Only one “real” storm at the moment, Tropical Storm Wipha, in between The Philippines and Taiwan, headed for the mainland of China. Two blobs on the NHC’s Tropical Weather Outlook this morning, one in the mid Atlantic, the other in the East Pacific. Neither are expected to do much. Details below …
Tropical Storm Wipha is spinning up in between Taiwan and The Philippines. Although it shouldn’t become a Typhoon (hurricane), it looks to move south of the Hong Kong/Shenzhen/Macao area, depositing 95-100 kph winds (around 60mph) and rain across that densely populated area. Disruptions are inevitable, and $400 million in economic impacts there would not be surprising. By Tuesday the storm should be weaker, but still a minimal tropical storm as it makes landfall again south of Hanoi. Here is the forecast impact swath using the JTWC forecast …
Further west, there is a blob on the NHC TWO about halfway between Mexico and Hawai’i. It only has a 20% chance of becoming a depression, and should be entering unfavorable conditions and dissipating long before it is a problem for the Islands.
Finally, in the central Atlantic, another cloud has the click-bait junkies excited. Again, conditions are marginal, and even if something does spin up it should be short lived.
Been super busy with all the geopolitical (and domestic political) shenanigans, but wanted to briefly comment on the recent catastrophic floods in Texas and flash flooding in other areas like Pennsylvania. It’s a complex subject (no surprise there!), and the media coverage is often simplistic and overly dramatic (also unsurprising). It’s important not to lose sight of the human tragedies, but equally important to realize that these events are a product of the interaction between humans and the environment on many levels. While it is increasingly clear climate is changing, it is also clear that a major (if not the major) cause of many recent catastrophic flood events worldwide are a result of the expanding human footprint combined with poor planning and development practices.
The issue of warnings and budgets is also not quite so simple as “orange man bad” and the National Weather Service budget. The system has been in trouble for a long time. It is important to understand that our observation networks and sensors are a byzantine mix of systems from multiple agencies, more a product of political patronage and short range thinking than a coherent attempt to build a rational, cost effective system. The fact that the National Hurricane Center is partially dependent on aging Defense Department satellites is just a glimpse in to that world. River gauges are a bewildering mix of USGS, BLM, EPA, Corps of Engineers, and NWS, not to mention state agency controlled sensors. Throw in the FAA for a large percentage of the wind and rain gauges (located a airports of course), NASA satellites (as well as the DOD assets) and you can start to see that cuts or procedure changes to any of these agencies can cascade into your weather forecast. I ranted about this in my discussion of the threatened shut down of the DMSP program (link). How to fix it? Not easy, and not going to be simple since it’s going to make a lot of powerful people (and their supporters) really angry. The American system of government and two party system as it exists at the moment simply isn’t capable of addressing long term problems. So it’s not a topic for this (or any) blog …
Thank you.
Thank you ! I have to agree we have done nothing ( or very little that I know of to update our antiquated systems. Maybe the next generation will be more willing to actually accomplish something for the good of mankind.
As always, appreciate your input.
Thank you!
Well put, and truth
Thanks for speaking out. Good trouble.
“Shocked! Shocked I am to find that political patronage and cronyism are at the root of our governmentally managed infrastructure system and monitoring network!”
“Your exclusivity contract for intercoastal water gauge systems, sir.”
“Thank you.”