Feb 13-17, 2023 Weather & Climate News

[Mid-Atlantic Weather Station (MAWS) Mailing List]

(Source:  AMS, 2/13/23)

WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS, 13-17 February 2023

Items of Interest:

• Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2023 Campaign for February is underway -- The second in a series of twelve GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for the calendar year 2023 continues through Tuesday, 21 February. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of constellations with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. The constellations selected for this series are Orion and Gemini in the Northern Hemisphere and Orion and Canis Major in the Southern Hemisphere. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The third series in the 2023 GLOBE campaign is scheduled for 13-22 March. [GLOBE at Night]
   
• Becoming AWARE -- During this coming week (13-19 February 2023), Mississippi has scheduled its Severe Weather Awareness Week. If you live in this state, you should take time to become familiar with the various public affairs announcements issued by your local National Weather Service Office. Other states farther to the north will be observing their Severe Weather Awareness weeks in the next ten weeks.
   
• Students invited to participate in NOAA's "Picture Climate Change"" contest -- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is inviting all the nation's students in grades 5 through 12 to photo submission showcasing what climate change means to them. The photos need to show an example of climate change impacts or resilience of climate change in the United States or one of its territories. Photo contest categories include Nature, Water, Weather, Society, and Resilience. Additional information concerning this contest are available on the website that can be reached below. This competition will continue through Wednesday, 15 February 2023.  [NOAA News]

Weather and Climate News Items:

• Eye on the tropics ---Three organized tropical cyclones (atmospheric low pressure systems such as tropical storms or hurricanes that form over tropical oceans) traveled over the waters of the South Indian Ocean and South Pacific basins during the last week:
  • In the South Indian Ocean basin (that includes the South-West Indian Ocean south of the Equator from Africa's east coast to the 90-degrees East meridian and the Australian region from 90 degrees East to Australia --
    • At the start of last week, Tropical Storm Freddy formed from a tropical disturbance over the waters of the Australian region of the South Indian Ocean approximately 480 mi to the north-northwest of Broome in Western Australia. Initially, Freddy headed to the east and then to the southwest. Maximum sustained surface winds were determined to be 40 mph. However, Freddy strengthened to a category 1 tropical cyclone (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) by Tuesday afternoon as it traveled toward to the west-southwest. Freddy became a category 2 tropical cyclone early Wednesday with sustained surface winds reaching 110 mph. Over the next day Freddy weakened as it headed toward the west, becoming a tropical storm for slightly more than six hours on Thursday. By Friday, Freddy began to strengthen. reaching tropical cyclone status on Friday morning after entering a favorable environment. As of Sunday, Tropical Cyclone Freddy had become a major, category 4 tropical cyclone, with maximum sustained near-surface winds reaching 130 mph. At the time, Freddy was 345 miles southeast of Cocos Island, Australia. However, Freddy began weakening slowly by late Sunday. Early Monday Freddy was a category 3 tropical cyclone with 115-mph winds that was moving west approximately 185 mph to the south of Cocos Island. Freddy was forecast to continue traveling west across the open waters of the South Indian Ocean during the remainder of this week. Over this time, Freddy should weaken slowly. By this coming Friday, Freddy should be well to the south-southeast of Diego Garcia.    
    • A weak tropical low pressure system that had been close to the western coast of Australia since late January moved out over the waters of the eastern South Indian Ocean by late last Thursday. At the time, this tropical low had intensified to become Tropical Storm Dingani as maximum sustained near-surface winds were estimated to have been 45 mph. Dingani was tracking toward the west-southwest, slightly more than 1300 miles east-southeast of Diego Garcia. Over the next day, Dingani strengthened slightly as it continued traveling over the open waters of the South Indian Ocean, well away from landmasses. Further strengthening occurred on Saturday and by Sunday, Tropical Storm Dingani had become a category 1 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as sustained near-surface winds were determined to have reached 75 mph. Later on Sunday, this tropical cyclone, which had curved toward the west-southwest, was located slightly more than 1250 miles east of Réunion. By early Monday, Tropical Cyclone Dingani had strengthened slightly as sustained near-surface winds had reached 85 mph as it was heading to the southwest approximately 1125 miles to the east of Port Louis, Mauritius. Dingani was forecast to strengthen slightly on Monday as it would travel toward the southwest. Over the following days, Dingani should weaken to a tropical storm as it continues toward the southwest, passing well to the southeast of the populated islands of Rodrigues and Mauritius before dissipating by Friday.                    
  • In the western South Pacific basin (located off eastern coast of Australia, running from a longitude of 160 degrees East eastward to the 120-degrees West meridian) --
    • A tropical low pressure system formed over the waters of northeast Coral Sea to the south of the Solomon Islands just before the start of last week. This low traveled toward the west and slowly intensified. By Wednesday afternoon, this system organized into Tropical Storm Gabrielle as maximum sustained near-surface winds reached 40 mph. Over the next day, Gabrielle continued to strengthen as it traveled toward the southwest, becoming a category 1 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. By that time, Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle had curved to take a track toward the south-southeast. As of late Friday, Gabrielle had reached peak intensity as sustained near-surface winds had reached 105 mph, which is a category 2 tropical cyclone. Gabrielle passed directly over Norfolk Island, a territory of Australia located between New Zealand and New Caledonia on Saturday, causing no significant damage. Torrential rains together with strong and gusty winds that were accompanying Gabrielle affected New Zealand's South Island, where property damage and power outages were experienced, which was due in part to previous flooding events. As Gabrielle traveled toward the southeast early Saturday, it entered into a hostile environment with strong wind shear. It quickly transitioned to a strong subtropical low by late Saturday.
   
• NOAA expands its global data set -- Late last week, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) announced that it has updating its current global climate dataset to provide more information about the Earth’s climate that includes more Arctic data, along with extending the planet’s observed historical temperature record back by 30 years. Specifically, the NOAA Merged Land Ocean Global Surface Temperature Analysis (NOAAGlobalTemp, formerly known as MLOST) will be released this Tuesday, 14 February 2023, when NCEI posts its January 2023 Global Climate Report. This dataset, which is used to support NCEI's climate monitoring activities, combines long-term sea surface (water) temperature (SST) and land surface (air) temperature datasets that are used to create a complete, accurate depiction of global temperature trends over the entire period of record. The original version of the model was released in 1992 and used monthly mean temperature data for 7280 stations around the world, extending back to 1880. Over the years, more station records were added, so this current fourth version of the Global Historical Climatology Network monthly model (GHCNm v4) was updated in 2019 and contains records from approximately 26,000 stations. An added improvement with the newest dataset is that the data record now begins with January 1850, extending the record back in time an additional 30 years from the January 1880 start date used for years by NCEI; the United Kingdom Met Office and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have been using this earlier date for years. [NOAA News]
   
• Three-month severe storm research campaign has kicked off in Southeast -- During this past week, the PERiLS (Propagation, Evolution, and Rotation in Linear Storms) campaign was launched as researchers deployed sophisticated instruments designed to collect weather data associated with quasi-linear convective weather systems called squall lines in seven Southeastern States. Data collection will continue until 8 May 2023. This year's PERiLS campaign, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NOAA, is in its second year of data collection across in predefined areas stretching from the Missouri Bootheel southward to the Gulf Coast, and from the mid-and lower-Mississippi Valley eastward to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. As many as 30 teams of researchers will be in the field using a variety of equipment including mobile radars, uncrewed aerial systems, trucks with instruments attached and different kinds of portable devices designed to measure lightning and the atmosphere within and around storms. The goal of PERiLS is to gain a better understanding of tornadic storms in the Southeast, focusing on the environments in which they form and the damage they leave in their wake. [NOAA News]
• NOAA's Mauna Loa research facility to get upgrades as it dodges lava flows -- Early this past week, NOAA announced that its Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory (MLO) on Hawaii's Big Island will undergo a major renovation and facility upgrade once road access to the site is restored following lava flows from the eruption of the Mauna Loa Volcano in early December. MLO, which is located at an elevation of 11,135 feet above mean sea level (MSL) on the north flank of the Mauna Loa Volcano, is operated by NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratories and is considered to be a premier atmospheric research facility that has been continuously monitoring and collecting data related to atmospheric change since the late 1950's, in particular carbon dioxide concentrations. With the interruption of observations at MLO, Starting on 21 December 2022, helicopters were sent to MLO on a weekly basis to collect air samples via a portable, battery-powered flask system; these samples were sent to NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory in Boulder, CO for analysis. In addition, NOAA and the University of Hawaii established a temporary measurement site at the university's Maunakea Observatories (elevation approximately 13,796 ft MSL) located on the nearby Mauna Kea volcano for the continuation of the critical carbon dioxide record and other atmospheric measurements taken at MLO for more than six decades. The forthcoming redevelopment project will modernize the site's aging infrastructure and renovate the historic Keeling building, along with instillation of increased solar generation and a battery power backup system to make the observatory more energy efficient and more resilient to future natural disasters. [NOAA News]
• El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion for February -- Forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) released their monthly El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion late last week. They reported that although the sea surface temperatures across the tropical Pacific had increased during January 2023, the coupled oceanic and atmospheric components of the Earth system across the tropical Pacific Ocean in January remained consistent with weakening La Niña conditions.
  Specifically, sea surface temperatures (SST) across most of the equatorial Pacific remained below the long-term average. As of last week, the SST anomaly (differences between observed and long-term average temperatures) in the regions of the equatorial Pacific identified as the Niño3.4 sector was -0.5, which was at the threshold of -0.5 Celsius degrees considered to represent La Niña conditions. To the west near the International Dateline, the Niño4 sector also had a SST anomaly of -0.5 Celsius degrees, while to the east, the Niño3 sector had a SST anomaly of -0.4 Celsius degrees. Farther to the east near the South American coast, the SST anomaly in the Niño1+2 sector was +0.1 Celsius degrees. (Editor's note: CPC has a map of the four El Niño regions across the equatorial Pacific Ocean basin used to determine if El Niño or La Niña conditions are occurring. EJH) During the month of January, surface waters had warmed across the equatorial Pacific, as indicated by SST anomalies had becoming less negative, while in the far eastern Pacific along the South American coast the slightly positive in the anomaly meant above average SST values. Slightly positive SST anomalies were also positive in the far western equatorial Pacific surrounding Micronesia and New Guinea. Waters in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean also had above-average SST values. Below the surface to depths of 200 meters, the subsurface waters of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific to the east of the Dateline have warmed since November to near-average values by the end of January, but these anomalies remained weakly negative across the eastern Pacific. Positive subsurface temperature anomalies had spread eastward from the western to central Pacific.
  Atmospheric conditions especially involving near-surface and upper-level wind regimes across the east-central and eastern regions of the Pacific basin remained consistent with typical La Niña conditions. Prevailing low-level easterly trade winds (from the east) at altitudes of approximately 1500 meters across the central and western equatorial Pacific Ocean remained above average in strength during January; however, the low-level easterly trade winds across the eastern Pacific had near-average speeds. Upper-level winds at altitudes of 12,000 meters were westerly (from the west) and were stronger than average over the east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean, where an anomalous cyclones (low pressure systems) were observed on either side of the Equator. Below-average tropical convection was suppressed near and just west of the Dateline over the central Pacific, while enhanced convection was found over western Indonesia.
  The majority of the various numerical prediction models that the CPC and IRI forecasters have at their disposal suggest SST anomalies in the NiNiño3.4 sector (the main region used to assess the likelihood of an El Niño) could return to those indicating ENSO-neutral conditions between February and April 2023, as the Niño-3.4 index would become less than -0.5 degrees Celsius), The dynamic models would suggest that El Niño conditions could develop between May and June as the Niño-3.4 index could reach +0.5 Celsius degrees. However, the statistical models appear to indicate continuation of ENSO-neutral through the Northern Hemisphere meteorological summer. Based upon this guidance along with current conditions, the forecasters claim "ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to begin within the next couple of months, and persist through the Northern Hemisphere spring and early summer. They felt that an 85 percent chance that the February–April period would be neutral. Therefore, the CPC's ENSO Alert System Status remains as a "La Niña Advisory." Note: The criteria used for CPC's ENSO Alert System is available.
  An ENSO blog written by a scientist at the University of Miami's Cooperative Institute for Marine & Atmospheric Sciences provides a non-technical description and clear graphics showing the variations in the monthly SST Niño3.4 Index values (i.e., the monthly-average sea surface temperature anomaly in the Niño-3.4 region of the tropical Pacific) over the last three years (from July 2020 through January 2023). She notes that La Niña conditions have persisted since the summer of 2021. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
  A detailed and more technical El Niño/Southern Oscillation Diagnostic Discussion with supporting maps and charts is available from CPC.
  Forecasters with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology recently issued their "Climate Driver Update" that includes an updated ENSO forecast from a Southern Hemisphere perspective. They noted that the current La Niña appears to be weakening during January 2023 in terms of oceanic conditions across the tropical Pacific, as sea surface temperatures have increased and the anomalies have been approaching the La Niña threshold. However, the atmospheric conditions across the tropical Pacific remains similar to what would be found in a La Niña. Typically, La Niña tends to increase the chance of above average summer rainfall in northern and eastern Australia. All of the international climate models used by the Australian forecasters indicate the La Niña conditions should transition to an ENSO-neutral phase in austral summer (February 2023) and into mid-autumn. Therefore, the forecasters currently maintain their Bureau's ENSO Outlook at "La Niña", although La Niña is weakening. [Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology]
   
• Collaboration is designed to prepare nation for "climate-ready" infrastructure -- Leaders from NOAA, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the University of Maryland (UMD) Center for Technology and Systems Management held during the week before last where they discussed how the nation’s engineering profession can account for climate change in the design and construction of future building and infrastructure projects. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was unveiled that detailed ways that NOAA’s science and products will be used to inform the building and civil engineering codes, standards and best practice manuals developed by ASCE. This effort is part of NOAA's commitment to efforts to "building a Climate-Ready Nation", were climate science is brought to the public's attention and to putting this science to work for the public good. This partnership and MOU will also focus on inequities in climate resilience, where low-income communities and vulnerable populations suffer more damage and are at greater risk from extreme events than more affluent communities and populations that are at less risk. [NOAA News]
   
• First 2022 spring hydrologic outlook released for the river basins across the North Central States -- Every spring several of the River Forecast Offices in the National Weather Service (NWS) prepare a series of flood outlooks for the potential of river flooding in the major river basins for which they are responsible. That time of year, snow pack melt due to higher temperatures often causes serious and costly flooding across the northern tier of states. The North Central River Forecast Center (NCRFC), one of thirteen River Forecast offices operated by NWS, is located Chanhassen, MN (a western suburb of Minneapolis/St. Paul) and is responsible for preparing and issuing river and flood forecasts and warnings for the eight states in the Upper Midwest and western Great Lakes. Some of the major river sheds in this region drain into the Upper Mississippi River, the western Great Lakes and the Red River of the North that ultimately is a part of the Hudson Bay drainage. The outlook considers antecedent conditions and current snowpack levels to anticipate the overall flood risk. The rate and timing of melt, in addition to future precipitation, can alter conditions as well. Currently, this first NCRFC Outlook foresees the risk for spring snowmelt flooding as generally being near-normal to below-normal for the basins draining into the Great Lakes because of a mild and somewhat dry summer and fall, followed by slightly below normal snow pack and shallower than average frost depth. Near normal risks for flooding are anticipated for the Upper Mississippi River drainage basin because of drought conditions last fall in the headwaters of the Mississippi River and near normal frost depths during this winter. However, the risk for spring snowmelt flooding is above average for much of the Red River Valley drainage in the eastern Dakotas and western Minnesota due to higher than normal soil moisture from last fall, coupled with higher than normal snowfall this winter. Additional NCRFC outlooks will be posted on 24 February and 10 March, [NOAA NCRFC Spring Hydrologic Outlook]
• An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA's National Weather Service, FAA and FEMA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAA/NWS Daily Briefing]

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