Grabbed a quick lunch this afternoon...and had 3 people in 5 minutes tell me their experience with the storm...in some respects...by the time insurance adjusters are done...this may be one of the more costly weather events in the area over the last few years...only because there was a considerable swath of damaging hail up to near baseball size in a largely populated sector...it'll be interesting what the numbers end up at...here at the station at least 10 cars suffered close to 2000 in damage...so right there you're looking at 20K in damages...this one may get into the millions of dollars by the time it's all said and done...hail can do that...there have been storms in the past in Denver and Dallas, if memory serves...Denver was devastated by on e back in June of 1990 if I remember to the tune of $600+ million worth...
As is typical some areas had too much rain...others not nearly what they were looking for...amounts were all over the place...
Metro Close-Up...
Details concerning the rain chances later PM and this evening on the newscasts...
Tomorrow should be fine...we'll enjoy another day with "low for July" dewpoints...and gradually on SAT the humidity starts to come back up...I can't guarantee everybody will have a perfectly dry July 4th weekend...there will be showers/t-showers possible...on SAT the better chances may be to the west...on SUN the chances may be near us...again nothing at this point to cancel plans over...but with heat+humidity+NW Flow...the chances certainly will be there, virtually everyday, till farther notice...by later SUN we should be capped enough to prevent activity...but if something weird happens overnight SAT then that could leave outflow boundaries in the vicinity...so again no promises for a "perfectly" dry holiday weekend...but the vast majority at this point looks OK...getting hotter and more humid towards the end of the weekend...and again...not everyone will experience the same rain situation over the next 4 days...better chance of something more widespread, from so far away, maybe next WED...
A lot of heat and humidity will be lurking in OK/TX/AR for the next few days...so it's really just a matter of time before it returns to the area...
Onto the tropics...where
Tropical Storm Bertha developed today well out in the eastern Atlantic...as a matter of fact it's the farthest east a tropical system has developed in modern weather times (since the satellites started in 1967). It's out by the Cape Verde Islands and has winds as of this writing @ 40 MPH and may strengthen a bit over the next couple of days...is this a harbinger of things to come for the rest of the season...per the
AOML Hurricanes FAQ section...btw..check out the "Tropical" section under the weather tab...great updates to the site and much faster than last year!
However, as shown in (
Goldenberg 2000),
if one looks only at the June-July Atlantic tropical storms and
hurricanes occurring south of 22°N and east of 77°W (the
eastern portion of the Main Development Region [MDR] for Atlantic
hurricanes), there is a strong association with activity for the
remainder of the year. According to the data from 1944-1999,
total overall Atlantic activity for years that had a tropical
storm or hurricane form in this region during JJ have been at
least average and often times above average. So it could be said
that a JJ storm in this region is pretty much a "sufficient" (though
not "necessary") condition for a year to produce at least average
activity. (I.e., Not all years with average to above-average
total overall activity have had a JJ storm in that region, but
almost all years with that type of JJ storm produce average to
above-average activity.) The formation of a storm in this region
during June-July is taken into account when the August updates
for the
Bill Gray and
NOAA seasonal forecasts are issued.
...end text
Typically we don't see activity in the Cape Verde area so early in the year...but it's happened 8 times before as recently as 1998...in another forum this lead to research that showed that in these 8 specific years, there were on average almost 4 hurricanes of Cape Verde origins...compared to a "typical" year of almost 2. Something to remember for the rest of the season...
btw...thx for the dozens of pictures...MT is going through them and will show more tonight...very impressive hail/wall cloud shots!
If this is your last time here before the 4th weekend...have a happy and safe one...weather will dictate farther updates through SUN...if I have something interesting to tell you about I will come up with another blog for you...
Forecast details on all the newscasts...
Joe
