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Hurricane Ivan Tornado Outbreak
The Hurricane Ivan tornado outbreak was a three-day tornado outbreak that was associated with the passage of Hurricane Ivan across the Southern United States starting on September 15, 2004 across the Gulf Coast states of Alabama and Florida as well as southern Georgia before ending in the Middle Atlantic Coast on September 18. The outbreak killed 7 people and injured dozens of others across several states from Florida to Pennsylvania. The hurricane itself killed at least 90 people from the US to the eastern Caribbean Islands. Overall it produced 120 tornadoes surpassing the record of 117 that was previously held by Hurricane Beulah during the 1967 Atlantic hurricane season. Ivan also produced 16 more tornadoes than Hurricane Frances which struck most of the same regions (the tornado outbreak) about ten days earlier. The tornado outbreak is also the largest in Virginia history. Meteorological synopsis On September 13, 2004, as Category 5 hurricane Ivan moved th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tornado Vortex Signature
A tornadic vortex signature, abbreviated TVS, is a Pulse-Doppler radar weather radar detected rotation algorithm that indicates the likely presence of a strong mesocyclone that is in some stage of tornadogenesis. It may give meteorologists the ability to pinpoint and track the location of tornadic rotation within a larger storm, but it is not an important feature in the National Weather Service's warning operations. The tornadic vortex signature was first identified by Donald W. Burgess, Leslie R. Lemon, and Rodger A. Brown in the 1970s using experimental Doppler radar at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma. The National Weather Service (NWS) now uses an updated algorithm developed by NSSL, the ''tornado detection algorithm'' (TDA) based on data from its WSR-88D system of radars. NSSL also developed the ''mesocyclone detection algorithm'' (MDA). Display The conditions causing a TVS are often visible on the Doppler weather radar storm relative velocity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hurricane Frances
Hurricane Frances was the second most intense tropical cyclone in the Atlantic during 2004 and proved to be very destructive in Florida. It was the sixth named storm, the fourth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. The system crossed the open Atlantic in late August, moving to the north of the Lesser Antilles while strengthening. Its outer bands struck Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands while passing north of the Caribbean Sea. The storm's maximum sustained wind peaked at , achieving Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. As the system's forward motion slowed, the eye passed over San Salvador Island and very close to Cat Island in the Bahamas. Frances was the first hurricane to impact the entire Bahamian archipelago since 1928 and almost completely destroyed their agricultural economy. Frances then passed over the central sections of Florida, three weeks after Hurricane Charley, causing significant damage to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atmospheric Sounding
Atmospheric sounding or atmospheric profiling is a measurement of vertical distribution of physical properties of the atmospheric column such as pressure, temperature, wind speed and wind direction (thus deriving wind shear), liquid water content, ozone concentration, pollution, and other properties. Such measurements are performed in a variety of ways including remote sensing and in situ observations. The most common in situ sounding is a radiosonde, which usually is a weather balloon, but can also be a rocketsonde. Remote sensing soundings generally use passive infrared and microwave radiometers: * airborne instruments * surface stations * Earth-observing satellite instruments such as AIRS and AMSU * observation of atmospheres on different planets, such as the Mars climate sounder on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Direct methods Sensors that measure atmospheric constituents directly, such as thermometers, barometers, and humidity sensors, can be sent aloft on balloons, roc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rainband
A rainband is a cloud and precipitation structure associated with an area of rainfall which is significantly elongated. Rainbands can be stratiform or convective, and are generated by differences in temperature. When noted on weather radar imagery, this precipitation elongation is referred to as banded structure. Rainbands within tropical cyclones are curved in orientation. Rainbands of tropical cyclones contain showers and thunderstorms that, together with the eyewall and the eye, constitute a hurricane or tropical storm. The extent of rainbands around a tropical cyclone can help determine the cyclone's intensity. Rainbands spawned near and ahead of cold fronts can be squall lines which are able to produce tornadoes. Rainbands associated with cold fronts can be warped by mountain barriers perpendicular to the front's orientation due to the formation of a low-level barrier jet. Bands of thunderstorms can form with sea breeze and land breeze boundaries, if enough moisture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dropwindsonde
A dropsonde is an expendable weather reconnaissance device created by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), designed to be dropped from an aircraft at altitude over water to measure (and therefore track) storm conditions as the device falls to the surface. The sonde contains a GPS receiver, along with pressure, temperature, and humidity (PTH) sensors to capture atmospheric profiles and thermodynamic data. It typically relays this data to a computer in the aircraft by radio transmission. Usage Dropsonde instruments are typically the only current method to measure the winds and barometric pressure through the atmosphere and down to the sea surface within the core of tropical cyclones far from land-based weather radar. The data obtained is usually fed via radio into supercomputers for numerical weather prediction, enabling forecasters to better predict the effects and intensity, based on computer-generated models using data gathered from previous storms under simil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charts the seas, conducts deep sea exploration, and manages fishing and protection of marine mammals and endangered species in the U.S. exclusive economic zone. Purpose and function NOAA's specific roles include: * ''Supplying Environmental Information Products''. NOAA supplies to its customers and partners information pertaining to the state of the oceans and the atmosphere, such as weather warnings and forecasts via the National Weather Service. NOAA's information services extend as well to climate, ecosystems, and commerce. * ''Providing Environmental Stewardship Services''. NOAA is a steward of U.S. coastal and marine environments. In coordination with federal, state, local, tribal and international authorities, NOAA manages the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supercell
A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Due to this, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms (supercell, squall line, multi-cell, and single-cell), supercells are the overall least common and have the potential to be the most severe. Supercells are often isolated from other thunderstorms, and can dominate the local weather up to away. They tend to last 2–4 hours. Supercells are often put into three classification types: classic (Normal precipitation level), low-precipitation (LP), and high-precipitation (HP). LP supercells are usually found in climates that are more arid, such as the high plains of the United States, and HP supercells are most often found in moist climates. Supercells can occur anywhere in the world under the right pre-existing weather conditions, but they are most common in the Great Plains of the United State ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wind Shear
Wind shear (or windshear), sometimes referred to as wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and/or direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Atmospheric wind shear is normally described as either vertical or horizontal wind shear. Vertical wind shear is a change in wind speed or direction with a change in altitude. Horizontal wind shear is a change in wind speed with a change in lateral position for a given altitude. Wind shear is a microscale meteorological phenomenon occurring over a very small distance, but it can be associated with mesoscale or synoptic scale weather features such as squall lines and cold fronts. It is commonly observed near microbursts and downbursts caused by thunderstorms, fronts, areas of locally higher low-level winds referred to as low-level jets, near mountains, radiation inversions that occur due to clear skies and calm winds, buildings, wind turbines, and sailboats. Wind shear has significant effects on the control of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florida Panhandle
The Florida Panhandle (also West Florida and Northwest Florida) is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida; it is a Salient (geography), salient roughly long and wide, lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is arbitrarily defined. In terms of population, major communities include Tallahassee, Florida, Tallahassee, Pensacola, Florida, Pensacola, and Panama City, Florida, Panama City. As is the case with the other eight U.S. states that have Salient (geography)#Panhandles in the United States, panhandles, the geographic meaning of the term is inexact and elastic. References to the Florida Panhandle always include the ten List of counties in Florida, counties west of the Apalachicola River, a natural geographic boundary, which was the historic dividing line between the British colonies of West Florida and East Florida. These western counties also lie in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the other being Alaska and its boroughs). The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans, with a population of roughly 383,000 people. Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural, multilingual heritage, being so strongly influenced by a mixture of 18th century Louisiana French, Dominican Creole, Spanish, French Canadian, Acadi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Storm Prediction Center
The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is a US government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ... that is part of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), operating under the control of the National Weather Service (NWS), which in turn is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States Department of Commerce (DoC). Headquartered at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, the Storm Prediction Center is tasked with forecasting the risk of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in the contiguous United States. It issues #Convective outlooks, convective outlooks, #Mesoscale discussions, mesoscale discussions, and #Weather watches, watches as a part of this process. Convective outlooks are issu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
