KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

NASA has posted a nice video of following the progression of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  After a recent brief bout with Tropical Storm Bonnie, reports this week by BP, the U.S. Government and independent scientists indicate fractured and more isolated robbons of surface oil in the Gulf.  This can be partially attributed to Tropical Storm Bonnie helping to stir things up over the site.  In addition, our hot summer heat has helped to evaporate some of the oil, while likely the dispersent was also a likely player in reducing visible surface oil.

Experts continue to indicate there is plenty of oil still in the Gulf but natural processes are likely getting a foothold on weathering and naturally dispersing the oil now that the leak has been capped.  This also argues that the response to the spill has likely made some progress too.

The Gulf of Mexico contains 660 quadrillion gallons of water…thats 660,000,000,000,000,000 gallons!  By comparison given the highest estimates of 200 million gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf would account for less than 1 billionth of the entire volume of the Gulf.  These numbers make it seem better for the Gulf, but the question however is how will a few parts per billion (or much, much more in concentrated areas) affect the basic bio-processes/ecosytems and how that will manifest further up in the food chain?  Time will tell.

You may have noticed that  haven’t been on air this week and many thanks to KATC I have been attending the American Meteorological Society’s Broadcast conference in beautiful Miami Beach.  This conference combines presentations obviously about weather, but also how to be a better broadcaster and communicator of scientific information including topics outside of the weather realm. 

Roughly 200 attendees had the opportunity to take a course in tropical meteorology which was quite informative and we are looking forward to touring the National Hurricane Center…the mecca for tropical meteorologists! 

In addition, Hurricane Center Director Bill Read will be the keynote speaker at lunch today provided the tropical wave in the Western Caribbean doesn’t develop too quickly… if not we may be seeing him and his team in action at the NHC.   

This morning the subject of climate change has been the focus…always interesting perspectives…with disaster mitigation on the docket through the early afternoon.  Hopefully that will be followed by a little sand and surf later this today. 

Incidentally the talk of the conference amoungst many of us meteorologists has been the oil disaster in the Gulf.  Visually my flight out of  Houston was quite interesting where I did see what I believe were ribbons of oil roughly 20 miles off the Bolivar Peninsula  near Galveston along the upper Texas coast.  Flying over the main spill area south of Venice Monday was also quite interesting with colors more a kin to the dispersant rather than oil.  Again these are more casual observations and the visual inspection offshore the Louisiana Coast was from 30,000ft.  Obviously the big story over the last couple of days has been the thick stuff washing up onto Pensacola Beach…rough to watch. 

The new wild card of late is what Dave and Chris have been watching in the Western Caribbean…this system continues to show slow signs of development with models carrying this “something” into the Central Gulf by early next week…a tropical storm may be quite possible…never dull in our world.  Stay with KATC for the latest on the system as Hurricane Hunters should be on their way to investigate later today.  I will see you Monday!

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.

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. 

The latest pictures today courtesy of NASA’s MODIS website clearly show the oil spill and some of the containment that is occuring at this time.  Unfortunately winds and seas will stay elevated through the entire weekend making operations offshore that much more difficult.  In addition based on NOAA’s latest assessment the slick and crude will encroach upon coastal Plaquemines Parish tonight.  Based on a continuation of surface winds and coastal tides I have put together a threat zone through Monday based on the ongoing forecast. 

I am not however an expert oceanographer nor are these official NOAA projections (as the forecasts officially are only for 24 hours out), but based on current surface winds and currents in the Gulf of Mexico it appears that some oil may travel as far west as Grand Isle by Monday.  

I would not be surprised to see this slick affect the entire Louisiana coastline through the next week to 10 days unless the slick is miraculously contained much sooner than the 2-3 week minimum projection at this point. 

To make matters worse with the gusty south-southeast winds tides will increase to 1-2ft above projected normal lunar tides raising water levels as high as 3ft above normal mean low water.  This would allow the contaminated water to drive deeper into Louisiana’s coastal marshes.   In addition, scattered shower and thunderstorm activity will become more likely at the accident site Friday through Monday…hopefully the fresh water run-off from the storms will help the marsh but it will likely hamper containment activities.  Stay with KATC for additional updates.  Rob 

After looking for a high resolution visible satellite picture from the NASA MODIS website I found that you can clearly see not only the smoke from the grass fires in Vernon Parish this afternoon but if you zoom in closely on the High Resolution Link (warning this is a large file) you will be able to see the oil slick offshore from the platform that exploded last week migrating southeastward in the Central and Southern Gulf of Mexico.  The Louisiana Coast has been fortunate not to be contaminated with this slick as brisk west to northwest winds have dominated across the area since Saturday.  Normal currents in the Gulf migrate westward across the Northern Gulf of Mexico but the predominate winds have been over-riding the natural current forces.  Later this week however, southeasterly winds will return to Acadiana and Louisiana opening the window of opportunity for the slick to migrate toward the Louisiana Coastline.  The slick appears to span much greater than 30 miles as reported earlier today.  This image comes from a NASA polar orbiting satellite which circles the Earth several times a day at roughly 120-150 miles above the earth which allows for much higher resolution images (but fewer pictures) as compared with typical geostationary orbiters that are parked 22,000 miles above the planet.

As for the fires in Vernon Parish, they were initiated by by a burning railroad box car that was filled by wood.  This allowed for three distinct grass fires to ignite leaving a smoke plume to fan southeastward with the prevailing northwest winds Monday afternoon and evening.  The fires were reported under control as of late Monday afternoon

Be sure to check with KATC’s Wind Forecast Maps regularly for the latest on prevailing winds.