Category Archives: Weather & Sky

Hurricane Chris In Newfoundland

July 17, 2018Travel, Water and Shore, Weather & SkyKate St. John

Hurricane Chris at Branch, Newfoundland (screenshot from video by Chris Mooney)

What happens when a hurricane hits Newfoundland? I found out last week when Hurricane Chris came to eastern Newfoundland while I was there on a birding trip.

The cold waters of the North Atlantic usually take the fangs out of hurricanes before they hit Atlantic Canada and so it was with Hurricane Chris. Before the storm we asked some Newfoundlanders about it and they said it wouldn’t be bad. “We won’t even take in the lawn furniture for this one.”

By Thursday morning, 12 July 2018, Chris was downgraded from hurricane strength to a post-tropical cyclone — from winds greater than 74 mph (119 kph) to winds less than 40 mph (64 kph).

Nonetheless, it was forecast to hit Cape Race around 8pm on Thursday with sustained winds of 35 mph (56 kph) while dumping 3-4 inches of rain (75-100 mm) near Terra Nova National Park. The map below shows both locations with purple pins: “Cape Race, Day 4” on the south shore and “Terra Nova, Day 6” in the north.

Our birding schedule meshed perfectly with the hurricane’s timing. We left Trepassey near Cape Race on Thursday morning and were sleeping in Clarenville by the time bad weather hit the Avalon Peninsula Thursday night.

Along the way we experienced the calm before the storm — hot and windless. On the Maine coast I’ve heard this called The Hurricane’s Breath because it is so unusual.

When the post-tropical cyclone crossed Cape Race Thursday night its maximum sustained winds were 40 miles per hour (67 km/h) with gusts up to 54 mph (87 km/h). Meanwhile about 3 inches (76 mm) of rain fell near Terra Nova.

So what did it look like on the south coast of Newfoundland when the storm was at its peak? Chris Mooney, a park interpretation technician at Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve, took these videos from his home in Branch, NL on Thursday evening.

Posted by Chris Mooney from the town of Branch, 7/12/2018 at 9:02pm. (Click the speaker icon to turn on the sound.)

… and posted at 9:24pm

Chris remarked that salt spray had already coated his windows so much that he couldn’t see out of them.

And what about the nesting birds on the rock? “We’ll lose a few chicks for sure.”

Fortunately the remnant of Hurricane Chris was a relatively mild storm. When a real hurricane hits Newfoundland it’s devastating. Click here to read about Hurricane Igor in September 2010, the strongest hurricane ever to hit the island.

(videos and screenshot by Chris Mooney via Facebook)

20 Years Ago: A Tornado Came To Town

June 1, 2018Books & Events, Weather & SkyKate St. John

Damage from 2 June 1998 tornado on Mt. Washington, Pittsburgh, PA (photos from National Service) — Damage from 2 June 1998 tornado on Mt. Washington, Pittsburgh, PA (photos from National Weather Service)

Saturday is the 20th anniversary of the 2 June 1998 tornado that hit the City of Pittsburgh. Before that event many of us thought it was impossible for a tornado to touch down in the city limits. Hah!

Everyone who saw it has a story.

That day I was still at my desk around 6pm, gazing out the window as I talked on the phone with someone in Indianapolis. Though my office was more than three miles from the tornado I could see the storm’s approach as the sky got dark and the wind increased. I saw a crow fly into the wind but as hard as he flapped he went backwards. Uh oh!

I told the person on the phone, “I think a tornado is coming.” He said, “Don’t tell me about it. We have too many of those,” and he kept talking. Since the City of Pittsburgh had never had a tornado I figured it was OK to stay in my office but I dragged myself and the phone under my desk to continue the conversation.

Meanwhile, bad things were happening on Mt. Washington as Chuck and Joan Tague drove home across the Liberty Bridge. The worst of the storm missed their Chatham Village neighborhood but the roads were so blocked with fallen trees that they parked far away and walked home. The power was out for a very long time.

Chuck’s story is impressive! Click here or his photo below to read it.

Damage from 2 June 1998 tornado at Chatham Viilage on Mt. Washington, Pittsburgh, PA (photo by Chuck Tague)

We think of it as “the Mt. Washington tornado” but it also touched down in Carnegie and Hazelwood and traveled 32 miles before it dissipated. It was one of nine(*) tornadoes that hit our region that evening.

Damage from 2 June 1998 tornado on Mt. Washington, Pittsburgh, PA (photos from National Weather Service)

Read more about the Tornado Outbreak of June 2, 1998 here on the National Weather Service website, and in the Post-Gazette When Tornadoes Tormented the Pittsburgh Region. (* NWS confirmed 9 tornadoes; the P-G says there were 14!)

Do you have a memory from that day? Leave a comment with your story.

(small photos from the National Weather Service report on the June 2, 1998 tornado outbreak. Photo of tornado-downed tree in Chatham Village by Chuck Tague)

Predict A Great Birding Day

May 6, 2018Migration, Weather & SkyKate St. John

6 May 2018:

How to predict a great birding day in early May? Find out last night’s weather.

At this time of year migrating songbirds spend the day eating and resting, then fly north overnight. Their decision to move depends on the weather. Here’s what they like best:

New leaves on the trees at their destination. (The Leaves! article explains why.)
A south wind, preferably a light one.
No rain, no storms. If they’re flying north and encounter bad weather, they land right there!
Pent up desire: If they’ve had to wait for good weather, the first favorable night will see huge movements of birds — thousands and thousands.

Weather radar is sensitive enough to show rain and snow. Did you know it also shows migrating birds?

The screenshot above shows the central Great Lakes weather radar at 4am, 6 May 2018. Yellow, orange and red indicate rain of increasing intensity. Green and blue are either light precipitation or birds. Green circles with blue edges are birds. Birds show up as circles because the detection limit of each radar installation is circular.

So what does this radar plot mean for Pittsburgh? Here’s a marked up version.

Annotated Great Lakes weather radar, 6 May 2018, 3:58 EDT (screenshot from weather.gov)

The red circle shows an area of bad weather. (Heavier rain is yellow and a hint of orange.) The red line marks the northern limit of the bad weather. Notice that there are no green circles north of the red areas. The birds stopped south of there.

Bad weather stopped the birds last night. Will we see the same birds in Pittsburgh today as we did yesterday? And in the same places?

Let me know what you find out.

p.s. Click on the radar images above to see the current Central Great Lakes radar map at weather.gov.

(screenshots of Central Great Lakes weather radar, 6 May 2018, 3:58 EDT from weather.gov)

When Pittsburgh’s Air Smells Bad

May 3, 2018Musings & News, Weather & SkyKate St. John

Smelly air in Pittsburgh is marked on the map, 2 May 2018 (screenshot from Smell PGH) — Pittsburgh’s smelly air is on the map, 2 May 2018 (screenshot from Smell PGH)

For more than a century Pittsburgh was The Smoky City with air so bad we were called hell with the lid off. After World War II we transformed ourselves with clean air laws enforced by the Allegheny County Health Department. The smoke is gone and we’re looking good, but Pittsburgh is still one of the top 10 most polluted places in the U.S.

You can’t see our bad air anymore but some days you can smell it. Yesterday was one of those days.

The Smell PGH map above (May 2) has a colored triangle for every air quality report made on the crowd-sourced app. The darker red the triangle, the worse the air smelled to the person who made the report to the Allegheny County Health Department. At the bottom right, May 2 has a black square above it (bad air!). So do May 1 and April 27. You can see our smelly days.

The reports are easy to make. I downloaded the app and followed the directions at the Smell PGH website:

Rate the air with a color
Describe it. For instance: industrial, rotten eggs, etc
If you have symptoms from the air, describe them
Click [Smell Report]

Smell PGH reporting panel (screenshot from Smell PGH website)

As soon as you press [Smell Report] your colored triangle sends a message to the Allegheny County Health Department and the app shows you the current map. Don’t forget to enter your name and email address under Settings for more impact.

I used to think I was alone when I noticed bad air days. The app has changed my outlook. Find out more at the Smell PGH website.

p.s. The weather changed. Today, May 3, 2018, is much better.

(screenshots from the Smell PGH website)

Lots Of Water This Week

April 7, 2018Weather & SkyKate St. John

Last week heavy rain swelled this waterfall in Schenley Park. Again!

I filmed this video after heavy rainfall in February but the waterfall looked the same this week after record snow on April 2 (2.8″) and heavy downpours on April 4 and 5.

So far we’ve had more than 16 inches of precipitation in 2018. That’s almost 7.5 inches above normal in only 14 weeks.

Lots of water!

p.s. We have a dusting of snow this morning in Pittsburgh. Will it ever end?!?

(video by Kate St. John)

How Early Is Spring This Year?

April 2, 2018Climate Change, Phenology, Plants, Weather & SkyKate St. John

Snow this morning in Pittsburgh, 2 April 2018, 7:30am (photo by Kate St. John)

How early is Spring this year? That’s a hard question to answer.

This morning we have snow again in Pittsburgh and heavy snow-cloud skies. Spring feels late and yet it was early at first.

The animated map below from the National Phenology Network (NPN) shows the emergence of leaves across the Lower 48 States. NPN uses honeysuckle leaves as their marker plant and so do I. The blue color shows late emergence, red means early. Our leaves were 20 days early in Pittsburgh.

USA National Phenology Network Spring Leaf Anomaly, 30 March 2018 (from usanpn.org)

Here’s proof from February 20, 2018.

Honeysuckle leaves open in the heat, 20 Feb 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)

Since then Nature did a 180-degree turn and handed us a series of cold snaps capped by snow. Our wildflowers have not bloomed yet. Last year they were two to three weeks early and had gone to seed by the end of March.

Fortunately NPN tracks first blooms as well, using lilacs as the marker plant.(*) On the map below you can see the Southeast bloomed 20 days early.

USA NPN Spring Bloom Anomaly, March 30, 2018 (from usanpn.org)

But we aren’t on the bloom map yet.

When will our wildflowers bloom? We’ll have to wait and see.

(photo by Kate St. John. Animated maps from usanpn.org)

* From the USA NPN website: These models were constructed using historical observations of the timing of first leaf and first bloom in a cloned lilac cultivar (Syringa x chinensis’Red Rothomagensis’) and two cloned honeysuckle cultivars (Lonicera tatarica ‘Arnold Red’ and L. korolkowii ‘Zabelii’).

The Water Table Is Rising

February 22, 2018Weather & SkyKate St. John

Today in Pittsburgh it’s raining again and it’s not going to stop until Sunday. The rivers are rising and so is something else. The water table!

Whenever it rains some of the water runs into creeks, streams and storm sewers while the rest soaks into the ground. With an extra 3.22 inches of rain so far this month the ground is saturated (February 1-21). The excess will double in the next few days as 3 more inches fall.

If you’ve ever dug a hole in wet ground you know it fills with water once it’s below the water table.

What is a basement but a hole in the ground?

In Pittsburgh we have basements and many of them are damp right now. The video shows why.

So here’s the total precipitation forecast for Thursday Feb 22 through Sunday Feb 25.

U.S. total precipitation forecast, Days 1-3, beginning Thurs 22 Feb 2018, 12Z (image from National Weather Serive) — U.S. total precipitation forecast, Days 1-3, Thurs 22 Feb, 8am through Sun 25 Feb 2018 (image from National Weather Service)

Oh no! The water table is rising.

(photo and video credits:
video from YouTube; screenshot from this great educational video about the water table and pollution from Penn State (15:57); map from the National Weather Service; click on the image to see its source)

Record Heat

February 21, 2018Climate Change, Weather & SkyKate St. John

Yesterday we put on our summer clothes and this honeysuckle bush put out new leaves. It was summer in February.

At 78 degrees F the high temperature broke two Pittsburgh records: a new high for February 20 (formerly 68 degrees in 1891) and a new high for the entire month of February. It was 37 degrees above normal.

When you look at yesterday’s map you can see how it happened. The jet stream dipped across the Northern Rockies and Plains, then abruptly turned north over the Texas Panhandle. It was only 3 degrees F in western Nebraska while we were nearly 80. The narrow temperature gradient — that yellow line across the Midwest — continues to produce heavy rain.

U.S. high temperature forecast map for 20 Feb 2018 (from the National Weather Service) — U.S. high temperature forecast for **20 Feb 2018** (map from the National Weather Service)

Meanwhile, like a yo-yo, we’re headed back to normal tomorrow and will lose those 37 degrees. Today’s our last chance for record heat.

(photo by Kate St.John. Temperature map from the National Weather Service; click on the image to see the latest map)

High Water!

February 17, 2018Water and Shore, Weather & SkyKate St. John

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE UPDATES.
This week in the space of 40 hours — Feb 14, 4:30pm to Feb 16, 9:50am — the Pittsburgh region received 2.5+ inches of rain. At first it flooded creeks and streams. Now it’s in the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers.

Since I live near the Mon River I went down to Duck Hollow to see what it looked like. In video below from Friday morning 16 Feb, the island of treetops in Thursday’s photo had disappeared.

Today (Saturday) the rivers are even higher and I don’t have to visit them to find out. The PennDOT traffic cams tell the story.

In Downtown Pittsburgh there’s a stretch of I-376 westbound called “The Bathtub” that dips into the Mon River flood zone. Last month it was the site of exciting river rescues when two people drove their vehicles into it as the water was rising. Click here to see a Live Video of the rescues.

This morning The Bathtub is full, as shown in before-and-after photos from the PennDOT traffic cam: Yesterday (Feb 16) on the left, today (Feb 17) on the right, both at 7:20am.

PennDOT traffic cam at The Bathtub: Feb 16 2018 (before the flood) and Feb 17 (after) — PennDOT traffic cam at The Bathtub: Feb 16 2018 (before the flood) and Feb 17 (during)

The Allegheny is flooding, too, at the 10th Street Bypass.

PennDOT traffic cam at the 10th Street Bypass, 17 Feb 2018, 7:20am

All of this is “Minor” flooding in Pittsburgh per the National Weather Service. (Flooding on the Youghiogheny River in Sutersville nearly reached the “Major” stage last night. It’s receding now.)

Later this morning I’ll go down to Duck Hollow and see what’s up. The water’s up for sure!

UPDATES: Saturday Feb 17 & Sunday Feb 18.

The Monongahela River crested around mid morning on Sat. February 17 and started to go down a little by noon.
17 Feb 2018, 9:30am: I saw small fish swimming in the parking lot! Two Canada geese float by beyond the guardrail.

No parking today!

At the edge of the Mon River at Duck Hollow, 17 Feb 2018, 9:30am

17 Feb 2018, 12:11pm: The water has started to recede, though not by much.

18 Feb 2018, 6:00am: The Bathtub on I-376 and the 10th Street Bypass are still closed due to flooding. The water is about 1/3 to 1/2 gone.

(Duck Hollow photos and videos by Kate St. John. Traffic cam snapshots from PennDOT)

Back Into the Deep Freeze

January 13, 2018Birds of Prey, Weather & SkyKate St. John

Bald eagle with ice on his forehead and belly, Crooked Creek, Jan 2018 (photo by Steve Gosser)

After a balmy Thursday and Friday the temperature is plummeting tonight to 5^oF.

During the last deep freeze, Steve Gosser photographed a bald eagle at Crooked Creek with iced feathers on his belly and head. Notice how his head feathers are standing up as if he used hair gel!

The eagle’s ice shows the great insulation power of feathers and how extreme cold can form ice very quickly when the eagle lifts his head out of the water.

He’ll be getting another chance to wear icicles this weekend. Brrrrr!

(photo by Steve Gosser)

Outside My Window

A Blog of Birds & Nature with Kate St. John