Geobulletin alpha

Source info:

Author:
Date:	2013-11-26 00:30:41
Blog:	Geology in Motion
URL:	http://www.geologyinmotion.com/2013/11/to-storm-or-not-on-this-thanksgiving.html

Summary:

The GFS model forecast by the National Weather Servicefor 4:00 p.m. Thursday PSTtaken from Cliff Mass's blog discussed in textHmmmmm...who to believe? If you read CNN.com here, you get the impression that Thanksgiving is going to be a mess. In fact, that article is on the front page of CNN.com with titles "Massive storm for Thanksgiving" and "A side of weather with your story." I was feeling smug that I am staying local for Thanksgiving, and so I turned for a local forecast to my favorite northwest meteorologist Cliff Mass's blog, which is particularly funny today and, as usual, educational.    And, what did I find?An essay on the "lack of storminess and ill-weather" in the Thanksgiving prediction! Cliff usually takes on the Seattle Times, but he missed a chance to take on CNN today! If you read the text of the CNN article, you can see that they are talking about yesterday, today and Tuesday mostly, not about Wednesday through Friday, but the headlines are certainly misleading.        The only place on the mainland to see significant precipitation is far NW Washington State and, Cliff says, "not many folks live there and most of those watch Canadian TV. In other words, they don't count!" (The comments posted today reflects that he has a tolerant readership up in that area of Washington!) He really is in good form in this post. High pressure dominates most of the nation, there are no low pressure systems influencing the mainland (there is one noticeable one off the coast of southern California). He also points out that today (Nov. 25th) is the 6th straight day without rain in the Seattle area, when the normal chance of rain at this time of year is 65%. It looks like we could squeek by through Wednesday without rain, with some moving in on Thanksgiving. That would be 8 straight days without rain, and according to him, the chance of that is about 3%.       But there's more to the story. According to the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center, Wednesday could be messy in the midwest and east coast. Temperatures will be 10-20 degrees below average in the central east coast and upper midwest regions, and a front over the Great Lakes will produce lake effect snow over the Great Lakes through Wednesday (this does bring back memories of Thanksgiving storms where I grew up in Northwester Pennsylvania, where we got the lake effect snow from Lake Erie). A storm developing over the Central gulf coast will move toward this Great Lakes disturbance to produce moderate to heavy rain that will move from the central Gulf Coast into the Appalachians by Tuesday morning. This system of rain will then move east to the Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday and expand into Northern New England by Wednesday morning. Snow will expand into the Lower Great Lakes Tuesday evening and Wednesday. So, in detail, it's complicated and worth reading the various forecasts/news articles carefully.        As, Cliff also pointed out, Thanksgiving and the first day of Chanukah coincide this year, the first time since 1888, and the next time may be 77,000 years from now! Compounded with the fact that Comet Ison will be the closest to the sun and brightest that same day, as Cliff says , "Happy Thanksgivukkah", or maybe better, "Happy IsThanksgivukkah!"       

Content analysis:

Stratigraphic context:

Recognized stratigraphic terms [n]:	Canadian [1]
Agenames chronostratigraphy [rating]:	Lower Ordovician [0.5] Ordovician [0.5] Paleozoic [0.5] Phanerozoic [0.5] Tremadocian [0.1]

Geographic context:

Location	Country	Latitude	Longitude
Pennsylvania	US	40.9947	-77.6045
Washington	US	47.2743	-120.833
Great Lakes	US	42.3084	-87.8603
Seattle	US	47.6036	-122.329
Atlantic	US	39.5093	-74.6813
Canada	CA	56.9547	-98.309
New England	US	44.4516	-70.0287
Mid West	US	42.6447	-92.2882
East Coast	US	35.8953	-77.2697
Lake Erie	US	42.0919	-81.4273
Mid	US	37.528	-82.9171

Keywords:

Appalachians, central east coast, central gulf coast, Chanukah coincide, Cliff Mass, CNN article, CNN.com, Comet Ison, fact, GFS model, good form, Great Lakes, Great Lakes disturbance, heavy rain, High pressure, impression, lake effect snow, Lake Erie, local forecast, low pressure systems, Lower Great Lakes, mainland, Massive storm, mess, National Weather Servicefor, normal chance, Northern New England, northwest meteorologist Cliff, Northwester Pennsylvania, NW Washington State, Prediction Center, Seattle area, Seattle Times, significant precipitation, smug, southern California, story, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving prediction, Thanksgiving storm 2013, Thanksgiving storms, Thursday PSTtaken, tolerant readership, Tuesday evening, Tuesday morning, upper midwest regions, various forecasts/news articles, watch Canadian TV., Weather Service Weather, Wednesday, Wednesday morning