If it's the end of December, it must be time for my annual "Weather images of the year" blog!
I'll make the introduction short and simply include an excerpt from last year's (except to change 2010 to 2011):
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As I have noted the past couple of years, which I'll copy and paste here:
As I have noted the past couple of years, which I'll copy and paste here:
"The following is not meant to represent a complete list of every significant weather event everywhere or images thereof, but there's a lot of stuff which will bring back memories. What was most memorable for you?"
Since there are already a gazillion images included this year, I've limited the focus to the United States, with just a couple of exceptions.
Wherever you are, I hope 2011 is a great year for you, and a safe one weatherwise!
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Here are links to the previous ones:
And now, 2010 ...
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This headline was one of several such on local National Weather Service websites in the southwest U.S. in late January, correctly advertising the weather wildness that was about to come.
In addition to flooding, mudslides, snow, ice, and strong winds, that weather situation led to low pressure records for any month in all of these locations!
It also led to this beautiful photograph of a sky one might expect to see in New Mexico during the summer, not midwinter.
[Photo credit: Leah Robertson]
Early February brought with it about as classic a swirl as you'll ever see, associated with this large and intense (central pressure estimated at 943 millibars) low pressure system over the North Atlantic.
[Image source: NASA Earth Science Office]
That slow-moving storm was in turn associated with a pattern which was blocking East Coast storms from moving quickly out to sea, one of which brought "Snowmageddon" to the Mid-Atlantic.
[AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite]
A different cyclone later in the month produced this cool-looking wavy radar image near the coast of North Carolina.
While the eastern U.S. was consistently shivering last winter, Canada was experiencing its warmest winter on record. The persistent, strong ridges of high pressure aloft associated with that warmth helped lock in the cold air to the south.
All of that was associated with a "negative AO" (Arctic Oscillation, also known as the "Northern Annular Mode") which literally went off the chart.
In mid-March computer model forecasts indicated a wicked low-level jet out of the east ahead of a cyclone moving up the East Coast. It brought widespread wind damage as some of that momentum aloft got transferred down to the Earth's surface in the form of intense wind gusts. That flow also swept in a lot of moisture which resulted in torrential downpours, this being one of the rounds of heavy rain that month which culminated in severe flooding in places such as Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
A storm system a week later produced this interesting visible satellite image and a signature on water vapor imagery which resembled a hurricane symbol!
[Source of images: NASA Earth Science Office (top), UCAR (bottom)]
And much, much more at this link: http://www.weather.com/blog/weather/8_23680.html
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