 DISCUSSION: By turning the clocks all the way back to June 1904, we find ourselves at a very historic and scary day in Russia weather history. On June 29th, 1904, A tornado hits Karacharov Village area of Moscow killing about 24 people. First of all, it goes without saying that this was a particularly scary event since there was little to no form of a national weather forecast organization across the country of Russia at the time. In addition, based on the early 20th century timing of this particular event, there was also no remote sensing capabilities whatsoever which greatly limited the ability of people in the region to have any sort of idea what sort of hazard was approaching them. Moreover, even if they were able to see far in the distance, the lack of automobiles across much of Russia at that time would have likely made it difficult to near impossible to get to safety in a reasonable amount of time. Hence, this would have been an absolutely horrific tornadic thunderstorm to be in the path of. To learn more about this event, feel free to click on the following link.
To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz
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 On June 29, 2012, a massive severe storm impacted millions of people from Iowa to the east coast of Virginia. This storm, which was later classified as a derecho, took place in under 24 hours moving at an average pace of 60 mph. The SPC noted that the derecho travelled approximately 700 miles in under 12 hours!
General thunderstorms had began to form over eastern Iowa where a “modest band of moist, southwesterly low-level winds (known as the “nocturnal low level jet”) intersected a weak stationary front.” The fronts extension into Pennsylvania provided the derecho’s path for the remainder of the day. An elevated mixed layer deepened the storms severity despite not having a jet stream disturbance. The storms in Iowa produced severe hail and damaging winds. When the storms entered Indiana, they began to “bow” as seen from the image above. In bow-echoes, the main threat is damaging winds because the storm is drawing winds from behind and pushing it forward making the storm “bow.” As the parent storm over northern Indiana strengthened, new storms to the south began to contribute as surface heating destabilized the region. The two systems joined forces and rapidly intensified as they moved into Ohio. A wind gust of 91 mph was recorded at Fort Wayne which was the strongest wind gust ever recorded in June and July in the last 61 years of recording. The Storm Prediction Center noted that the derecho reached its peak intensity over the southern half of Ohio where numerous trees were downed, roofs were damaged, people were injured and deaths were reported. As the derecho tore through West Virginia, the storm slightly weakened as it crossed over the Appalachian Mountains. Even with slightly weakening, the system still produced very high winds. After crossing the mountains, the system regained some strength producing wind gusts between 65-75 mph in Washington, D.C. The 9-1-1 service was interrupted due to power outages. Cellphone service was halted due to towers and telephone poles being down. As the storm continued east, the winds weakened to approximately 60-70 mph as it entered the Tidewater and Delaware. Numerous trees had fallen and two deaths were reported in New Jersey when a tree fell on their tent. This derecho was not the first in this area, however, it was the first to gain headlines. The SPC noted that this system was “not-well forecasted,” however, this event will serve as a tool to use for the next event. To read the SPC’s full report, and for more graphics, click here! For more on weather history, click here! ⓒ 2017 Meteorologist Brandie Cantrell  DISCUSSION: As the phrase goes, "if you do not learn about past events in history," it is doomed to repeat itself. A great example of this type of situation is perfectly defined by learning about the derecho which slammed Washington D.C. back in June of 1954. The first angle to consider when looking back to an event such as this is that there was most certainly little to no warning in advance of this derecho's approach. This would be due to the combination of a lack of a comprehensive national observation network (e.g., the national Skywarn Spotter and CoCoRaHS programs) as well as far less advanced Doppler radar surveillance capabilities.
Thus, this had to be quite a scary event for millions of people who were in the path of this strong-to-severe bowing thunderstorm complex. It bears the importance of reminding people who are threatened by severe thunderstorm events to always respect the inherent power associated with severe weather events. It is always better to take shelter and protect yourself and your family, than risk your life by trying to capture images or video of the event. Bottom line, respect the natural power tie to "Mother Nature." To read more about this event, feel free to click on the following link! To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz  
DISCUSSION: As we turn the clocks back all the way to 60 years ago today, we arrive at the historic landfall of Hurricane Audrey back on June 27th, 1957. There is certainly no argument that Hurricane Audrey was about as classic of a hurricane landfall as there ever was during the earlier part of the satellite remote sensing advancement era.
There is also no debate that even with the early primitive radar system located in east-central Louisiana (as depicted in the image attached above), this had to be a storm which surprised many people living across the western Gulf Coast region. This is chiefly due to the fact that the combination of a smaller surface observation network and the more primitive range of geostationary earth-orbiting satellite imager capabilities, there was a more limited forecast accuracy potential overall. Per the historical storm wrap-up discussion (courtesy of the NOAA Hurricane Research Division), there were many great details and aspects of the storm being discussed and some of this is included here for your benefit. "In the morning hours of June 27, 1957, Hurricane Audrey sent a 12 foot (3.7 m) storm surge over Cameron, Louisiana, as the storm lashed the area with 125 mph (205 km/hr) winds. Many residents were caught by surprise and had not evacuated, and the storm took some 400 lives.Audrey was an unusual June storm. It formed in the Bay of Campeche from a tropical wave on June 24th. Over the warm waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico, the system gained some impetus from the end of a stationary front extending into the area. By the time a reconnaissance flight reached the area on June 25th, it had already reached hurricane strength and was named ‘Audrey’. It began a northward movement, slowly at first. But the hurricane intensified and began to pick up forward speed. While aircraft reconnaissance was maintained, the Navy Hurricane Hunters did not penetrate the eye of the storm because of its intensity. Wind speeds were estimated at 125 mph (205 km/hr) for an encounter with a tanker ship Tillamook." To read this entire article, feel free to click the following link! To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz  DISCUSSION: As we look back to June 14th - 25th, 1972, a tropical depression formed over the Yucatan Peninsula on the 14th and moved eastward into the northwest Caribbean Sea. The system strengthened into a tropical storm during the night of the 15th, and a hurricane on the 18th as it moved northward in the Gulf of Mexico. Moving to the Florida panhandle as a hurricane, the system quickly weakened into a tropical depression as it moved through Georgia on the 20th. As history would play out, this system (upon landfall) wreaked major havoc along the East Coast of the United States in the form of a heavy, long-duration rainfall event. Even despite the increase in the large-scale remote sensing capability at the time, the more primitive nature of the larger-scale forecast models being used at the time limited the effectiveness of forecaster accuracy prior to the onset of this heavy rainfall event generated by the landfall of Hurricane Agnes. To learn more about this particular tropical cyclone-based event, click on the following link!
To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz  DISCUSSION: By turning the clocks all the way back to June 12th, 1899, a deadly tornado tore through New Richmond, Wisconsin on a day in which an extra 1,000 people had come from the surrounding area to watch a circus. There is no question that this had to be a particularly scary situation and severe weather event for all those who experienced this tornadic thunderstorm based on the fact that there was much less remote sensing technological ability at that time. As a result of this event occurring during the earliest part of the 20th century, this was such a deadly event since there was little to no warning prior the onset of the tornado first touching down within the city limits of New Richmond, Wisconsin. To learn more about this particular severe weather event, feel free to click on the following link!
To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz  DISCUSSION: As we take U.S. weather history all the way back to June 1947, we arrive at an unusually cold, late season storm system brought significant snow Wyoming and Colorado. As a result of this mid-Spring winter storm, the maximum snowfall amount in both states was 20 inches at Silver Lake, Colorado. As per the dialogue from the "This Day in Weather History" team: "Since 1883, Cheyenne Wyoming has seen more than a trace of snow 16 times during the month of June. The most recent June snowfall occurred on the 4th and 5th, 1998. The total snowfall amount on these two days was 0.7 inches. The most snowfall in June took place on the 11th and 12th, 1947 when 8.7 inches fell. This late snowstorm caused significant losses to livestock. One rancher in the Cheyenne area reported a loss of approximately $15,000 in livestock. In Natrona County, losses were estimated at $125,000 with most confined to newly shorn sheep and young lambs." More information pertaining to this historic winter storm can be found at the following link.
To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz Remembering a Historic Western Massachusetts Tornado (credit: This Day in Weather History)6/13/2017  DISCUSSION: As we turn the clocks back to June 9th, 1953, an F4 tornado hit Worcester, MA causing 94 fatalities. The tornado touched down in Petersham, traveled through Worcester, and on to Southborough. Debris was carried eastward and fell in the Boston area. About 4000 houses and buildings were destroyed. It goes without saying that based on the mid-20th century timing of such a high-impact severe weather event, such a tornadic storm was much more difficult to monitor and study real-time from a remote sensing standpoint. This is primarily due to the fact that at that point in history there was far less advanced radar-based technology in place aside from more primitive and older-style radar systems (such as the one depicted in the image attached above which shows the radar system owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time). To learn more about this particular severe weather event which heavily impacted parts of interior New England, feel free to watch the corresponding YouTube video attached above and/or click on the following link!
To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz  DISCUSSION: As we turn the clocks back to the first week of June 2001, we arrive at a very historic and troubling period of weather history for the greater metropolitan area which composes the city of Houston, Texas. During the earlier parts of June 2001, the gradually weakening remnants of Tropical Storm Allison began to move ashore into parts of southern/southeastern Texas. As this process lingered on for some time, the results were robust and memorable across this part of the south-central United States. These results were best characterized by a prolonged period of heavy, flooding rainfall which caused the majority of various travel into and out of the greater Houston metropolitan area to be suspended for days in many cases.
For the people living in this part of the south-central United States, this was a real-life nightmare and worst case scenario which came to fruition. Moreover, the impacts from this major flooding event were long-lasting in many cases which led to a long period of vast flooding insurance claims boiling to the surface from a plethora of large-scale residential and general infrastructural flooding damage. To learn more about this major flooding event from the perspective of www.houstonsportsandstuff.com writer (Stephen Uzick), feel free to click on the following link! To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz  DISCUSSION: As we look back to June 6th, 1944, the world arrives at a truly historic day in weather history. Attached below is a neat conversation courtesy of the Met Office which provides insights into how the forecast leading up to D-Day evolved and how it impacted the way in which D-Day evolved.
"In 1944, critical decisions were made based on weather forecasts compiled using data gathered from air reconnaissance, ship observations (often sent ashore using pigeons), UK observation sites and from the Germans - once the allies broke the Enigma code. All observation sites were manned, as opposed to automated as they are today, and charts were hand drawn every few hours. The German weather charts were drawn using much fewer observations. National Meteorological Archive Catherine Ross said: "The Allied charts contain a wealth of observations from across the UK and Europe, by contrast the German charts reveal that they had been unable to crack the Allied codes and as a result there are virtually no observations for the UK and surrounding waters. The difference in the information available to both sides gave the allies a crucial advantage on D-Day." Group Captain James Stagg, RAF and Chief Meteorological Officer at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, led a team of meteorologists charged with providing forecasts to the Allied Commanders deciding when to launch the D-Day offensives. They considered all the elements that would impact operations and drew up a wish list of ideal conditions for the D-Day landings." To learn more about the history behind D-Day, feel free to click on the following link! To learn more about other past historic weather events from around the world, be sure to click here! ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz |
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