Columbus, OH October All-Time Record Smashed!

If you thought it was hot yesterday, Tuesday, October 1, 2019, you are absolutely correct! The official high temperature at KCMH, John Glenn International Airport hit a stifling 94°F. This breaks the previous record high for October 1 by a full 5°F! In addition, this breaks the old all-time record high by 3°F for the month of October. Today will continue to be very hot with likely additional record high temperatures across much of the Buckeye State. Relief is on the way by the end of the work week, so I suggest you to hang in there and stay hydrated! Photo is from the National Weather Service in Wilmington, OH.

 

Hurricane Lorenzo

Check out this satellite loop of Hurricane Lorenzo! Hurricane Lorenzo is a STRONG Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. The minimum central pressure, as of the September 26, 2019 11:00 PM advisory, is at 939 mb with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph. Lorenzo is located at 17.6N, 41.5W, and this means that Lorenzo is not close to any land areas. In addition, it is rather unusual to have a hurricane of this intensity at this location with the only hurricane of recent memory to compare Lorenzo with is Hurricane Gabrielle of 1989! The official NHC forecast calls for Hurricane Lorenzo to maintain major hurricane status for the next 72 hours; however, an increase in shear as well as a slow decrease of sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) should begin to weaken the hurricane slowly. It should be noted that the NHC calls for the hurricane to maintain hurricane status for the next 120 hours, so Lorenzo will still be around for the next several days.

Hurricane Dorian Discussion

Hello all! We are in the peak of hurricane season, which runs June 1st-November 30th. This year, we have Hurricane Dorian, currently forecast to be a Category 4 at landfall. Let’s take a look at how Dorian formed, and what he’s planning on doing…

There are three types of cyclones that can form: tropical, extratropical, and subtropical cyclones. Hurricane Dorian is a tropical cyclone, which is a warm corenon-frontal low pressure system of synoptic scale (about the horizontal length of 1,000 kilometers from the ground) that develops over the tropical or subtropical oceans. The temperature of the core is vital in determining if the system is a tropical or extratropical cyclone especially as we get later and later into the hurricane season (think September/October and beyond).

In order for a hurricane to form, many scientists have a different number of important factors, but we like to reduce it down to three key elements:

  1. Sea surface temperatures: ideally, we need warm sea surface temperatures above 26°C.
  2. Weak upper level winds in the atmosphere.
  3. Some sort of disturbance to provide low level convergence and rotation

So, where exactly have all the hurricanes been this year? We’ve been in an El Niño, which means waters around the equator off of South America have been warm and usually indicates a normal hurricane season. It is also possibly linked to this year’s spring severe weather outbreaks in the Southeast United States because El Niño conditions help to speed up the subtropical jet stream. We’re currently almost in La Niña conditions, which means those water temperatures are slightly cooler than normal. For much of the summer, there was a strong high pressure system over the Atlantic, which caused warm air to flow over Greenland (leading to the big ice melt we heard about last month) and cool air off of the coast of Africa pushed cooler water into the Main Development Region (the MDR, or the region between 10 and 20 degrees north in the Atlantic). This explains why we’d only heard about the Pacific named systems; the water over there was much warmer than on our side of the continent.

For Dorian, the eye initially dissipated south of St. Lucia and redeveloped west of Martinque, explaining the jog north in its initial path. From there, it went east of Puerto Rico and developed a dry slot to the north due to the running of air up the mountains and sinking down the other side. What’s next for Dorian? Initially, it was projected to make landfall near Jupiter, Florida along the southeast coast, but models are predicting a shortwave trough to exit the Ohio Valley region and weaken the high pressure system, causing Dorian to possibly turn north towards South Carolina. Dorian will move over sea surface temperatures near 30°C and is currently moving at 8 mph. No matter the exact path, areas within the cone of possibility could face a great amount of flooding and wind damage.

Just because Dorian is NOT currently forecast to make landfall in Florida doesn’t mean Florida is safe from harm. Dorian could have impacts over a large area, and if he makes it close enough to the coastline, cities like Fort Lauderdale, Daytona Beach, West Palm Beach, and Jacksonsville could still see near-hurricane force winds and storm surge, along with flooding for the main risk. Labor Day weekend hurricanes are not uncommon in the least: more than two dozen hurricanes have hit over the holiday weekend since 1851 (for more reading on this: https://time.com/5666204/florida-hurricanes-labor-day-history/). For official updates, follow the National Hurricane Center at www.nhc.noaa.gov.

Great First Met Club Event

The OSU Met Club hosted its first official event, and the turnout was excellent! Our very own professor, Dr. Jay Hobgood, discussed the basics of tropical cyclones, investigated into the potentials with Hurricane Dorian, and provided one-and-only meteorological analysis that you could only find here. I HIGHLY encourage anyone and everyone to attend the next Met Club event, which will be held on Friday, September 13th. The time will be released at a later date.

Forecasting Assignments and Times

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

Forecasting assignments and times have been released! For those who have signed up, you should have received an email of your forecasting group and time. Forecasting groups will meet on Mondays at 6:00 PM, Wednesdays at 6:00 PM, and Fridays at 4:00 PM. In the event that your forecasting assignment does not coordinate well with your schedule, you may attend a different forecasting session should you have a legitimate reason!

Get ready to have a good time and geek out with your forecasts! Have fun, everyone!

Successful First Meeting

Our first S&G meeting is in the books! We are BEYOND stoked to see this many people come! As a reminder, our president, Alyssa Reynolds, will be working on forecast group assignments and times over the course of the next few days. Please keep an eye out to your buckeyemail account for important updates. In addition, if you still need to be added to our email list, have questions, or want to investigate our club further, please reach out at scarletandgraywxteam@gmail.com. This email is checked very frequently.

Dodge those showers, y’all!

Welcome!

Hello! Welcome to the NEW, REVIVED official website of the Scarlet and Gray Forecasting Weather Team at The Ohio State University! Our organization consists of ambitious students at Ohio State who share a deep passion and interest in meteorological phenomena. For the 2019-2020 academic year, we will be meeting each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at times that will be determined at a later date. You do NOT need to be an atmospheric science major to participate in this organization— all students from all majors are welcome to participate and attend!

Our first meeting of Scarlet and Gray Forecasting will be on Tuesday, August 20th at 4:00 PM in the Sharpe Innovation Commons (Derby 0155) located within Derby Hall. We highly encourage everyone to come and get a sneak peak of what we do here at S&G! Lastly, if you have any questions, please feel free to email us at scarletandgraywxteam@gmail.com for additional information. You may also email this address to request yourself to be added onto our email list to keep up with exciting future events!

Stay weather aware, Buckeyes!

Conner Prince — Scarlet and Gray Social Media Manager