Active October & Top of the World
After a busy severe weather week across the eastern half of the nation, we’re heading into the last weekend in October on a much quieter note. Some of the preliminary information coming from this last week of the month have been pretty impressive! Since October 1, we have seen 81 tornado reports(most of these observed this week,) and a whopping 1,148 total storm reports, including hail and wind. The map on the left shows widespread wind and tornado reports across the Ohio Valley on Tuesday. In a sharp contrast, North Dakota was slammed with the first blizzard of the season, with upwards of 8-inches measured southwest of Devil’s Lake. Most of the snow will melt away the next couple of days, with highs in the 30s and 40s.
If you’re traveling out west, a fast moving system is forecast to bring rainfall from Washington to Southern California tonight into the first part of Saturday, with lingering rain into the Pacific Northwest over the weekend. A few rumbles of thunder may be heard in places like San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, California Friday night & Saturday morning. Phoenix and Tucson are expecting highs up around 90 on this Friday! Those of you across the central and eastern half of the country are forecast to dip to frost and freeze levels tonight, with advisories & warnings in effect from Pennsylvania to northern Georgia, extending back out toward Arkansas and Texas.
As we touched on yesterday, the tropics have become a little more active this week too. Tropical Storm Shary is forecast to bring 1 to 3-inches of rain to the island of Bermuda later today and tonight. Shary’s winds may increase to around 50 mph, but will stay below hurricane strength. She’s expected to race very quickly off to the northeast and dissipate over the weekend. Down off the coast of South America, a disturbed area of weather may take on tropical characteristics in the next day or two. The next name in the National Hurricane Center’s list is Tomas. Models take this system up into the Caribbean over the next several days. A third area of low pressure in the central Atlantic has lost most of its definition and is forecast to move into an unfavorable area for further development.
Check this out! A mobile network operator in Nepal has installed a 3G wireless base station at the summit of Mt. Everest! Not only can visitors make calls from the area, but they can also connect to the Internet and share their experiences with everyone. Up to this point, visitors relied on satellite phones. For those of you interested in a panoramic view of Mt. Everest and several other locations around the world, here is a great link: http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full22.html
Until next time-
Meteorologist Bryan Karrick, WeatherNation LLC