Latest news with #JonathanBelles
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Colorado State Lowers Hurricane Season Expectations, But Above Average Season Still Expected
Colorado State University slightly reduced its forecast for this hurricane season, but it maintains a more active than average outlook. The new outlook: Colorado State University's tropical meteorology project team is forecasting 16 storms, eight of which will become hurricanes and four of which will reach Category 3 status or stronger in their latest outlook for 2025 released Wednesday. The number of tropical storms and hurricanes was reduced by one each compared to their previous outlook released in June. The new outlook remains slightly above the 30-year average tally for both hurricanes and storms, and also near the tally of 18 storms, 11 hurricanes and five Cat 3-plus hurricanes in 2024. The limiting factor this hurricane season: Wind shear has been more persistent than it is typically in the Caribbean. This is one of the primary reasons for the reduction in the forecast. "Shear since June 1 has been elevated by an average of 15 to 20 kt (or 17–23 mph) relative to normal across the Caribbean," according to the outlook's author, Dr. Phil Klotzbach. The Caribbean typically hosts several of the season's tropical storms and is often a hotbed for the season's most potent hurricanes. Strong wind shear tends to rip apart the thunderstorms that make up hurricanes, leaving them ragged and unable to grow vertically. The outlook noted that wind shear is expected to be especially above average in July but could slacken with more favorable conditions going into August. (MORE: For even more granular weather data tracking in your area, view your 15-minute details forecast in our Premium Pro experience.) El Niño not forecast for this season: ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) neutral conditions are expected through the remainder of the season. This means that water temperatures are neither warmer nor cooler than average in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Those conditions can tip the activity in the Atlantic less or more active than average by shifting global wind patterns. ENSO neutral conditions tend to tip the controls to the Atlantic. The primary reason for the more active than average outlook is warmer than average water temperatures in the eastern and central Atlantic. Heat in our oceans helps fuel the thunderstorms that allow tropical storms and hurricanes to form and strengthen. These water temperatures are not nearly as warm as last year, so the forecast is also for fewer storms this year. Jonathan Belles has been a graphics meteorologist and writer for for 8 years and also assists in the production of videos for The Weather Channel en español. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
What Is A Heat Dome? Explaining The Deadly Weather Pattern Behind America's Most Dangerous Summer Days
They're known by many names: Heat dome. Ridge of high pressure. Death ridge. Blocking high. But do you really know what these are and why they can produce deadly weather? These expansive bulges of warm air can stretch for 1,000 miles during the spring and summer months and provide sinking air over much of the country. (MORE: Preparing For The Upcoming Heat Wave: What You Need To Know) It's that sinking air that is often problematic. Descending air compresses and warms as it drops closer to the surface. Temperatures can often reach the century mark in the eastern two-thirds of the United States. In the West, these death ridges can push temperatures into the 110s and 120s in the desert. (MORE: Further beef up your forecast with our detailed, hour-by-hour breakdown for the next 8 days – only available on our Premium Pro experience.) Days-long heat waves are often the result. This sinking, warm air also dries out the ground and the air above it. Thunderstorms have a tough time sprouting due to the suppressive motion of the air. Drought can begin or worsen under ridges of high pressure that last for longer than a week. The air directly under such a system can become still with little to no wind. During the middle of the summer, this can become a vicious cycle of warming and drying. These domes can strengthen and expand during this cycle until something comes along to push the high-pressure system elsewhere. Heat is the No. 1 weather killer in the U.S., with hundreds of fatalities each year. Many of these fatalities occur under heat domes. (MORE: For even more granular weather data tracking in your area, view your 15-minute details forecast in our Premium Pro experience.) There is one benefit that these domes bring: They can deflect tropical systems away from the United States. They act like a shield for the Gulf Coast or Atlantic seaboard. While not seen as a benefit, another pattern can emerge on the periphery of death ridges: the ring of fire. No, this isn't the chain of volcanoes that lines the edges of the Pacific Ocean. (MORE: Heat Safety Tips From The ring of fire is a curved line or roughly oval-shaped ring of thunderstorms that can encircle a high-pressure system. The thunderstorms are often severe due to the summertime heat and humidity. In June or July, these thunderstorms can become derechos. By later in the summer, if the placement of the ridge is right, the Southwestern monsoon can get a boost. MORE FROM - Should You Turn Off Your A/C Or Leave It On When You Leave Home? - Heat Advice From An ER Doctor - Here's How To Cool Down Quickly In Extreme Heat - Think You're Ready To Hike This Summer? Check This First Jonathan Belles has been a digital meteorologist for for 9 years and also assists in the production of videos for The Weather Channel en español. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Ask A Met: Why Can't You Bomb A Tornado?
This week Morning Brief reader Lynda Buckler writes, "I've wondered why a plane couldn't fly above a tornado cloud and drop something into the cloud to disperse the funnel? I read of tornados traveling miles and miles with destruction in their path…so?" Senior Digital Meteorologist Jonathan Belles: Well, just to begin historically, I'm not aware of anyone attempting to divert a tornado, but we have diverted rain clouds. In fact, this has famously been done around the Olympics. Basically, the idea is that you want good weather for the Olympic games, so we want the rain that would normally fall to fall out somewhere else. China has done this a couple of different times. What they're doing is seeding clouds. Basically, a plane injects molecules into the clouds to make them heavier and cause the water molecules to fall out sooner. Typically, they're 100 miles upwind of where the storm would normally go. They seed the clouds and make them rain out before they get into the area that would be impacted. In theory, I think it's possible to apply that kind of technology to a tornado. You're just trying to get the storm to rain itself out. Tornadoes need thunderstorms. Thunderstorms need rain. And rain, obviously, needs moisture. You're trying to take one of those ingredients away from those thunderstorms, so that they can be less successful at producing a tornado later on. The problem with a tornado is a much, much smaller scale. They don't last very long in a thunderstorm or a big thunderstorm complex. Tornadoes may only last a couple of minutes. Sure, a rare one may go for more than 100 miles, but you still have to scramble the plane, arrange all of the ingredients to get the cloud seeding done, and get the pilot into the correct spot. So it's very, very tricky, I think. In the film Twisters in 2024, part of the plot is some kind of idea about being able to stop a tornado. Basically they are forcing the molecules to be too heavy, so that they'll fall out. The video effects in the film are a little pseudoscience-y. They show the actual thunderstorm complex doing, like, a little donut and falling to the ground. It's not probably how that would end up working, but, basically the idea is the same as the cloud seeding in China that I mentioned. If we somehow got 50 years down the line, totally hypothetical here, into the pattern of seeding every storm or every storm system that came across the Plains to produce tornadoes, we would be producing rain in the Rockies or fundamentally changing the climate of some other location. Do you want all of that water coming down into Denver, because we want to possibly stop a tornado in Kansas? Probably not. Somebody's going to be mad about that. We'd be adding rain somewhere and taking it away from somewhere else. So, we'd just be moving the problem from one place to another, right? But I do think this will be an ongoing discussion for the end of time. Do you have a question to ask the meteorologists at Write to us at and we'll pick a new question each week from readers to answer.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Hurricane season forecast complication: The Atlantic has cooled
Hurricanes thrive on warm seawater, and meteorologists say cooler spring temperatures in the ocean where storms often form could mean we're in for a less punishing hurricane season. Meteorologists keeping a close watch on ocean temperatures in the Atlantic say it isn't as hot as it's been in recent years: "A large patch of the eastern Atlantic Ocean isn't quite keeping up to the typical rate of warming for this time of year and that has experts questioning what, if any, impacts there might be this hurricane season," said meteorologist Jonathan Belles in an online forecast. Another expert, Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach told USA TODAY that "Tropical sea-surface temperatures are thankfully much cooler than they were last year at this time." How much cooler is the Atlantic? In fact, on average, sea-surface temperatures are almost 2 degrees cooler than this time in 2024, he said. That may not sound like much, but in the world of meteorology, it's a significant difference that can affect hurricane formation. "That's obviously good news for Atlantic hurricane potential, but overall, sea-surface temperatures are still a bit above normal overall," Klotzbach said. What about location? Klotzbach said ocean temperatures are a bit warmer than normal in the Caribbean Sea and eastern subtropical Atlantic and a bit cooler than normal in the eastern tropical Atlantic. Overall, though, "thankfully, sea-surface temperature anomalies are WAY cooler than they were last year at this time. They were downright scary in late April of 2024." The preseason predictions in 2024 called for a hyperactive season with dozens of storms possible. While the season finished above average, it wasn't quite as active as had been foreseen, with a total of 18 storms. This is because other factors also influence hurricane formation, such as dry air or dust in the atmosphere, the presence of El Niño or La Niña, along with long periods of sinking air or strong wind shear, Belles said. All of these "can change the path that hurricane season takes each year," he said. What does this year's forecast say? Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1. According to the most recent forecast from Colorado State University released in early April, another active season is likely with as many as 17 storms expected. Of those 17 storms, researchers forecast that nine will become hurricanes. A typical year averages about 14 tropical storms, with seven of them spinning into hurricanes, based on weather records from 1991 to 2020. Colorado State will provide an updated forecast in early June. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast comes out later in May. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hurricane season forecast complication: The ocean has cooled
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Megaquake Could Greatly Increase Flood Risk In The Northwest, Study Says
A major earthquake could drastically change the geography of the Pacific Northwest and enhance the flood risk for those in the region. The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that if a megaquake rupture on the Cascadia Fault, some locations could drop by six feet almost instantly. The Cascadia fault line runs through California's North Coast, along with coastal areas of Oregon and Washington and into southwest Canada. Megaquakes have occurred on the fault at least seven times in geological records dating back over 3,000 years. It is thought that such quakes, those with magnitudes over 8.0, occur there every 400-600 years. This extreme subsidence expands the floodplain in the region from 35 to 116 square miles or roughly the size of Fresno, California. The floodplain is the area that has a 1-in-100 chance of flooding each year. (Recent News: Earthquake Strikes Near Chile, Argentina, Tsunami Alert Canceled) Besides just the change in geography, impacts to daily lives would be extreme. More than 14,000 residents and 22,500 structures would find themselves in the new floodplain. Nearly 800 miles of roads would also be more likely to flood. This megaquake would double flood exposure for the region. The Cascadia fault line sits on the "Ring of Fire" zone typically associated with volcanoes, but this region is also a hotbed for large quakes. Important caveat: There is no expectation that such a big quake is on the way any time soon, but scientists caution that when the big one hits, we may only have a few moments notice to get ready. The last major earthquake that struck the region was the 1700 Cascadia Earthquake – a magnitude 9.0 quake. According to the USGS, it's one of the largest quakes in the history of North America and hundreds of people were killed by either landslides or the tsunami that followed. Entire villages were swept away or buried. (WATCH: Elephants Form "Alert Circle" During California Quake) That quake caused rapid subsidence of 1.5 to 6.5 feet. Researchers are using the quake to create estimates of what a similar megaquake could do today. More recently, land sank by more than 3 feet in parts of Japan following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Jonathan Belles has been a graphics meteorologist and writer for for nearly 9 years and also assists in the production of videos for The Weather Channel en español. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.
