Update 10:29pm EDT: Game postponed to 8:37pm Saturday. Will resume in second inning.  Here is the radar as of 10:07pm EDT. Yankee Stadium is the blue circle and the red arrow is the direction of movement of the storms.

This is the European 10-day rainfall forecast from AccuWeather's Professional web site. I have run through all of the applicable models' (U.S., Canadian, Japan, etc.) extended U.S. forecasts and all indicate significant rainfall from Kansas, south, starting about this time next week and lasting through the weekend. Let's hope they are correct. Enjoy your weekend!!

Continue to receive great feedback from the NPR interview. If you missed that episode of Big Picture Science  just click here . We also appreciate the support of NPR-featured books in Barnes & Noble stores. If you haven't read Warnings , please consider stopping by your neighborhood Barnes & Noble and checking it out.

This one slipped past me when it was first announced. I'll let her take the deserved credit: SEATTLE, WA –U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) announced that Washington state’s first coastal Doppler radar, located in Grays Harbor county, has been plugged in for the first time and is now sending test weather data to the National Weather Service’s Weather Forecast Offices located in Seattle and Portland. The state-of-the-art Doppler radar is undergoing testing this month and then will be one of the first in the nation to be upgraded with the latest enhancement to radar technology in civilian weather forecasting, called dual polarization.  “With Washington state’s first coastal Doppler radar now online for testing, we are on the final home stretch to improved detection and monitoring of storms over southwest Washington,”  said Senator Cantwell.  “Too often in the past, our weather radar coverage gap meant that forecasters didn’t have the most complete data set possible to help Pacific

Published by The Kansas City Star,  " Joplin 5:41 " is the story of the Joplin tornado in a "coffee table"-style book. It merges a number of stories into book form with lots of color photos. The single most innovative item in the book is a 360° "fold out" of tornado damage and time-line/geography diagram. It is a great idea but the execution is mediocre. The writing is a little uneven in places. It is strongest when talking about the hospital and start of the 2011 school year. Its writing about the storm itself and its genesis is weak. That said, I like the book and would recommend it to those that are interested in learning more about this horrible storm. It is very reasonably priced at $29.95 considering the number of high-resolution color photos. I would give it 3 out of 4 stars.

A slight risk of thunderstorms with hail ≥1" or winds of 60 mph or more in the yellow areas. There is also a slight chance of tornado in the NJ-Mass forecast area. AccuWeather regional radar at 1:47pm EDT shows scattered thunderstorms across the region. These are expected to intensify during the afternoon. At 2pm EDT, flight delays of 30 min. or more are reported at Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, and Philadelphia.

I seem to spend a lot of time at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. As I passed through last week, I was very pleased to see that storm shelters were in the process of being marked. Looks like some airports are learning the lessons of the incidents at the St. Louis and Omaha airports earlier this year. Congratulations, O'Hare!

Here are two computer runs (U.S. and European) and the amount of rain they are forecasting late next week in the drought-striken areas of the central U.S. These models are from AccuWeather.com's Professional site:  This is fairly encouraging given that the models typically under forecast rainfall this far out.  While these amounts are not large, it would be good just to get the dry pattern to break.  Keep your fingers crossed!

...For the National Weather Festival in Norman, OK on Saturday, October 29. Mindy and I will be there autographing and selling copies of Warnings  along with storm chasers, hourly weather balloon launches, and tours of the largest combined college and government weather facility in the U.S. We'll have much more in the next couple of weeks, so keep checking the blog!

For much of 2011, the upper atmospheric weather pattern has looked like this: A high pressure center covering the central and western United States. Since yesterday both the European (shown here) and U.S. extended range computer models shows a low coming into the central United States: ten day ECMWF model valid Friday, October 7 The low, centered near Reno, is what will cause the early start of the rainy season in California and will bring rain to much of the West. There is a chance -- just a chance -- that some desperately needed rain may occur from Texas to Kansas. However, the U.S. extended-range model (from 10 to 15 days) shows the western system rapidly weakening and moving farther north. Given 2012 winter wheat planting that is occurring now, these model forecasts have the potential to move markets, so I decided to comment on them even though, at this point, it is only educated speculation as to whether significant rain may fall in the winter wheat belt.

From AccuWeather . Of course, the problem is the extremely persistent high pressure system over the central United States that is causing Texas' record drought and fire season.  There is no sign of significant change in that high for the next ten days.

The Birmingham News  did a well-balanced story on my theory that the power failures caused by the line of thunderstorms that moved across Alabama the morning of the 27th played a role on the large death toll from the tornadoes later in the day. I found this paragraph to be interesting: The Alabama Emergency Management Agency expressed doubts about the deadly impact of that day's power outages because the potential for particularly nasty weather had been widely publicized throughout the week. "It wasn't like it shocked all of us," said Yasamie August, a spokeswoman for the agency. There is a very big difference between, "severe thunderstorms will likely occur on Wednesday" (spoken by a weathercaster on, say, Tuesday evening) and, "A tornado is headed for your neighborhood! Take cover now!", particularly when you have been distracted by dealing with an all-day power outage. There is a second article from yesterday's Wichita Eagle  about th

When I got home from work yesterday evening, there was a note in my mail that I wanted to share with you: Dear Mr. Smith, I won your book "Warnings" in a Twitter contest earlier this summer. To say that I was less than thrilled when I saw it would be an understatement. Uh, oh, I thought. An unhappy reader. I jumped to an incorrect conclusion. However, I decided it would be an appropriate read for the weekend of Hurricane Irene's predicted destruction.  I was pleasantly surprised to find myself absolutely riveted from the first page.  I still cannot get over the fact that weather forecasting has improved so dramatically in just the last few decades. My generation takes this technology for granted and it was quite humbling to read the stories of how those before us suffered in order for progress to be made.   Which leads me to thanking you for your contribution to this... I have a new appreciation for meteorologists and no longer view them as undeserve

From the ECMWF model via AccuWeather.com The dark maroon areas in northwest California indicate more than 4 inches of rain over the next ten days. If correct, this would be an unusually early start to the rainy season.

You have probably seen and heard this chilling video taken inside a Joplin convenience store: From Esquire:  Here is the behind the scenes story of what happened to bring those people together in that location at that time. Below is video of what the convenience store looked like the next day:

With "Pan Am" making its debut last night, we got a look at the era when flying was fun. I'm not a person who pines for the past, but I'd love for that era to return. Regis had a bad airline experience over the weekend, which seems to be the norm these days. He was stuck on the tarmac for an hour then there was a delay getting to the gate. Regis presented his plan for improvement: You can watch their dialog here . Today's Speed Bump  comic is about the state of the airlines. I suspect that cartoonist Dave Coverly does not fly very often as the airline depicted looks pretty good, especially compared to the regional jets. There is no one in the center seat, there is plenty of legroom, and the stone seats are at least as comfortable as RJ seats. More Speed Bump here .

Readers have been surprised to read my assertions that the weather is not getting worse due to 'global warming.' Here is the hurricane index from Dr. Ryan Maue : Index based on number and strength of hurricanes worldwide.  Now, a new study shows that death rates worldwide due to storms are plummeting. In the U.S. and a few developed nations, this is due to storm warnings. But most nations do not have storm warnings for their citizens  so there is a correlation between extreme weather and deaths worldwide. The study says, To put the public health impact of extreme weather events into context, cumulatively they now contribute only 0.07% to global mortality. Mortality from extreme weather events has declined even as all-cause mortality has increased, indicating that humanity is coping better with extreme weather events than it is with far more important health and safety problems.  The entire study is here . Here is the trend in worldwide weather mortality. Hat tip: Wa

Near Milwaukee over Lake Michigan. From WTMJ TV . Click link to view.

I was reading the Wichita Eagle  over breakfast Thursday and saw a fascinating story that Einstein's "Theory of Relativity" might be proven false. European researchers said they clocked an oddball type of subatomic particle called a neutrino going faster than the 186,282 miles per second that has long been considered the cosmic speed limit. The claim was met with skepticism, with one outside physicist calling it the equivalent of saying you have a flying carpet. In fact, the researchers themselves are not ready to proclaim a discovery and are asking other physicists to independently try to verify their findings. "The feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, which provided the particle accelerator that sent neutrinos on their breakneck 454-mile trip underground from Geneva to Italy. Going faster than light is something that

We don't often repeat postings at Meteorological Musings but I've been told by people they missed this recent review of Warnings . It was posted at the blog of Prof. Kevin L. Nenstiel, English Department, of the University of Nebraska. It might have been there were seven posts that day. So, for the full review, click here . Some highlights: Smith skillfully makes this and other controversies seem not just important, but exciting. Meteorology, in his telling, has the same bare-knuckle energy we see in politics or sports. These battles, many of which Smith himself fought in, reveal how much of our modern, weather-safe lifestyle is contingent on personalities, and could have gone another way. While weather forecasters often appear starchy and bland, Smith makes the weather into an urgent concern, and a remarkable victory. This story turns the weather into a quest, and meteorologists into the most unlikely heroes in recent literature. Thank you, Professor Nenstiel! If you r

I would like to say a big "thank you" to all of the new Warnings  readers from -- literally --  to coast! I just got the latest Bookscan sales report and we have new readers from Portland, ME to Portland, OR to Orlando to San Francisco! Mindy and I also want to say thank you to the organizers of the Kansas Book Festival today. We had a great time!

Made it! We are in the northwest area of the Commercial tent. Please come and see us.

The weather pattern of the past few weeks will change little next week.

A large crowd turned out Thursday night for the first annual aviation weather seminar at the National Center for Aviation Training. photos by Dick Elder I told the story of how the late Dr. Ted Fujita fought to convince meteorology and aviation of the correctness of his theory that "downbursts" existed and were the cause of a number of airline crashes. As I explain in Warnings , Ted's persistence in the face of tremendous skepticism and envy has saved thousands of lives. The goal of the evening was to better train pilots about weather. The National Weather Service provided speakers on microbursts, icing, and other hazards. The audience of more than 100 pilots seemed very appreciative of the useful information conveyed.

Should have been called " 24-Hours of Global Warming Apathy ." Seventeen thousand viewers, worldwide ?! Really? After all that promotion? I think we are seeing the end of the hyper-politicized catastrophic global warming movement, which is a very good thing. That will better allow us to focus on what may really be a problem with regard to global warming and other environmental issues.

Photo from "The Weekly Standard" I'm a big fan of solar energy and believe it has huge potential as a supplemental  energy source. Why supplemental? For the obvious reason that the sun does not always shine as the U.S. Department of Energy found out today when their "solar decathlon" got off to a rainy start. Unfortunately, the outlook for the next week in the East is for cloudier and rainier weather than average. Full story about the solar decathlon is here .

Really looking forward to the Kansas Book Festival in Topeka tomorrow.  Mindy and I will be there. The weather for the event should be wonderful with a high of 70°, clear skies and gentle breezes. Please bring your copy of Warnings   for an autograph or we'll sell you one for $20, tax included.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now has a tiny aircraft to help study hurricanes. Sun-Sentinal photo The aircraft is 3' long and weighs eight pounds. It will be dropped into the eye of hurricanes so it can fly to 100' of the ocean (far too low for humans to safely fly). The goal is to gather data that may help us improve hurricane intensity forecasting. Details from the Sun-Sentinal . 

Rangeline Road is the main commercial street in Joplin. The video below is from a team of storm chasers going south on Rangeline Road, moments before the F-5 tornado wiped out more than one mile (north-south) of the businesses on the road. Screen capture from video. Green sign is Jo Anne Fabrics. The tornado is in the background but appears to be just a dark gray cloud mass.  Photo of the above shopping center after the tornado. The video is below. "Can we not break the law?" they ask as they are hung up at a stoplight (that was torn down by the tornado). "Would the Home Depot be a good [shelter]?" The Home Depot was destroyed with multiple fatalities. The video is below and I recommend you select HD. Video demonstrates -- again -- the tornado was not recognizable visually as it moved across the city. Put another way, just about everything you see in the video from :35 to 2:33 was destroyed. When they are stopped at the light (roughly 1:00 to 2:00), the

Increasingly, the answer seems to be "no." In order to be "science," there must  be a falsifiable hypothesis . Atmospheric temperatures are colder than the IPCC's 95% confidence interval and ocean heat content is far, far less than it was predicted (red line) to be at this point (arrow). Graph of upper ocean heat content from Bob Tisdale via WattsUpWithThat Add in that  'global warming' is to blame for warmer, colder, drought, flood, more hurricanes, and less hurricanes the Al Gore/IPCC supporters' positions increasingly seems to be that everything  is "consistent with" global warming. In other words no falsifiable hypothesis. This departure from accepted scientific norms is becoming apparent to others outside of the atmospheric sciences. As someone with forty years experience with peer reviewed journals. I can testify that the  Remote Sensing  editor’s resignation and public discreditation of  Spencer’s skeptical paper would be

Mike was in the windy city yesterday where he presented his talk "Mitigating the Business Risks Posed by Tornadoes and Other Extreme Weather" to the Chicago chapter of BPRA.  He flew home to speak at the Newton Rotary Club in Newton, Kansas last night with his presentation CSI: Meteorology The Phantom Crashes. The complete story can be found in his book WARNINGS: True Story of How Science Tamed the Wea t her in chapter 13. Mike will be speaking at the National Aviation Training Center in Wichita on September 22, 2011 and will be at the Kansas Book Festival in Topeka on Saturday, September 24, 2011.

From Andrew Revkin at the New York Times. An interesting comment: A substantial number of fatalities occurred in businesses.  According to information obtained from the Joplin emergency manager, 24 fatalities occurred in traditional businesses (e.g., Home Depot, Pizza Hut, Wal-Mart), and 21 and 15 fatalities occurred at Greenbriar Nursing Home and St. John’s Hospital respectively.  This is highly unusual; between 1985 and 2010, only 4 percent of tornado fatalities occurred in businesses.  Over the decade 2001 to 2010, there were 17 deaths at businesses in the entire U. S.  It is unclear if the business death toll represents some type of special vulnerability (did employees fail to take safety precautions?) or a consequence of many businesses like the Home Depot on Range Line Road being totally obliterated, rendering normal safety precautions ineffective.  Either way, the fatalities in businesses represent an unusual vulnerability. Entire article here .

So large, in fact, that a record for the largest hailstone in state history was set: a stone that fell in southwest Wichita had a diameter of 7.75 inches, shattering the existing record by more than 2 inches. But Scott Blair, a meteorologist with the Topeka branch of the National Weather Service, came across something startling as he researched the Sept. 15, 2010, storm. Checking local media websites, he found photos of one massive hailstone after another. By the time he was done, he had found eight hailstones that were larger than the previous state record hailstone, which fell in Coffeyville in 1970. “I’m sure there was a lot more that didn’t get documented,” Blair said. “That alone shows the impressive nature of the storm.” Thanks to social media, the storm could become a turning point in how data on severe storms is collected and in researchers’ grasp of what hailstorms can do, Blair and other experts say. The Coffeyville stone's record lasted more than three decades. Socia

I have been corresponding with Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit.com on the subject of emergency power, a subject of mutual interest.  One of his readers, Harry Lenchitz, wrote worthwhile overview: This e-mail is my contribution to the generator discussion. First, to all those who want a cheap, convenient way to charge their cell phones and other portable electronics: every motor vehicle includes a one kilowatt (1kw) alternator for battery charging. Some vehicles are slightly less (a skinny kilowatt) others are quite a bit more (2kw) but all vehicles have a battery charging alternator. The best way to charge portable electronics is to idle your vehicle and use 12 volt DC chargers. To charge your cell phone, you do not even need to start your vehicle. Just plug the cell phone charger into your vehicle and let it charge. To charge larger items, start your vehicle and let it idle. To operate larger items which require 120 volt AC power, such as your computer UPS, a drip coffee m

After major weather-related disasters, the National Weather Service conducts a “Service Assessment” to understand what can be learned and what can be improved with regard to their forecasts and warnings. The NWS just released its Joplin Service Assessment pertaining to the storm that killed 162 on May 22.    Several of their key findings include (my words in bold, assessment language in italics):  False Alarms of Severe Storms are a Real Problem It was common in the interviews to hear residents refer to storms always blowing over and missing Joplin, or that there seemed like there was a protective bubble around Joplin, or ―there is rotation all the time, but never in Joplin… Sounding Sirens for Severe Thunderstorm Warnings Caused Complacency   the perceived frequency of siren activation (false alarms) led an overwhelming number of participants to become desensitized or complacent to this method of warning. Many noted that they hear sirens all the time[sirens] go off for dark cl

Gov. Deval Patrick, 2008 , from a press release issued in his name: Governor Deval Patrick has signed two important bills further positioning Massachusetts as a leader in clean energy and environmental stewardship: the Green Jobs Act, which will support development of the clean energy technology industry that will move Massachusetts toward the green economy of the future, and the Global Warming Solutions Act, which will make Massachusetts a national leader in climate protection. Gov. Deval Patrick, May 4, 2011 , proclaims Sept. 18-24, " Car Free Week " and urges people to walk to work. Gov. Deval Patrick during "Car Free Week" earlier today : Click to enlarge. Story from CBS Boston (at link above) The title of this posting is shamelessly stolen from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

Amazing video from the International Space Station of flying over the earth at night taken with a low-light HD sensor (select HD at the bottom of the YouTube frame). My favorite part is the thunderstorms which begin about 20 seconds in. The video ends when daylight begins. Hat tip: WattsUpWithThat

 The research culture and motivational factors in the field of social psychology have arguably contributed to rewarding behaviors that are not in the best interests of scientific progress, in the same way that I have argued that the IPCC and the culture of funding, journal publication, and recognition by professional societies have not always acted in the best interests of scientific progress in climate field. I was particularly struck by the “data torturing” concept.  Please click here to read the whole thing .

Two posts down I talk about Greensburg's latest milestone. A young man in Joplin attained a milestone of his own today.

Killer Starfish ?

Construction begins today on the new museum in Greensburg for their attraction, "the world's largest hand-dug well." Only the new museum will feature information about the tornado that destroyed the original. Details from the Dodge City Daily Globe.  Congratulations, Greensburg!!

This is a critical issue: LAST weekend’s vigilance against potential terrorist attacks was an impressive demonstration of America’s resolve to prevent events of September 11th 2001 from ever happening again. From your correspondent’s hillside perch above Santa Monica Bay, he watched National Guard F-16 jets make repeated sweeps across the ocean by Los Angeles International Airport and then on to the huge port complex of Long Beach and San Pedro, while a Navy P-3 Orion maritime-surveillance aircraft circled overhead. The cacophony was deafening but reassuring. Angelinos slept easier that night. Yet, further down the coast, 6m citizens of southern California and south-west Arizona, along with their cousins across the Mexican border, were just recovering from a man-made disaster that had plunged their sweltering world into darkness—shutting down schools, hospitals, offices, factories, shops and restaurants, as lighting, air-conditioning and other essential equipment ceased to function.