New answers tagged meteorology
8
The air doesn't warm directly: it is warmed by the ground. So, the Sun warms the ground which warms the air. In the day, the Sun warms the ground until the evening. In the night, the Earth is cooling because there is no Sun's radiation coming. As soon as the Sun is high enough, the ground starts to warm, same with the air. So, the lowest temperature is right ...
3
Instead of «whirling thermometer» you probably refer to «sling psychrometer» consisting of a dry-bulb thermometer and a wet-bulb thermometer. Yet, different to a static wet-bulb thermometer shown in the question, the constant rotation of the two thermometers permits evaporation from the wet cloth around the web bulb thermometer to «pristine parts» of ...
5
"Ship of opportunity" weather observations have contributed to global data collection exercises since the dawn of meteorology as a science. There are many national and international initiatives that collect data and the data already inform weather forecasts and climate models. The practice is summarised in https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....
1
Your logic is wrong. Do not think of the atmosphere as a closed system. Your analogy of heating a bottle is not appropriate.
In uncomplicated terms, the Sun heats the ground, the ground radiates thermal energy heating the air just above the ground and the heated air rises. In rising, the air heated has less density than the surrounding air. By rising it ...
1
To add some concrete data to some of the great answers already here:
Seattle is actually not particularly rainy, especially compared to other parts of WA, but also compared to other cities in the US. According to this chart of the largest 51 US cities, Seattle is wetter than 18, drier than 31, and tied with 1. Yet, Seattle only has less rainy-days than 5 ...
4
We do get flooding in the Puget Sound lowlands, but it actually happens most often when a mid-winter warm front brings a moderate amount of rain to higher elevations, causing sudden, extensive snowmelt.
Those weather systems, like one in February 2020 that caused quite a bit of flooding, suddenly raise temps by 15-20 degrees C (20-30 °F), and raise the snow/...
24
Regarding climate, it does not rain in Seattle as much as people think; Seattle is in the snow shadow of the Olympic Mountains. It doesn't rain much in summer at all. Seattle gets rather dry in July and August.
Regarding flooding, the Skagit and Snohomish rivers north of Seattle flood regularly experience flooding. Some of the land in the flood plain is used ...
17
Catastrophic flash flooding is usually a sign of poor city/road planning in flat areas or due to torrential downfall of rain. The reality is that all the terrain in Washington allows water to drain, rather than be left standing (which causes flash flooding). And let's be clear, it doesn't rain hard in WA, it's usually not torrential downpour, bur rather a ...
3
Because soil drainage would be higher and the ground would take long to saturate Floods don't always happen in Rainy weather all the time because first the soil needs to be saturated (the point where it filled up with water) then the rain needs to continue, Flash floods are mostly produced this way.
So you would need lots of rain for a flood to occur in WA, ...
2
There is no eye in the centre of a tornado's funnel, if we see the eye as a near circular cloudless area from bottom to tropopause, surrounded by a wall of towering clouds. Some interpretational leeway may lie in the low angular windspeed in the centre of the vortex, but that is not comparable to a hurricane's eye. Force of the central updraft is still ...
2
Strictly speaking, $\lim_{\Delta z \to 0} Ri=Ri_b$. This is because the gradient Richardson number: $$Ri=\frac{\frac{g}{T_v}\frac{\partial \theta_v}{\partial z}}{\left(\frac{\partial U}{\partial z}\right)^2++\left(\frac{\partial V}{\partial z}\right)^2}$$ can be approximated as $$Ri \approx\frac{\frac{g}{T_v}\frac{\Delta \theta_e}{\Delta z}}{\left(\frac{\...
2
It is a myth. To say that it is unscientific is perhaps not the best phrasing, but Groundhog day isn't the most accurate prognostication method around. For something to be scientific, it needs to follow the scientific method. Given that Groundhog day follows the myth that:
A groundhog that sees it's shadow will become frightened, seeking shelter from the ...
0
Groundhog day doesn't have anything to do with science. It's based on a pagan festival called Imbolc. It's their traditional start of spring and known to Christians as Candlemas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbolc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day
3
In short: You may think about hail and the smaller grains of graupel like super cooled frozen bits of solid water ice which fall this fast to the earth's surface that there is not enough time to reach it liquid, as rain.
Here, fast does not necessarily refer to their velocity approaching the earth's surface. But it takes time that the temperature gradient ...
5
Not being a winter precipitation expert by any stretch (we avoid such silliness in Florida!), I think a significant key may be the "the humidity is low (40%)" part.
When winter precipitation falls through warm air, it certainly gets heated by the air. But if the air is dry, some of the outer fringes of the precipitation will melt\sublimate, taking ...
Top 50 recent answers are included
