weather

10Oct

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS, SCIENCE

An Atmospheric Scientist Explains The Weather Phenomenon Known As A Heat Dome Baking California And The West

A heat dome occurs when a persistent region of high pressure traps heat over an area. The heat dome can stretch over several states and linger for days to weeks, leaving the people, crops and animals below to suffer through stagnant, hot air that can feel like an oven. Typically, heat domes are tied to the behavior of the jet stream, a band of fast winds high in the atmosphere that generally runs west to east. Normally, the jet stream has a wavelike pattern, meandering north and then south and then north again. When these meanders in the jet stream become bigger, they move slower and can become stationary. That’s when heat domes can occur. Heat domes involve high-pressure areas that trap and heat up the air below. NOAA When the jet stream swings far to the north, air piles up and sinks. ...

4 Essential Reads: Wild Weather, About Tornadoes And Thunderstorms

Springtime in the U.S. is frequently a season for thunderstorms, which can spawn tornadoes. These large storms are common in the South and Southeast in March and April, then shift toward the Plains states in May. Scientists have warned that 2021 could be an active tornado year, partly because of a La Niña climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Past research has suggested that La Niña increases the frequency of tornadoes and hail by concentrating hot, humid air over Texas and other Southern states, which helps to promote storm formation. These four articles from The Conversation’s archives explain how tornadoes form, why night tornadoes are more deadly, and how in rare cases thunderstorms can take a different but equally destructive form – a derecho. We also look at a neglected asp...

Extreme wildfires can create their own dangerous weather, including fire tornadoes – here’s how

It might sound like a bad movie, but extreme wildfires can create their own weather – including fire tornadoes. It happened in California as a heat wave helped to fuel hundreds of wildfires across the region, many of them sparked by lightning. One fiery funnel cloud on Aug. 15 was so powerful, the National Weather Service issued what’s believed to be its first fire tornado warning. So, what has to happen for a wildfire to get so extreme that it spins off tornadoes? As professors who study wildfires and weather, we can offer some insights. How extreme fire conditions form Fires have three basic elements: heat, fuel and oxygen. In a wildland fire, a heat source ignites the fire. Sometimes that ignition source is a car or power line or, as the West saw in mid-August, lightning strikes. Ox...