this isnt March or April, this would of gone high risk. Profile taken from near Houma, Louisiana. Demonstrates the low floor, high ceiling of this event. On the one hand a saturated profile with unfavourable LLLRs will decrease tornado chances, on the other an insanely good hodograph combined with 700+!!! effective SRH. Knowing that the NAM 3km underdoes surface temps and other models do seem to struggle with winter environments I am concerned about a potential significant outbreak. The deciding factor will likely be morning convection and how it affects the environment. Environment continues throughout the night, these are 6am EST soundings from near the Florida Panhandle border. 874 effective helicity is just beyond insane, last time i saw that much was the April 27th 2011 super outbreak, thankfully its winter and the warm sector is very small. Still with soundings like these QLCS tornadoes are very likely, any embedded supercell needs to be watched. Something that keeps standing out to me is the high 3cape levels, we know that strong 3cape helps efficiently tilt any spin (look at the profiles for the tornado in Manchester a few weeks back) having 3cape in excess of 100 in this sort of environment with this much shear is going to be a big time problem.

Hey guys, back from 2 weeks in the US visiting family in both Florida and Michigan. While there i was able to see some of the best convection and storms i've genuinely ever seen (photo dump incoming ) I decided to delete the previous post and put this in a new topic so I didnt clog up any actual discussions/feeds. July 20th featured an enhanced risk in Michigan, Due to bad positioning i was unable to get many pictures of the large MCS that developed producing 80 mph winds, QLCS tornadoes and quarter sized hail. However, I was able to get some shots of the storms anvils as they passed me to the North-West. Florida was much more fruitful in storm terms, delivering daily thunderstorms, heat indexes above 40°C and 23°C+ dewpoints SBCAPE was regularly in the 3000-4000 range with it reaching 5500 at one point, additionally it never went below 1000 j/kg during any of the days or nights i was there. While in South Florida near the town of Homestead I believe I was able to chase my first ever US Supercell, i'm still 50/50 if it was however radar presentation showed the storm deviating from the North West path of other storms and it began to move directly to the East. Additionally velocities showed the storm had some weak rotation in the mid levels. It was also the most electrically active storm i've ever experienced, multiple CGs in rapid succession with thunder becoming a constant, never ending low rumble in the background. I'm not sure if anyone experienced with supercell structure can help but it did have a substantial lowering on it for a good 30 mins with rising scud in the inflow region. No sign of anything tornadic but the storm did go severe warned for 30 mins. As the storm moved slowly off to the North East its Anvil was caught in one of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen. I still can't believe i experienced this, just stunning. This happened everyday I was there as the sun set behind anvils of the daily thunderstorms. This was followed by around an hour of lightning as the storm slowly died and faded to the East, however tropical thunderstorms then rapidly developed off the south coast of the Florida Keys. With water temperatures between 31-38°C and Nightime temps never dipping below 34°C these storms were very electrically active. I will try to trim some videos of the light show and post some on here. The flight back home was pretty convective as well. Overall, an amazing trip that i'm already missing, will hopefully be able to go back soon. Hope you guys like the photos, not sure what to do about some of the weirdly cropped ones but oh well, I'll try to post some videos of those night storms if the jetlag hasn't killed me

Please let me know what places in Canada or Alaska with a population over 10K has at least 9cm of snow average in October I have currently found: Snag, Canada Fairbanks, Alaska Labrador city, Canada

System has also been bringing tornadoes + severe weather

The introduction of laws banning smoking in public places and workplaces in North America and Europe has been quickly followed by large drops in rates of preterm births and children attending hospital for asthma, according to the first systematic review and meta-analysis examining the effect of smoke-free legislation on child health, published in The Lancet. The analysis of 11 studies done in North America and Europe, involving more than 2.5 million births, and nearly 250 000 asthma exacerbations, showed that rates of both preterm births and hospital attendance for asthma were reduced by 10% within a year of smoke-free laws coming into effect... ...Writing in a linked Comment, Sara Kalkhoran and Stanton Glantz from the University of California San Francisco in the USA point out that, “Medical expenses for asthma exceeded US$50 billion in the USA in 2007, and US$20 billion in Europe in 2006. If asthma emergency department visits and admissions to hospital decreased by even 10%, the savings in the USA and Europe together would be US$7 billion annually.†They conclude, “The cigarette companies, their allies, and the groups they sponsor have long used claims of economic harm, particularly to restaurants, bars, and casinos, to oppose smoke-free laws despite consistent evidence to the contrary. By contrast, the rapid economic benefits that smoke-free laws and other tobacco control policies bring in terms of reduced medical costs are real. Rarely can such a simple intervention improve health and reduce medical costs so swiftly and substantially.†More here http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=140382&CultureCode=en

Looks like there will be SNOW ICE AND COLD! Hope they enjoy it. Edit:Might want to watch this too.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNPeCZE_dWU

It's come around fast this year - the storm chase starts next week, and as ever we'll be streaming the action live, and the team will be regularly keeping us up to date with the latest forecasts, reports, photos and video. The first chase day for tour 2 is the 9th, so we're about coming in to model range now - the season has started fairly slowly but there are signs of life coming through as we get into next week.. The staff members on tour 2 are: Paul Sherman - team leader Arron Hiscox - GPS and forecaster Ian MIchaelwaite - Driver and technical The guests are: Kaddy Lee-Preston (special guest) Gavin Woolnough Jo Lough Catherine Anderson Stuart Wilson Kathryn Tyler I'm sure Paul, Ian and Arron will share some of the techie and photographic kit they're packing in with them this year, and if any of the guests want to fill us in on any special goodies they're packing, or indeed have any questions about what to take or anything else related to the tour, please shout! The countdown proper starts now

As we build up to the 2013 chase, we thought now would be a good time to look back at the chases since 2007, and share some of the highlights. Today it's the tornadoes - of which there have been many! These are in no particular order - pick your favourite More to follow....