KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

You might have noticed over the last several weeks that we have been somewhat remiss on the number blog entries…but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been working in the Weather Lab!  Obviously the crude disaster has kept us in an elevated state of weather and news coverage and the approaching “busy” hurricane season has us preparing for the active months ahead. 

But we are also adding major software and hardware upgrades to our weather facilities as well.  In addition to recent processor upgrade to Power Doppler 3000 (which gives us the highest definition radar in all of Southern Louisiana) we have unveiled the KATC Interactive Stormtracker.   The interactive tracker takes National Weather Service Doppler radar imagery and allows the user zoom down to neighborhood level and gives full control to the user to watch weather in Acadiana or anywhere in the U.S.  In addition, other tools such as user controlled animation, satellite imagery, land and water temperature contours and lightning data, there are exclusive tools for tracking severe storms, including the same TITAN storm tracking capabilities that we use here at KATC.  And if that isn’t enough, there is an intergrated hurricane tracking program included and the utility even has overlays for tracking the oil spill in the Gulf.   Check it out and give it a spin!

Finally Dave, Chris and I have been working weather products on the latest “state of the art” platform of TV weather graphics.  This system is definitely the “next” level platform that will bring high definition satellite, radar imagery, and graphics to Acadiana.  The “TruView Max” system (from WSI, the leading commercial weather graphics and data company) features a continuous live weather engine that ingests the latest satellite-delivered weather and computer forecast data with no rendering time.  The weather imagery and graphics to be simply put, are awesome!  Look for the debut of this system in June…we can’t wait to show it off!

The Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS) out of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (SAR) has been providing exclusive high resolution satellite imagery of the Deep Water Horizon Spill.  The satellite shots are processed in such a way that the imagery can shoot through clouds and precipitation.  The recent imagery as of late last night clearly shows the expansiveness of the oil spill with a plume getting entrained into the Florida loop current.  If you go to the site you can also see a relatively grainy shot of oil as far west as offshore the Cameron Parish coastline.  

Experts are predicting that the oil slick plume extending into the Florida Loop current could affect areas such as the Florida Keys in a few weeks.  While smaller oil plumes off the Louisiana coast could reach portions of the Texas coast in roughly the same time frame.

After many partly to mostly cloudy overflights of the ongoing oil slick by the NASA Polar Orbiter today we got a clear shot and visual confirmation of the slick getting involved with the Florida Loop current in the East-Central Gulf of Mexico.   Today’s image shows a large plume that extends at least 75 miles (and appears about 5-10 miles wide) to the southeast of the main slick.  This was likely helped by shifting winds and currents in the Gulf.  Interestingly enough the main slick off the immediate Southeast Louisiana coast has expanded but not to such a great extent.  Some significant surface evaporation may be helping this but I defer to the experts in this area.  Up to 30% of the surface light sweet crude may be evaporating however.  Unfortunately this image is just a 2 dimensional representation of the slick with recent findings showing sub-surface plumes extending hundreds of feet down and miles wide/thick so the true representation of the slick has yet to be fully visualized.

As expected, the U.S. Drought Monitor upgraded all of Acadiana’s status to a “Moderate Drought”.  Rainfall deficits have been running about 8-12 inches below normal this year with most areas receiving less than one half of an inch over the last 6-8 weeks.

Fortunately rain chances will increase this weekend but activity will be mostly scattered in nature but there could be a few spots that could get some relief.  Sunday into Monday may be a little more interesting as the atmosphere may become more conducive to meso-convective complex development.  These are larger scale thunderstorm clusters that can generally get a much larger area wetter.  Upper level winds will be on the rather light side combined with a healthy plume of deeper tropical moisture some areas may actually get some relief from the drought.   Check with our FutureCast Models and Power Doppler 3000 for the very latest throughout the weekend

Rain chances should decrease somewhat into next week, but it appears that Acadiana’s overly dry pattern should change favoring at least some slight rain chances and the prospects for more meso-convective complexes as we finish off the last couple of weeks in the month.

We all have been very busy in the Weather Lab of late working overtime on a “special project” so apologies in advance for the lack of blog entries over the last couple of weeks. 

We continue to track the oil slick in the Gulf and unfortunately Mother Nature hasn’t been helping us out with breezy southeast winds pushing oil “ribbons” toward the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines over the last few days.  Little change in the weather pattern is anticipated through the end of the week although winds may slacken toward the weekend. 

NOAA’s Trajectory Forecasts continue to show a portion of the oil slick drifting westward toward the Acadiana coastline with 72 hour projections putting the slick just south of Atchafalaya Bay with areas on incertainty and possible tar balls reaching as close as Marsh Island for Friday into the weekend. 

More details on how NOAA comes up with this forecast below.  NOAA updates these forecasts daily so check the link regularly and also check out the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security Response Page for updates and important contact information.

NOAA oil spill forecast background information:  This forecast is based on the NWS spot forecast from Tuesday, May 11 AM. Currents were obtained from several models (NOAA Gulf of Mexico, West Florida Shelf/USF, Texas A&M/TGLO, NAVO/NRL) and HFR measurements. The model was initialized from Tuesday morning satellite/aerial imagery and analysis provided by NOAA/NESDIS and Transport Canada and overflight observations. The leading edge may contain tarballs that are not readily observable from the imagery (hence not included in the model initialization).  Oil near bay inlets could be brought into that bay by local tidal currents.

Winds are forecast to be persistently from the SE throughout the week. These moderately-strong onshore winds (up to 15-20 kts) have the potential to move new oil onshore.  The Mississippi Delta, Breton Sound, the Chandeleur Islands and areas directly north have a potential for shoreline contacts throughout the forecast period.  Oil observed to the west of the Delta offshore of Timbalier Bay could threaten shorelines as far west as Atchafalaya Bay by Friday.

A sobering picture from the Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi on the International Space Station yesterday shows the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico quite clearly in spite of clouds earlier in the day blocking NASA’s polar orbiting satellite. 

The picture taken apparently during a late afternoon orbit shows the thick oil slick southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River with a ribbon of moderately thick oil traversing westward south of  the mouth near Southwest Pass.  Gusty winds over the last several days have abated over the site helping response to the spill, however with lighter south winds actual Gulf currents should dominate over the next couple of days. 

Currents in this part of the Gulf split with northern and eastern parts of the spill getting partially caught by the Florida loop current which follows the northeastern Gulf Coast and then southward across the western Florida Peninsula; near the mouth of the Mississippi a slow moving current drifts to the west at 1/2 to 1 knot per hour.  

It appears that the oyster reefs south of Grand Isle may be threatened toward the latter part of the weekend as increasing southerly winds are expected to drive the western ribbon of oil northward as it also drifts westward.  NOAA tonight confirmed this in their latest assessment and forecast issued around 900pm Wednesday evening.