Northeast Facing Record-Low Temperatures As Polar Vortex Returns

The return of the dreaded polar vortex is battering much of the eastern US this week, sending temperatures well into freezing territory and close to record lows - a phenomenon that could persist for much of the week leading up to Thanksgiving.

According to the New York Post, record-low temperatures are forecast for Friday and Saturday, with nighttime and early-morning mercury dipping into the 20s.

The temperature dropped into the 20s in some places in the northeast last night, and could sink as low as 21 degrees fahrenheit on Saturday, according to AccuWeather forecasts.

The record low for November 10 was 27 degrees in 1914. The high Saturday will be 37 to 43 degrees - up from the predawn low of about 24 degrees. The record low for November 11 was 29 degrees, set in 1933.

The forecast calls for 50 degrees on Monday, setting off eight straight days with high temps of at least 50, AccuWeather said.

The forecasting service added that signs are pointing toward a shift of the polar vortex that may cause snow, rain and other hazardous weather conditions like icy roads in some parts of the Northeast.

Right now, a cold snap is bringing an abrupt November reality check to most of the eastern US that will persist for the rest of the Veterans’ Day weekend. As Accuweather explains, the weather pattern will become even more interesting later in the week because it will feature a meteorological phenomenon called “the Greenland block”.

This pattern consists of relatively high pressure wind pattern near greenland that forces the polar jet stream to move sharply south toward the eastern US.

"Model forecasts have been pretty consistent and increasingly strong with the -NAO," said Dr. Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist with the Weather Company, an IBM Business.

Crawford said the strength of this upcoming Greenland block/negative NAO would be about a "90th percentile event for late November.” In early to mid-November, it’s far more rare.

 

 

The first snow.

A post shared by ??? (@jinyanran927) on

Nov 10, 2017 at 10:10am PST

 

While the pattern is of relatively high confidence, there are some impacts we"re more confident about and others that remain uncertain this far out in time.

One near certainty in this pattern is another series of plunges of colder air deep into the Midwest and East by the weekend before Thanksgiving.

If the weather pattern holds, it’d be impossible to rule out a powerful snowstorm arriving just in time for the Thanksgiving travel season. Indeed, snow is already falling in the Chicago area.

However, none of this is certain - yet. It’s merely just something to keep an eye on, Accuweather’s meteorologists said.

Hurricane Nate Heads For Gulf Coast: Goldman Projects Dramatic Refining Slowdown

Confirming an earlier projection by Accuweather that showed Hurricane Nate will likely make landfall as a cateogry one storm somewhere between Louisiana and the Florida panhandle on Sunday, the NHC has issued a hurricane warning - the highest-priority of the agency"s alert levels - for a broad swath of the Southern US stretching from Grand Isle Louisiana to the Florida-Alabama border.

Here are the key messages for Tropical Storm #Nate for Advisory 9. https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/OI9j3OcE74

— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) October 6, 2017

As we noted earlier, unlike with Hurricane Irma, most of the models for Hurricane Nate consistently see the storm moving directly north through the Gulf before turning to northeast to follow the eastern U.S. shorline. 

Here are more details about storm-related warnings from the NHC:

SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT:

A Hurricane Warning is in effect for...
* Grand Isle Louisiana to the Alabama/Florida border

A Storm Surge Warning is in effect for...
* Morgan City Louisiana to the Alabama/Florida border
* Northern and western shores of Lake Pontchartrain

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for...
* Punta Herrero to Rio Lagartos Mexico
* Pinar del Rio
* Metropolitan New Orleans
* Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas
* West of Grand Isle to Morgan City Louisiana

A Hurricane Watch is in effect for...
* Punta Herrero to Rio Lagartos Mexico
* Metropolitan New Orleans
* Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas
* East of the Alabama/Florida border to the Okaloosa/Walton County
Line
* West of Grand Isle to Morgan City Louisiana

A Storm Surge Watch is in effect for...
* East of the Alabama/Florida border to Indian Pass Florida

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for...
* East of the Okaloosa/Walton County Line to Indian Pass Florida
* West of Morgan City to Intracoastal City Louisiana
* Isle of Youth

Like they did with Hurricane Harvey, energy traders will be hyper focused this weekend on how the massive network of Gulf drilling platforms might be impacted by the storm.

As Goldman Sachs explains, a new storm, Nate, is heading for the US Gulf Coast and is expected to land as a category 1 hurricane in Louisiana on Sunday.

While the overall impact on the US oil sector is likely to be more modest than for Harvey (category 4 at landfall), it may have a similar supply impact given the path threatens more US Gulf Coast platforms. The demand impact is likely to be much smaller than Harvey given the lower intensity of the storm, the smaller amount of downstream capacity at risk and finally the smaller population impacted. On the refining side, 2.4 mb/d of refining capacity is at risk (13% of US capacity).

We expect the storm to likely (1) have little or only a slightly bullish aggregate impact on the global oil market in October given the expected similarly modest supply and demand losses, (2) support US and global refining margins, with distillate likely to be most sustainably impacted given the already low inventory levels, and finally (3) reduce US crude export flows, initially weighing on the WTI-Brent spread.

The resiliency of the US oil infrastructure during Harvey and the lesser intensity of the storm suggest however that these impacts should remain overall modest with flooding along the Mississippi River the likely greater threat.

Of course, as Accuweather warned earlier, warm temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico could bolster the storm as it moves northeast from Central America toward the southwestern US.

New York City Is Within Hurricane Jose's 5-Day "Cone Of Uncertainty"

In what were perhaps the two biggest news stories of the past month, Hurricanes Irma and Harvey devastated the American south, disrupting local industry, destroying homes and critical infrastructure and dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage onto city streets - leading to the most destructive beginning to hurricane season in years. Meanwhile, cosmopolitan Yankees looked on in horror (with perhaps a touch of smugness) as they watched their southern neighbors being paddled out of flooded Texas homes by national guardsmen, or marooned in the seemingly endless lines of traffic snaking out of southern Florida, northeasterners now have their own storm to worry about.

And now, according to the National Weather Service, those same onlookers might be forced to endure similar hardships thanks to Hurricane Jose, already on its way to becoming a category one storm. Meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center say a wide stretch of the eastern and northeastern US, from Maryland up through Cape Cod, is within Jose"s five-day “cone of uncertainty” - meaning that a fully fledged hurricane could make landfall in or around New York City, potentially dealing another crushing blow to the city"s infrastructure after the city"s subway system has not yet finished repairing the damage from Superstorm Sandy, which took place five years ago.

11AM Update on Jose: Much of our area is now in the 5 day cone of uncertainty. Be prepared for potential impacts Tuesday/Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/Qvy502vG8o

— NWS New York NY (@NWSNewYorkNY) September 15, 2017

Presently, the storm is headed northwest at 9 mph past North Carolina, and may bring one to two inches of rain to North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Monday, and heavier rains of two to four inches to Eastern Massachusetts beginning on Tuesday. The large waves from the storm could cause high surf and considerable beach erosion along the shores of the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts during this period, according to Weather Underground.

WU added that there’s an 18% chance of tropical storm-force winds in New York City between Tuesday and Wednesday, said Jeff Masters.

But NWS New York has wasted no time issuing a storm advisory for the northeast, urging east-coast residents to monitor the storm – though, while waves might impact coastal North Carolina, the full impact of the storm remains unclear.

Here are the key messages for #Jose for Advisory 41- East coast of the US from N Carolina northward should monitor https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/XNiGmGu5VG

— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) September 15, 2017

The storm, currently about 360 miles (579 kilometers) northeast of the Bahamas, is expected to strengthen to a Category 1 hurricane in the next 48 hours as it moves through the Atlantic Ocean, Bloomberg reports. Jose’s path could put it near New Jersey and New York by Wednesday morning, though it may weaken to a tropical storm again by then, the NHC said.

As Bloomberg notes, the storm may add to an already devastating 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused $70 billion of damage after hitting the New York metropolitan region.

While Hurricane Harvey temporarily shuttered as much as 30% of the country’s oil-refining capacity, Jose’s impact on energy markets will likely be much more limit – though it could affect five refineries along the East Coast that are able to process about 1.1 million barrels a day of oil, and disrupt tankers carrying crude oil, petrochemicals and refined products along the Atlantic seaboard, “particularly those making deliveries to New York Harbor,” said Shunondo Basu, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance meteorologist and natural gas analyst in New York.

To be sure, some forecasters see Jose staying far enough offshore to avoid any major impact to the US. The NHC’s margin of error for a storm five days away is about 225 miles, on average, according to Bloomberg.

AccuWeather, which correctly forecast the magnitude of the damage that Texas would experience from Hurricane Harvey’s “one-in-a-thousand-year” floods, expects Jose to passing within 200 miles of the northeast - though a landfall in New England – possibly in the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts - during the middle of the week can’t be ruled out, senior meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said in a statement.

Meteorologists should have a clearer picture of the storm’s path in relation to the US early next week.

Until them, concerned citizens might want to start stocking up on supplies now - just in case. Stores in south Florida started running out of water, gas and other essentials nearly a week before Irma made landfall.

How The Feds Blocked Effective Flood Insurance

As the floodwaters brought by Hurricane Harvey last week recede and new hurricane Irma moves slowly toward the Eastern U.S., it might be edifying to review how millions of Americans, despite federal anti-flood efforts, came to live and work in hazardous to dangerous flood-prone areas.

The foundation of the current disaster traces back at least to the late 1920s under Republican interventionist Herbert Hoover. In 1927, a very destructive flood occurred along the Mississippi River. Secretary of Commerce Hoover’s relief campaign greatly increased the power of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to implement supposed flood protection. 

No doubt, the Flood Control Act of 1928 helped construct what was considered one of the most impressive systems of levees in the world along the Mississippi River. However, the one thing it did not do was control flooding. While the new levee system prevented flooding in some areas, it quickened the natural current of the river which helped produce flooding in other areas. Other unforeseen consequences were the reductions in natural soil deposits and natural flow of water into the river"s flood plains.

Less than a decade later, another damaging flood in New England helped drive the passage of the National Flood Control Act of 1936. This Act was a real turning point in terms of centralization. Besides doubling the size of the federal flood-control program, it signaled that Congress would no longer merely provide occasional flood relief and regard floods as principally a local matter. It effectively enlisted the federal government and Army Corps of Engineers in the battle against floods.

For the rest of the 1930s and 1940s, private insurance markets were undermined because the Army Corps of Engineers built hundred-year flood walls which reduced risk just enough for homeowners to make private flood insurance too costly. On the other hand, private insurers saw these walls as insufficient protection which did not reduce risk enough. Regardless, an impasse was created for private markets that was both figuratively and literally cemented in place by the Army Corps.

Enter the New Deal central planners of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1953. TVA began monitoring flood-prone areas in and around one hundred and fifty towns and cities in its jurisdiction. At first, TVA used a worst-case standard from the Army Corps, regardless of whether such a flood had ever actually occurred.

This stringent standard was quickly abandoned when it was realized that it would eliminate huge areas of potential development that not only local private and public planners wanted, but TVA as well since part of its conflicted mission was spurring development. Thus TVA adopted a new standard skewed in favor of development that was based on past floods that occurred inside a 60- or 100-mile zone from proposed development.

Outside TVA’s jurisdiction, the U.S. Geological Survey and Army Corps of Engineers mapped flood plains with roughly the same backward-looking standard. By the end of the 1960s, all three agencies had laid the groundwork for a national map of floodplains. A very bad standard had been created.

Of course no tapestry of disastrous policies would be complete without a contribution by Lyndon Baines Johnson, thus the Southeast Hurricane Disaster Relief Act of 1965. This Act authorized $500 million in spending to assist in repairing damage created by Hurricane Betsy.

Next came the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, which created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which covered up to $250,000 in damage to single-family houses and buildings in cities and towns meeting the flawed federal flood-plain criteria.

The absolute death knell for any semblance of economic and actuarial soundness in the NFIP came in 1973, when Congress allowed coverage to be extended to property owners who should have enrolled in the program and paid for insurance but did not.

While none of this is to say that had more rigorous private standards prevailed and the Army Corps and TVA never been created, that no one"s residence or workplace would ever have flooded.

However, there"s no doubt that the federal government"s perverse subsidization of residential and commercial development in flood-prone areas as well as artificially cheap flood insurance completely detached from risk assessment have contributed to not only the untold loss of billions of dollars of property, but lives as well.

Florida Stores Running Out Of Water, Gas As Gov Warns "Make Sure Your Disaster Kits Are Ready" For Irma

Hurricane Irma is hurtling toward the eastern US faster than meteorological models anticipated. According to the latest readings from NOAA, the storm will probably make landfall in Southeastern Florida next weekend, or perhaps earlier – that is, unless wind patterns intervene and spare residents of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach from flooding and winds witnessed in Texas and Louisiana, according to NOAA forecasts.

…Bloomberg chief energy correspondent Javier Blas noted that the Hurricane has “shifted a lot further west,” and that, according to the latest forecasts, there’s still a small chance that Irma strikes the Gulf of Mexico, compounding the devastation that Harvey left behind.

#Irma forecast has shifted a lot further to the west -- with some weather models suggesting a small chance (as today) of US GoM hit #OOTT pic.twitter.com/7ekw6gxEVW

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas2) September 4, 2017

Here"s what we know about Irma (courtesy of the Weather.com & NOAA):

• The center of Irma is located 610 miles east of the Leeward Islands and is moving west-southwestward at about 14 mph.


• Irma is a Category 3 hurricane and satellite imagery shows that it has become better organized in the past day with an eye now clearly evident.


• Low wind shear, increased mid-level moisture and ample oceanic heat content favor that Irma will remain a major hurricane (Category 3 or stronger) for the next several days, though some intensity fluctuations are likely.


• One potential inhibitor of Irma maintaining its intensity would be if the hurricane"s core interacts with land as it cruises westward near the Greater Antilles later this week.

And Weather.com’s latest impact projections:

• Leeward Islands: Late Tuesday-Wednesday


• Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands: Wednesday-Thursday


• Dominican Republic/Haiti: Thursday-Friday


• Turks and Caicos: Thursday-Friday


• Bahamas: Friday-next weekend


• Cuba: Friday-next weekend


• United States: Next weekend into early the following week

NOAA satellites captured this stunning video of the sun rising over the hurricane on Monday:

WATCH: @NOAASatellites loop shows sunrise this morning on Hurricane #Irma in the Atlantic. pic.twitter.com/YGFmvJtQoG

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) September 4, 2017

Hurricane watches have been issued for the Leeward Islands, including Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, Saba, St. Eustatius, Sint Maarten, St. Martin and St. Barthelemy. According to Weather.com’s latest long-term forecast, by next weekend, Irma will be immediately southeast of the US.

At that point, jet stream dynamics will begin to turn it north. What happens after that will be critical in determining where – or whether – Irma lands in the US.   Meanwhile, residents of southeast Florida – having spent the last week reading about the flooding in Houston – are understandably starting to panic.

WPTV in West Palm Beach reports that Shelves of water at several stores were nearly empty Sunday, even as Irma’s path remains uncertain. Hardware stores are also running out of tanks of gas and other supplies.

One distressed shopper told WPTV that one Walmart had run out of bottled water.

“There was nothing at Walmart," said Bianca Rodriguez of Palm Beach Gardens. "Not even like one thing of water.”

According to WPTV, emergency officials recommend people have one gallon of water per person, per day for at least five days in the event of a hurricane. Florida Gov. Rick Scott warned that “disaster preparedness” should be a priority for every family in the potential path of the storm.

One shopper said he bought the last remaining cases of bottled water at the Winn-Dixie in Palm Beach Gardens.

“Rodriguez found cases of bottled water at a Winn-Dixie on Military Trail in Palm Beach Gardens Sunday night.

‘I lucked out. There’s only a couple left, but at least there was enough for me,’ said Rodriguez.”

A Home Depot in Royal Palm Beach on Monday morning posted a sign that said they were short of some hurricane supplies.

As we continue to monitor Hurricane Irma, families should make sure their Disaster Supply Kits are ready today. https://t.co/ymXjrTHewW

— Rick Scott (@FLGovScott) September 3, 2017

Let’s hope they have time to restock before next weekend…
 

Latest Projections Show Hurricane Irma Headed For Florida

As Hurricane Irma continues to move  west as a Category three storm, in what still is said to be an indeterminate path, according to the latest projections from Met Scientist Michael Ventrice, it now looks like Florida has the highest probability of a US landfall…

Latest 12Z Calibrated ECMWF Ensembles indicates that Florida now has the highest probability to see Hurricane #Irma impacts/landfall ???? pic.twitter.com/YVgjueeKYx

— Michael Ventrice (@MJVentrice) September 3, 2017

…though that doesn’t mean the Gulf of Mexico can rest easy. Hurricane forecasting is notoriously inaccurate one or two weeks out...

Not a shift in guidance anyone wanted to see. Looks like #Irma threat growing again for Gulf States. Forecast remains extremely difficult https://t.co/sZs5t2ppHJ

— Michael Ventrice (@MJVentrice) September 3, 2017

Before it nears the US, however, the storm is headed toward the Northern Caribbean, threatening to bring flooding rain and damaging winds to the Leeward Islands. Preparations for the storm should already be taking place in these areas, according to Accuweather.com.

“Rain and gusty winds may start as early as Tuesday,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Rob Miller said.

According to Accuweather, Irma’s intensity has vacillated over the past few days. But the storm is expected to strengthen to a category four hurricane with sustained winds of 130-156 mph as it approaches the islands. Thereafter, the storm will turn to the north and west over the coming days. This track will put Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, in the brunt of the storm"s rain and wind spanning Tuesday and Wednesday.

Hurricane watches issued for portions of the Leeward Islands. Latest information on #Irma available at https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/BPiAPelf3D

— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) September 3, 2017

Cruise and shipping vessels in the hurricane’s path will need to reroute.

Later in the week, Irma will move close to Puerto Rico and Hispaniola with the worst of the storm expected to miss the islands to the north. Even so, rough surf, gusty winds and heavy rain will increase.

Experts are concerned that the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas could face dangerous conditions at the end of the week and into the weekend as Irma passes nearby or possibly through the islands. Impacts will be severe if Irma maintains its strength and passes over them.

Ultimately, the storm could land in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas or even closer to the Delmarva Peninsula. Or it could curve northward and miss the east coast entirely.

“The eastward or northeast progression of a non-tropical system pushing across the central and eastern U.S. this week will highly impact the long-range movement of Irma,” AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski said.

How fast or slow this non-tropical system moves will determine whether Irma takes a west-northwest path toward the southern Atlantic Seaboard or gets steered north and away from land.

* * *

Readers may be wondering, if the storm slams southeast Florida, as is looking increasingly likely. Well, the Miami Herald spoke with one engineer who built a “dynamic” weather forecasting model that incorporates data like rainwater evaporation rates and how much of a given surface area is paved.

“Omar Abdul-Aziz, an engineer and assistant professor at West Virginia University, has done just that with a new model he built while at Florida International University as part of a state-funded project to improve hurricane loss models. At the request of the Herald, he agreed to run three rainfall scenarios that might resemble Hurricane Harvey.

The maps he produced stretch from Homestead north to Port St. Lucie, not including barrier islands which are separate land masses, and depict flooding after 48 hours from 20 inches of rain, 30 inches of rain, and 40 inches of rain.

Because the maps cover a large area, they don’t show flooding at street level. But Abdul-Aziz said they do provide a far more accurate picture of what would happen across the region.”

If his models are accurate, residents of densely populated cities like Miami might want to start bracing for floods. Abdul-Aziz found that floodwaters in parts of Miami, Hialeah, South Dade and Fort Lauderdale could rise between nine and 17 inches at least with this amount of rain. And with 40 inches of rain, flooding in those same neighborhoods, as well as many more, rises to between 23 inches and more than three feet — enough to begin damaging houses and partially submerge cars.

“Because of the flat land and low elevation, water does not move fast. It goes slow and the drainage capacity is not designed to take that much rainfall,” he said.

To build the model, funded with $533,000 from the state, Abdul-Aziz used the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest stormwater management model, which has been used since the 1970s to help communities plan water and sewer systems. They include local hydrology, land cover, ground level and local climate, but cover a smaller area.

Abdul-Aziz mapped out three different flooding scenarios below:

To be sure, the storm is still at least a week away. Depending on atmospheric conditions, it could menace a wide stretch of the US east coast. If it’s still a powerful category 3 or 4 storm when it hits – as projections suggest it would be – the US could be bracing for its second major natural disaster in two weeks.

5 Charts Showing Where Hurricane Irma Might Land

For anyone wondering why meteorologists can’t say for certain where Hurricane Irma – now a category 3 storm – might land in the US, Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist at Weather.com, has an explanation. First, let’s look at the National Hurricane Center current forecast cone, a five-day forecast.

According to NHC statistics, the average error in a five-day forecast path of the center in 2016 was about 194 miles. While NHC track forecasts have improved over the years, this is still a sizable error at five days, roughly the distance between Miami and Cape Canaveral, or from midtown Manhattan to Martha"s Vineyard.

A basic tenet of numerical weather prediction is that small errors grow with time. If the five-day track error is already almost 200 miles, imagine what a 10-plus-day track error would be?

So, in the spirit of offering a more comprehensive assessment of where the hurricane might land, Erdman recommends looking at what’s called an ensemble model. Instead of using one set of parameters, economists use a range of initial conditions.

The ensemble forecast from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts can be seen below, in grey. The data are current as of Aug. 31 at 8 p.m. EDT. As Weather.com notes, readers can hardly see the US map below the mess of possible tracks, extending from south of Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico…

…And here’s another set of projections from NOAA.

Of course, forecasting the path of a hurricane with complete certainty is impossible. All meteorologists can say with some degree of accuracy is that the US East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico should be paying attention.

While it’s difficult to neatly sort a hurricane into a series of scenarios, meteorologists at Weather.com created illustrations showing what an east-coast landfall – as well as a near miss – might look like.

Ultimately, whether Irma hits the East Coast will depend on the Bermuda-Azores high, the primary steering wheel for Atlantic tropical cyclones.

“When this high is strong and expansive in west-to-east extent and/or there"s little or no southward plunge of the jet stream anywhere near the eastern U.S., an approaching hurricane would be steered westward into the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico or East Coast.”

While the path and precise landfall of the storm is still unclear, at least one metereologist has described Irma"s 180-mph winds as "the highest windspeed forecasts I"ve ever seen in my 10 yrs of Atlantic hurricane forecasting."

These are the highest windspeed forecasts I"ve ever seen in my 10 yrs of Atlantic hurricane forecasting. #Irma is another retiree candidate. pic.twitter.com/e6nMsp1myY

— Michael Ventrice (@MJVentrice) August 31, 2017

Meteorologists should have a clearer picture of what to expect in a few days. After seeing photos of the flooding in Texas, we imagine homeowners along the Atlantic seaboard, not to mention the Gulf of Mexico, will be nervously awaiting more news.