Thursday, February 18, 2010
Excess rainfall has been indicated for northwest India as well as northern parts of the Tamil Nadu coast .. http://bit.ly/cXcU07
Most parts of the country going without any appreciable rain event through March-April-May .. http://bit.ly/cXcU07
Japanese model retains outlook for late-season La Nina
Updated forecasts from the Tokyo-based Research Institute for Global Change retained the outlook for the current El Nino with a major warming in the central Pacific to decay quickly and a La Nina springing up to coincide with a late Indian summer.
Substantiating the likely favourable impact on the year 2010 monsoon, it has forecast the probability of normal to excess precipitation for most parts of the country during June-July-August except parts of the west coast (south Gujarat and adjoining Mumbai).
A probability for excess rainfall has been indicated for northwest India as well as northern parts of the Tamil Nadu coast. The entire northwest was badly let down by the previous monsoon, a trend which has continued till date through the northern hemisphere winter.
But the RIGS has warned of the possibility of most parts of the country going without any appreciable rain event through March-April-May. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) sought to disagree with this, indicating that central India might receive reasonable precipitation during April-May-June.
The Coupled Forecast System (CFS) model of the US National Weather Services/National Centres for Environmental Prediction too has indicated that June-July-August (featuring an active Bay of Bengal) and July-August-September might return decent rain figures for the country.
The CFS model begged to differ with the ECMWF saying that April-May-June could be bad at least over the peninsula, though likely better in the north and northwest. The CFS projections are valid as on February 15, based on initial conditions obtaining from February 5 to 14.
IOD PROSPECTS
The RIGS has also held out the probability that a weak positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) might get triggered during September-October-November. A positive IOD is marked by anomalous warming and associated clouding over western Indian Ocean and has been known to boost a concurrent Indian monsoon. Basin-wide warming is indicated until September, which is considered ‘impact-neutral' for regional weather.
Meanwhile, the western Himalayas continued to be under the grip of western disturbance activity while confluence of winds was noticed over central and adjoining east India during the 24 hours ending Tuesday morning, an update by India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Tuesday.
Both meteorological features are capable of setting off weather regionally, ranging from snow to scattered rains. An enabling trough (or wind discontinuity) over land lay extended from Vidarbha to southeast Arabian Sea through Telangana, interior Karnataka and Kerala.
The northwesterly to westerly winds over Indo-Gangetic plains and adjoining central India are tipped to further gain in strength over the next few days.
An IMD outlook said that scattered rain or snow would occur over Jammu and Kashmir during next 24 hours. Isolated rain or snow would occur over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand during the next two days.
Isolated rain or thundershowers would occur over central and adjoining east India and the North-Eastern States, too.
There would be no significant change in minimum temperatures over northwest India during the next 24 hours but they may take a dip thereafter. Similarly, maximum temperatures are expected to hold for the time being, but may rise after two days.
The IMD saw a fresh western disturbance approaching the northwest border and causing scattered precipitation over western Himalayan region from the weekend.
Substantiating the likely favourable impact on the year 2010 monsoon, it has forecast the probability of normal to excess precipitation for most parts of the country during June-July-August except parts of the west coast (south Gujarat and adjoining Mumbai).
A probability for excess rainfall has been indicated for northwest India as well as northern parts of the Tamil Nadu coast. The entire northwest was badly let down by the previous monsoon, a trend which has continued till date through the northern hemisphere winter.
But the RIGS has warned of the possibility of most parts of the country going without any appreciable rain event through March-April-May. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) sought to disagree with this, indicating that central India might receive reasonable precipitation during April-May-June.
The Coupled Forecast System (CFS) model of the US National Weather Services/National Centres for Environmental Prediction too has indicated that June-July-August (featuring an active Bay of Bengal) and July-August-September might return decent rain figures for the country.
The CFS model begged to differ with the ECMWF saying that April-May-June could be bad at least over the peninsula, though likely better in the north and northwest. The CFS projections are valid as on February 15, based on initial conditions obtaining from February 5 to 14.
IOD PROSPECTS
The RIGS has also held out the probability that a weak positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) might get triggered during September-October-November. A positive IOD is marked by anomalous warming and associated clouding over western Indian Ocean and has been known to boost a concurrent Indian monsoon. Basin-wide warming is indicated until September, which is considered ‘impact-neutral' for regional weather.
Meanwhile, the western Himalayas continued to be under the grip of western disturbance activity while confluence of winds was noticed over central and adjoining east India during the 24 hours ending Tuesday morning, an update by India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Tuesday.
Both meteorological features are capable of setting off weather regionally, ranging from snow to scattered rains. An enabling trough (or wind discontinuity) over land lay extended from Vidarbha to southeast Arabian Sea through Telangana, interior Karnataka and Kerala.
The northwesterly to westerly winds over Indo-Gangetic plains and adjoining central India are tipped to further gain in strength over the next few days.
An IMD outlook said that scattered rain or snow would occur over Jammu and Kashmir during next 24 hours. Isolated rain or snow would occur over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand during the next two days.
Isolated rain or thundershowers would occur over central and adjoining east India and the North-Eastern States, too.
There would be no significant change in minimum temperatures over northwest India during the next 24 hours but they may take a dip thereafter. Similarly, maximum temperatures are expected to hold for the time being, but may rise after two days.
The IMD saw a fresh western disturbance approaching the northwest border and causing scattered precipitation over western Himalayan region from the weekend.
Winter Olympics in Vancouver
In early February 2010, organizers were putting the finishing touches on venues for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. Two months earlier, on December 6, 2009, the Thematic Mapper Plus on NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite captured a detailed image of the area where the games will be held.
The image on the left provides a view of the area from Vancouver northward to the Whistler skiing village. Areas outlined in yellow delineate close-up views on the right. The top close-up shows venues near the village of Whistler, where Nordic and alpine skiing events will be held. The bottom close-up shows Cypress Mountain, the planned venue for freestyle skiing and snowboarding, among other events.
Throughout the scene, snow blankets the highest peaks, and low-angled sunlight illuminates south-facing slopes while leaving north-facing slopes in shadow. Valleys and lower slopes are lush green. The venues near Whistler appear as patchworks of green forest interrupted by long, thin trails of snowy white. Just north of the city of Vancouver, Cypress Mountain also holds snowy ski trails, but overall has far less snow.
After unusually warm conditions in January 2010, snow remained scarce on Cypress Mountain. The Los Angeles Times reported that snow was being trucked to Cypress Mountain from higher elevations, and Vancouver Now reported that organizers had placed tubes filled with dry ice on courses to keep surrounding snow from breaking down. A surprise snowstorm struck on February 10, just two days before the games opened, boosting the snowpack. The snowstorm did not, however, change the short-term forecast for rain.
Coronal Mass Ejection in late January 2010
Fiery arcs rise above an active region on the surface of the Sun in this series of images taken by the STEREO (Behind) spacecraft on January 27, 2010. The arcs are plasma, superheated matter made up of moving charged particles (electrons and ions). Just as iron filings arc from one end of a magnet to another, the plasma is sliding in an arc along magnetic field lines. In a movie of STEREO observations made between January 26 and January 29, the dynamic streams were initially just over the Sun’s edge and readily spotted as the Sun rotated them more into view.
About mid-way through the movie clip, a small coronal mass ejection (a stream of charged particles from the Sun) shoots out and into space at about a million miles per hour, carrying some magnetic field with it. The top image shows the beginning of the coronal mass ejection, while the lower image shows the solar matter leaving the Sun’s corona. Most coronal mass ejections are more bulbous and wide: this one is quite narrow and contained. Nonetheless, NASA solar scientists agree that its speed and characteristics suggest that it was indeed a non-typical coronal mass ejection.
A coronal mass ejection can cause problems on Earth. The energetic particles can damage satellites, cause communication and navigation problems in airplanes, and disrupt electrical power in homes and businesses. To understand the Sun and its effects on Earth, NASA has 17 missions, including STEREO, observing the Sun. On February 11, 2010, the fleet grew by one when NASA launched its most advanced solar spacecraft, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, to study the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory will take detailed images of the Sun every 0.75 seconds and send 1.5 terabytes of data—the equivalent of 380 full-length movies—back to Earth every day. These observations will help scientists understand how the Sun’s magnetic field is generated and structured, and how the energy in the magnetic field is released into space as solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in solar irradiance.
About mid-way through the movie clip, a small coronal mass ejection (a stream of charged particles from the Sun) shoots out and into space at about a million miles per hour, carrying some magnetic field with it. The top image shows the beginning of the coronal mass ejection, while the lower image shows the solar matter leaving the Sun’s corona. Most coronal mass ejections are more bulbous and wide: this one is quite narrow and contained. Nonetheless, NASA solar scientists agree that its speed and characteristics suggest that it was indeed a non-typical coronal mass ejection.
A coronal mass ejection can cause problems on Earth. The energetic particles can damage satellites, cause communication and navigation problems in airplanes, and disrupt electrical power in homes and businesses. To understand the Sun and its effects on Earth, NASA has 17 missions, including STEREO, observing the Sun. On February 11, 2010, the fleet grew by one when NASA launched its most advanced solar spacecraft, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, to study the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory will take detailed images of the Sun every 0.75 seconds and send 1.5 terabytes of data—the equivalent of 380 full-length movies—back to Earth every day. These observations will help scientists understand how the Sun’s magnetic field is generated and structured, and how the energy in the magnetic field is released into space as solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in solar irradiance.
Devils Lake
taken on 11-Aug-1984
taken on 1-Sep-2009
North Dakota’s Devils Lake occupies a basin within a basin. The surrounding basin is that of Red River, but because Devils Lake’s own basin is closed, the lake must reach a sufficient water level before the water travels elsewhere. At a water level of 1,447 feet (441 meters) above sea level, Devils Lake spills into neighboring Stump Lake. At a height of 1,459 feet (445 meters) above sea level, both lakes spill into a Red River tributary, the Sheyenne River. Geologists suspect that the overflow into the Sheyenne has occurred at least twice in the last 4,000 years. In the 1990s, Devils Lake began a fresh round of flooding.
The Thematic Mapper on NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite captured these true-color images on August 11, 1984 (top), and September 1, 2009 (bottom). The graph below the images tracks the surface elevation of Devils Lake from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries. By the late 1990s, Devils Lake rose high enough to begin flowing into Stump Lake. The change in water level over 25 years is obvious in these images. Compared to the image from 1984, the image from 2009 shows that Devils Lake has expanded dramatically, and Stump Lake has grown from a small sliver to a large, curving water body.
Devils Lake’s rising waters have caused considerable grief to the nearby community. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the flooding has destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, and flooded thousands of acres of farmland. According to a fact sheet from the North Dakota State Water Commission, state and federal government flood-mitigation expenditures have topped more than $450 million, and included moving roads, railways, and power lines, and building dikes. Although an inlet between Devils Lake and the Missouri River system might mitigate flooding, the risk of invasive species led to the prohibition of such an inlet in the Dakota Water Resources Act of 2001. Despite the frustrations it causes local residents, Devils Lake is home to a fishery and multiple species of migratory waterfowl.
Heavy Rains in Central Australia
This analysis is based on data from the Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis, which estimates rainfall by combining measurements from many satellites and calibrating them using rainfall measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite.
http://ping.fm/m9Smq .. Sat.shot shows, that cloud band across central India is still there at low levels.
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