Weather Alerts

[MN-Skeptic]

Jason Miles
@JMilesKHOU

Wow. Windows blown out in the CenterPoint, Total Energies towers in downtown Houston.. Maybe others. Seeing trees and other debris on streets, some intersections blocked, traffic lights out. Meanwhile, an @astros game is happening #khou11 @KHOU

[MN-Skeptic]

Almost a million people without power in the Houston area -

20240516 Texas Power Outage.jpg (179.8 KiB) Viewed 1179 times

[Volkonski]

Our former Texas city for 30+ years was Baytown just a bit east of Houston.

Facebook reports from Baytown this morning say that most of the city has no power. Schools are closed in both Baytown and all of Houston.

[Volkonski]

At least 20 other Houston area school districts are closed today.

[Foggy]

It's only mid-May. Texas could be in for a very rough summer.

[Slim Cognito]

We're already breaking heat records in Florida.

[Volkonski]

Reports of damage in the Houston area sound like that of a hurricane but without any storm surge.

Some places may be without power for weeks.

[AndyinPA]

Another tornado warning, but this time not right in my area, in another part of the county.

[johnpcapitalist]

Reports of damage in the Houston area sound like that of a hurricane but without any storm surge.

Some places may be without power for weeks.

My ex-wife lives in Houston, and sustained some significant damage with lots of trees down in the yard and a big branch on the roof (but apparently not damaging it). Fortunately, her sister lives nearby and she has a generator. The ex said that it was a near-miss, so the house is still standing but houses not too far away were severely damaged.

[AndyinPA]

We had three tornadoes this afternoon, one of them where one of them hit last Saturday near me. Another one was very close to my daughter's house, and they went into the basement.

We normally have 4–8 tornadoes here in a year, mostly not really bad. We have had 9 in the last two weeks. There are no tornado sirens here.

Climate change, anyone?

[MN-Skeptic]

It can't be climate change. Didn't you hear... DeSantis just signed a law which deletes climate change from most of Florida law.

Good discussion at NPR on this issue - Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law

This week, Key West, Fla., experienced record-high temperatures, with a heat index of 115 degrees. Even the late Jimmy Buffett would have had trouble finding enough margaritas for that. Parts of South Florida were also hit by smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of miles away in Mexico. This is also the week that Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that removes the words climate change from many state laws.

Discussion follows, use the link above.

[northland10]

We had three tornadoes this afternoon, one of them where one of them hit last Saturday near me. Another one was very close to my daughter's house, and they went into the basement.

We normally have 4–8 tornadoes here in a year, mostly not really bad. We have had 9 in the last two weeks. There are no tornado sirens here.

Climate change, anyone?

I am not one to blame a change in one year to a long-term trend. This season feels like there are more outbreaks than normal but this comes and goes. We have had various large outbreaks in earlier years as well. Climate change can bring more severe weather, but to be sure, there needs to be a consistent increase.

Here are the tornado counts for Pennysylvania since 1950. 85 was bad due to the breakout which included some 21+ tornados in 2 days with many F4s and and F5,

https://data.ydr.com/tornado-archive/

[RTH10260]

It’s officially hotter than anytime since the birth of Jesus
Tree ring data allowing scientists to better decipher the history of the Earth’s climate
The year 2023 was the hottest in recorded history. The next warmest 25 have all occurred since 1996.

By F.D. Flam
May 16, 2024

It’s one thing to say the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2023 was the hottest of the 150 years people have been making measurements. This well-documented claim is often dismissed by skeptics of global warming who point out that the Earth has a long history of temperature fluctuations. That’s why it’s important that a new paper shows last summer was actually the hottest in the last 2,000 years — and that our current temperatures are even more of an outlier than we realized.

If all we had were the few decades of temperature readings to understand the past climate, we wouldn’t know whether our current warming was a major shift or a run-of-the-mill blip. Tree rings hold records that can go back thousands of years, giving us the perspective we need to understand what’s happening today.

In a paper published in Nature this week, scientists used tree rings not only to show long-term trends, but to plot Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures year by year for the last two millennia. 2023 was the hottest of them all. The next hottest 25 have all occurred since 1996. The next runner-up was way back in 246 A.D.

The world’s understanding of global warming changed dramatically when scientists started to document long-term temperature trends using tree rings, ice cores, sediment layers and other natural temperature monitors. In 1998, scientists published the famous "hockey stick graph” covering the last 600 years. It showed that global temperatures rose and fell like gently rolling hills until the mid-20th century, when they suddenly soared.

That gave people a graphic image of just how unusual things are today. Unable to discredit the results, some people tried to discredit the researchers by hacking into their emails in 2009 and taking statements out of context to imply they’d done something wrong — creating a phony scandal called "climate-gate.”



https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary ... nce-jesus/

[Rolodex]

Reports of damage in the Houston area sound like that of a hurricane but without any storm surge.

Some places may be without power for weeks.

My sister lives in Houston. She did fine in Harvey, but froze when Cruz went to Cancun. I think her power was out for 4 days or so. They are saying weeks on this storm before power is restored. I invited her out here to "chill" because the temps are supposed to go back to normal for Houston. I grew up there so that means 90 with 90% humidity. Worse than miserable without ac.

[Volkonski]

Hot weather poses new risk as thousands remain without power after deadly Houston storm

https://apnews.com/article/houston-texa ... e03b52e51d

77 Houston ISD campuses still without power, still hoping to reopen Monday

https://www.click2houston.com/news/loca ... en-monday/

[Suranis]

Tornado footage uploaded 10 hours ago from Greenfeld, Iowa.



I don't know what F that was, but I would class it as a "Run the F away"

[northland10]

When the storm got to Greenfield.

[Foggy]

Do you see what is almost completely undamaged in those vids?

The grass. Most of the bushes. A lot of the trees. Life is so tough, so aggressive, so adaptable. Some of the trees are stripped, but they are still standing.

The berdies flew away. The squirtles climbed into their hidey-holes in the trees. And the trees waved all around for a few minutes.

Life is good.

[northland10]

The trees did not do so well. Those still standing will eventually recover but looking at some before shots, there were a great deal more trees.

Same thing happened a few weeks back to the former woods nearby where I grew up on Portage, MI.

They thing is, nature will rebuild though it may end up a bit more prairie in that area.

Some EF5s will even rip up the soil.

I suspect the Greenfield one is at least an EF-4, maybe 5, but the ones with weather smarticles will determine that.

[Foggy]

I know, it just seems like the man-made items in the vid did not hold up as well as the green things. The man-made stuff is a mess.

[northland10]

And nature can destroy man-made stuff with far greater efficiency than humans.

[northland10]

As we are up on the green area of the convective outlook, I was not really paying attention until my phone goes off about a tornado warning (I was still looking at blue skies) and a severe thunderstorm warning. THey mentioned it might decrease by the time it got here (the warning was for 45 minutes).

It did.

Lots of rain but that was it.

I was just looking at photos from TX/OK/AK this weekend. Golly.

[RTH10260]

'Dangerous out there': 15 dead as tornadoes slam multiple states in the South: Updates

John Bacon, USA TODAY
Updated Mon, May 27, 2024 at 1:42 AM GMT+2·

Powerful storms and tornadoes sweeping across the nation's midsection Sunday killed at least 15 people in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kentucky, injuring scores, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the region, and delaying the start of the iconic Indianapolis 500.

Seven deaths were confirmed in North Texas after an apparent tornado tore through Cooke County, near the Oklahoma border, on Saturday night, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a Sunday news conference in Valley View, one of the hardest-hit towns. Two children, aged 2 and 5 years old, were among the dead, according to Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington.

At least 100 others were injured in the deadly storm, Abbott said. The storm had struck a nearby travel center and gas station complex where more than 60 residents had sought shelter, according to Sappington.

Sappington said search and rescue efforts were complicated by downed trees and power lines that blocked access to roads.

The governor added that the tornado destroyed more than 200 homes and other buildings as well as damaged another 120 structures. "I'll be shocked if those numbers are not increased as further assessments are made," Abbott said.

A tornado also ripped through Denton County, northwest of Dallas, on Saturday night and damaged homes and other buildings while knocking down power lines. Officials said "a number of individuals" were injured and transported to area hospitals.

The National Weather Service in Fort Worth said its crews assessed damage and conducted storm surveys in Montague, Cooke, Denton, and Collin Counties.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/dangerous-5- ... 41183.html
(original: USA TODAY)

[Volkonski]

That storm passed just south of our home in Wichita Falls. Got Red Code warnings on my phone.

Our older daughter and SIL both graduated from the University of North Texas in Denton so we kind of know that area.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

ALL HAIL THE STORM GODS!