DISCUSSION: As millions of people both from across the United States of America and the world have watched, Major Hurricane Harvey made landfall with a very loud bang across a good portion of southeastern Texas later Friday night. After well over 48 hours (or 2 days) of near-constant rainfall, many areas across parts of southeast Texas have now received well over 30 inches and in some cases over 40 inches of total rainfall over the course of the last couple of days. These excessive rainfall totals have been the direct result of efficient moisture transport both off the northwestern Gulf of Mexico as well as directly from the persistent circulation associated with what still now remains to be Tropical Storm Harvey. Attached below is a direct excerpt from the GOES-16 Satellite Facebook Account which more elaborately describes the evolution of this situation up to this point.
"GOES-16 infrared imagery depicts the hourly of the evolution of Harvey from August 22 through August 28, 2017. A strengthening Tropical Storm Harvey approached Texas Gulf coast on August 24, 2017. Harvey initially developed and was named on August 17 in the Atlantic just east of the Lesser Antilles. A couple of days later, Harvey weakened to a wave before crossing over the Yucatan Peninsula. After advancing into the Gulf of Mexico on August 22, Harvey strengthened again to a Tropical Storm. On August 24, Harvey was forecast to become a Major Hurricane before making landfall. Harvey continued to strengthen through August 25, and made landfall on the Texas coast as a Category 4 Hurricane around 10:00 p.m. CDT that evening. A GOES-16 1-min mesoscale sector was consistently available over Harvey during its life cycle. For tropical cyclones, 1-min imagery has proven to aid in identifying a center of circulation and in tracking thunderstorm evolution. On August 24, 30-second imagery (two overlapping 1-min sectors) was requested to track Harvey, providing a rare look at a strengthening tropical system. By the morning of August 26, Harvey had weakened to a category 1 hurricane, continuing to produce strong winds and heavy rain across a large swath of Texas. By the morning of August 28, Harvey had not moved much, still dropping heavy rainfall over southeast Texas and now western Louisiana." To learn more about other high-impact weather events occurring across North America, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz
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 DISCUSSION: As Hurricane Harvey hits the Texas coast, not only is flooding and heavy rains a major concern on the roadways, it is also a major concern at many airports. Houston will be among the firsts as Houston-Hobby and Houston Bush Intercontinental will be affected heavily as they are the hubs for Southwest and United Airlines respectively. Also, Dallas-Ft. Worth, one of the busiest airports in the United States as well as the biggest hub for American Airlines will be affected along with Dallas-Love where Southwest has a smaller focus city operation. Smaller airports including Austin-Bergstrom will also be affected due to the operations there.
The main reason that many of these airports are going to be closed and have many flight cancellations are due to very high winds as well as thunderstorms which would make it hard for planes to land and takeoff in. These conditions also would make it unsafe for the bag handlers and those working at the gate because they could get injured or killed due to these conditions. Also, the heavy rains would make it hard for planes to brake when landing because of the slick runways and could possibly get into an accident. In addition, the winds would make it hard for planes to takeoff especially when the winds at airports with only parallel runways such as Dallas-Ft. Worth will make it impossible to takeoff safely without being blown off course or even tipped over. In addition, there is a huge risk of heavy turbulence which would make it hard for planes to fly smoothly as well as downdrafts which have been known to create accidents. Harvey is having a big effect nationwide on flights as much of the nation’s largest airlines would be without a good number of their fleets which are grounded in cities like Houston and Dallas, as well as not being able to get planes to cover some routes which are needed at other airports. To learn more about this and other high-impact weather events occurring across North America, be sure to click here! © 2017 Meteorologist JP Kalb 
DISCUSSION: As of the middle of this afternoon on this Friday (August 25th, 2017), we (i.e., hundreds of atmospheric scientists from across the nation) are continuing to carefully monitor updates on the stats and forward progress of now Major Hurricane Harvey. Between the epic rainfall on tap, the clearly strong winds associated with this powerful/incoming tropical cyclone, and the major storm surge (which is already increasing quickly in many places), this is going to without question be a very historic tropical cyclone landfall for millions of people in its path. Attached above is an afternoon briefing updating from myself (Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz) which details the latest on this very (and increasingly more) dangerous tropical cyclone and where things will go from here over the course of the next several hours. There will be many more updates on our Twitter feed (@gwccwx), so be sure to follow our national correspondent team there on Twitter, on Facebook, and here on our website!
To learn more about other high-impact weather events occurring across North America, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz An Uncertain Future for Tropical Depression Harvey (credit: WSIL Meteorologist Nick Hausen)8/23/2017  DISCUSSION: Over the next few days, Tropical Depression Harvey is projected to continue gradually making its way towards the greater Southeast Texas region as it continues on its current north-northeastward track across the far western portions of the Gulf of Mexico. As it continues to do so, Harvey (regardless of whether it remains at tropical depression or regains tropical storm intensity) will be bringing in a plethora of rainfall as well as a prolonged period of gusty (and some potentially more damaging) winds to the surface along the immediate western Gulf Coast. However, based on the fact that there will not be much (if any) larger-scale atmospheric features nearby Harvey near the projected time frame for its first official United States landfall, there is a fairly large degree of uncertainty regarding the exact future track which Harvey will follow as it approaches and then subsequently moves inland across parts of the South-Central United States. Therefore, if you live anywhere across states including (but certainly not limited to) Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, it is imperative to remain vigilant in the coming days as weak tropical low pressure systems similar to this one which move slowly inland are historically known for producing historically large and high-impacting rainfall events. Be sure to stay tuned right here at the Global Weather and Climate Center for updates on this evolving situation with Tropical Depression Harvey in the coming hours and days!
To learn more about this and other high-impact weather events occurring across North America, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz While ex-hurricane Franklin dissipated quickly over Mexico yesterday, a much weaker tropical system began affecting Florida (Fig. 1). On Wednesday, the system was located over the Bahamas and all its storminess remained well east of Florida. In fact, thanks to the dynamics of these “tropical waves,” places west of the wave (in the Northern Hemisphere) are typically afforded sunny skies. That was the dichotomy across Florida yesterday… To read the full story, click here - http://www.weatherworks.com/lifelong-learning-blog/?p=1386 © 2017 H. Michael Mogil To learn more about how to read/interpret various maps and charts used by meteorologists, be sure to click here!   DISCUSSION: Over the past few days, a massive ridge over the West Coast has been dominating the weather stories in the region with the Pacific Northwest reaching near and above 100 degrees Fahrenheit including in Portland, Oregon. However, the massive ridge also brought moisture into California. The moisture slowly crawled up the state of California in the form of high clouds, thunderstorms, and rain. The monsoon made its first stop in Santa Barbara Coast especially where there was slight rain on Tuesday followed by thunderstorms on Wednesday.
However, the moisture wasn’t quite enough as the showers were generally hit and miss in some areas. For example, the San Francisco Bay Area had some locations with a few drops even enough to barely tip the bucket in some locations such as San Francisco and San Jose while some like Livermore had received about seven hundredths of an inch in a day. However, no real thunderstorms occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area as much of the convective activity was positioned just off the coast on the edge of the Eastern Pacific Ocean near Half Moon Bay. Also, there were thunderstorms over parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains as well as the San Joaquin Valley, especially where the Detwiler fire is burning. Also, there happened to be little to no Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE), which is a measurement of buoyancy related to the updrafts of thunderstorms, according to the soundings at Oakland, Vandenburg Air Force Base, and San Diego while Reno had observed about 100-200 joules per kilogram. Another phenomenon that happened during this monsoon flow was a few heat bursts, which occurs on occasion after a thunderstorm dissipates; although not much is known about them. The heat bursts had occurred over some parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, including in the City of Oakland. Chief Meteorologist A.J. Fox of KSEE 24 News in Fresno said that the cloud cover and humidity helped Fresno set a record with a morning low temperature of 85 degrees on August 3rd. Fox also mentioned that there were several grass fires in the San Joaquin Valley due to the lightning strikes affiliated with the monsoon as well as dried up grass. San Jose also had a very high low temperature of 74 degrees on the morning of August 4th. However, the extremely high low temperatures were short-lived as the temperatures dropped the next day according to the National Weather Service office in Monterey, California. This monsoon is a yearly event during the summer where moisture gets drawn up into California from Arizona. To learn more about other high-impact weather events occurring across North America, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist JP Kalb  DISCUSSION: As a larger-scale low-pressure system gradually continues to head eastward across portions of southeastern Canada, there will be a continued threat for showers and storms overnight across portions of both coastal and interior sections of the Northeastern United States. This is a direct result of a slow-moving cold front gradually pushing convection along a north-to-south line further east with time during the overnight hours now and on into earlier Saturday morning. Although there is currently only a single flash flood warning effect on the southern flank of this relatively linear area of convection across eastern Pennsylvania, there are still many reports of lightning in the vicinity of this nocturnally-persistent convection and this will be likely to continue due to the continued presence of decent convective instability through the overnight hours. This continued convective instability will be largely due to a persistent flow of warmer and substantially moistened air associated with the more southerly flow pumping northward just ahead of the slowly advancing cold front. Hence, tonight will continue to be a rainy one for many people living across eastern Pennsylvania, southern/central New Jersey, and southeastern New York.
To learn more about other high-impact weather events occurring across North America, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz |
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