This massive iceberg drifts off the coast of Macquarie Island south of Australia, promising tourists and beach-goers an amazing sight should it drift closer. Scientists expect the iceberg to slowly shrink and break apart in warmer ocean waters.

Large ice caps at the poles often shed large iceburgs every year, but rarely does such a large iceburg drift so near land, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.  This particular iceberg is believed to be a remnant of a larger sheet that was shed by the Ross Sea Ice shelf nearly 10 years ago.

This satellite photograph shows large icebergs calving from the larger antarctic ice sheet at the edge of the south pole.

The group of icebergs were thought to be heading to New Zealand but have now been blown off course.  That has not stopped a group of Australians who are determined to cash-in by trying to set up a floating bar on one of the icebergs.

The iceberg that has drifted toward Macquarie Island has taken a long path to get there. While it is proving quite a sight for islanders, scientists expect it to slowly shrink and break up in warmer ocean waters as the southern hemisphere summer looms.

The Australian Meteorology Bureau went as far as issuing a shipping alert late last week as a massive iceberg was drifting within 1000 miles of the southwestern coast of the country. This followed New Zealand’s similar alerts late last month when a slew of icebergs headed toward South Island, New Zealand.  Those have since drifted away from land.

A massive iceberg drifts off the southern coast of Australia, promising tourists and beach-goers an amazing sight should it drift closer. Scientists expect the iceberg to slowly shrink and break apart in warmer ocean waters.

The largest iceberg is 12 miles long and 5 miles wide.  It is slowly drifting northeast toward Western Australia state.

Like others that have come before it, it is expected that this iceberg will break up as it enters warmer ocean waters.  Such events are not entirely uncommon and scientists state that such a singular event cannot be definitively tied to climate change.

Snow blankets a stretch of the Great Wall of China in this file photo. Chinese Government officials have claimed recent successes in seeding clouds to produce snowfall in and around Beijing as a means of alleviating drought.

While the seeding efforts were localized to the Beijing region, snowfall was reported in several provinces, including Liaoning,Jilin and Hebei.  Chinese media reports government officials as hailing the efforts as a success.  “We wont miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought,” the report quoted Zhang Qiang, head of the Beijing Weather Modification Office, as saying.

This effort comes on the heals of other claims of weather modification successes.  Moscow recently declared it would enjoy a winter without snow, as cloud seeding efforts were underway aimed at forming precipitation outside of city limits.  It is hoped that such efforts would sap the clouds of significant moisture before the clouds moved over Moscow, thus reducing the headaches caused by Moscow’s traditionally heavy urban snowfall.

Cloud seeding efforts aimed at producing precipitation has had a long, checkered history around the world.  While China is employing these efforts to alleviate a substantial drought, other similar precipitation-inducing efforts have been attempted as a means of weakening hurricanes, causing precipitation to fall earlier or outside of a given region, and enhancing snowfall on ski slopes.

This is not the first time the state-run media has made such a claim.  In 2008, the Chinese government openly acknowledged weather modification efforts aimed at reducing smog pollution before and during the Olympic Games.  While the smog was significantly reduced during the games, such results could not be specifically tied to the weather modification efforts, as other smog-reduction efforts were simultaneously employed, such as substantially reducing vehicular traffic in the city.

More recently, China induced snowfall in a similar manner last winter, resulting in highway closures and stranding of thousands of travelers.

Turbulent motions between differing air masses create undulating clouds as seen over rural Kansas in the early morning hours of April 28, 2006. Meteorologists are proposing these clouds be designated as the first new cloud type to be named in over 50 years: Undulus Asperatus.

The Cloud Appreciation Society has designated the clouds as “Undulus Asperatus” or alternatively, “Undulatus Asperatus.”  The Latin term translates loosely as “turbulent undulation.”  Such clouds are relatively rare, but have been photographed in several areas around the world.

Turbulent motions between differing air masses create undulating clouds as seen over rural Kansas in the early morning hours of April 28, 2006. Meteorologists are proposing these clouds be designated as the first new cloud type to be named in over 50 years: Undulus Asperatus.

The ominous-looking clouds have been particularly common in the Plains states of the United States, often during the morning or midday hours following convective thunderstorm activity.  These clouds are not considered a precursor to severe weather, rather appear to form following rain or thunderstorm activity.

Jane Wiggins of Cedar Rapids, Iowa recently captured several spectacular images of the new cloud type as viewed from a downtown office building.  Several of her images have recently been published by National Geographic Magazine – an honor which Wiggins does not take lightly.

This turbulently undulating cloud photographed over Cedar Rapids Iowa may soon be designated as the first new cloud type named in over 50 years: Undulus Asperatus. Source: Jane Wiggins

This turbulently undulating cloud photographed over Cedar Rapids Iowa may soon be designated as the first new cloud type named in over 50 years: Undulus Asperatus. Source: Jane Wiggins

“It is a bit like looking at the surface of a choppy sea from below,” said Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, who first identified the asperatus cloud from photographs that were being sent in by members of the society.

“We try to identify and classify all of the images of clouds we get in, but there were some that just didn’t seem to fit in any of the other categories, so I began to think it might be a unique type of cloud.

This turbulently undulating cloud photographed over Cedar Rapids Iowa may soon be designated as the first new cloud type named in over 50 years: Undulus Asperatus. Source: Jane Wiggins

“The underside of the clouds are quite rough and choppy. It looks very stormy, but some of the reports we have been getting suggest that they tend to break up without actually turning into a storm.”

The Royal Meteorological Society is now gathering detailed weather data for the days and locations where the asperatus clouds have been seen in an attempt to understand exactly what is causing them.

A heat burst is a very rare event that occurs only occasionally as a thunderstorm decays.  When thunderstorms are growing, they draw warm, moist air up and into the cloud where moisture condenses and falls out on the other side.  But when a thunderstorm surpasses maturity and a lot of moist air is held high in the cloud, it begins to drop as the thunderstorm loses its updraft.  As this heavy, rain-cooled air begins to fall, it compresses due to higher pressure at the surface.  As the air compresses, it heats up (think of pumping air into a tire and the tire heats up).  This heating can be substantial and is reflected in surface temperature readings when a heat burst impacts the ground.

The evolution of a heat burst begins with a mature thunderstorm (left). As the thunderstorm matures, the upward movement of warm, moist air begins to cease and the downdraft begins to accellerate. As the thunderstorm loses upward momentum, the downward movement of moist air causes compression and heating, resulting in damaging winds at the surface.

The other headline result of a heat burst is the strong wind.  As the air plummets from beneath the thunderstorm and hits the ground, it has no where to go except outward.  In much of the same dynamic principle as a thunderstorm microburst, the air crashes into the ground and spreads out in all directions, frequently reaching winds that exceed hurricane strength.

Since heat bursts are closely associated with decaying thunderstorms.  Thunderstorms are fed by warm, moist air that rises in response to solar heating.  When the sun sets and the surface heating ceases, many thunderstorms lose their primary energy source.  Once this source is absent, many thunderstorms begin to decay.  Since heat bursts are closely related to this decay process, it follows that most heat bursts occur at nighttime.

The recent heat burst in Oklahoma City occurred at 1am on May 13th.  The temperature soared to over 90 degrees as wind speeds topped 55 mph.  Damage was widespread with small trees and limbs reported down throughout the city.

Dramatic heat bursts have occurred throughout the plains states.  Kearney, Nebraska was impacted by a heat burst in on June 20, 2006 when the temperature went from 70 to 93 in minutes overnight and wind speeds topped 60 miles per hour.

More recently, on August 3rd, 2008, a heat burst in Sioux Falls, SD forced air downward in such a dramatic fasion that the wind speeds over 50 miles per hour and the temperature jumped from 70 to 101 in less than 20 minutes.

A smaller spate of wildfires in early February did less damage, but was also well-monitored by the local agencies, including the Norman National Weather Service office which posted information concerning the wildfires near the Kansas border that were visible on local radar.

This week’s larger wildfires have been visible from even farther away:  from space.

Wildfires burning throughout Oklahoma were visible from space on Thursday evening. This image was captured by a heat-detecting infrared satellite. (Credit: NOAA)

On the image above, lighter shades indicate cooler temperatures, such as the high-altitude, cooler clouds visible in the northern portion of the state and also near the Red River south of Ardmore and Durant.  The darker shades indicate higher temperatures and, in this case, fires burning at ground level, as indicated in the yellow circles.

Good news is on the way:  Widespread moderate to heavy rain is forecast for the central Oklahoma corridor over the weekend.  This rainfall should significantly decrease the threat of more fires in an already scorched region. Below is the rainfall forecast from the Norman, Oklahoma National Weather Service Office.

Widespread rainfall is forecast for the weekend. Such rainfall should significantly decrease the wildfire theat in much of central Oklahoma. (Credit: NOAA)

Damage to the CNN building in downtown Atlanta, GA following a tornado on the evening of 03/14/08.

A recent study by experts on land-atmosphere interactions suggests a connection may exist between large urban population centers and the intensity of tornadoes that impact these areas.

The urban heat island effect is the term given to the hot, dry conditions generated by large expanses of buildings, asphalt, and other human-made conditions that alter the landscape otherwise covered by fields, forests, and bodies of water.  Decades of research have indicated that large urban areas reach higher temperatures during the day, stay warmer at night, and tend to have drier air surrounding them, as there is little open water or moist soil to provide atmospheric moisture.

Atlanta Tornado of 2008

The study indicates a connection between the intensity of the 2008 urban Atlanta tornado and the heat island effect suggests that the hot, dry urban conditions may have led to a larger discrepancy with the surrounding atmospheric conditions, enhancing stability and thus intensifying the storm as it approached the city.

This map published by the Atlanta National Weather Service office describes the track and intensity of the tornado that struck Atlanta, GA on 03/14/2008. Click for a high resolution image (Credit: NOAA / NWS)

The recent research has taken our understanding of the urban heat island one step further by connecting its impact to severe weather.  “Urban regions create their own weather,” said Dev Niyogi, a climatology professor at Purdue University in Indiana and the lead author of the study, which was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “As we are becoming bigger and bigger in terms of our urban footprint, there’s a distinct probability we are going to see cities have their own weather patterns.”

However, not all meteorologists and climatologists agree.  Harold Brooks, a research meteorologist at the federal government’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, in Norman, Okla., said it is already widely accepted that wet ground breeds tornadoes, and noted that strikes on urban areas aren’t rare. There is no evidence suggesting downtown areas are hit “any less or more than any other area of the same size,” Mr. Brooks said. In the past decade, tornadoes have hit Nashville, Tenn.; Fort Worth, Texas; and Miami, as well as Atlanta, he said.

Urban Tornadoes

A tornado strikes downtown Salt Lake City, UT in 1999.

The myth that tornadoes are less likely to strike urban areas continues to remain pervasive, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

It is a common – and definitely false myth that tornadoes do not strike downtown areas. The odds are much lower due to the small areas covered, but paths can go anywhere – including over downtown areas.  St. Louis, MO, for instance, has been struck 4 times in the last century.

It may seem tornadoes impact urban areas less frequently than rural areas simply because urban population centers cover a much smaller fraction of land area than rural areas.  As such, any given tornado is more likely to impact a rural wheat field in Kansas rather than the urban core of a city such as Wichita or Kansas City.

However, tornadoes impacting large urban areas are far from rare.  Beyond the 2008 Atlanta tornado, violent tornadoes have also impacted other large urban centers:

• Omaha, NE (F5, 03/23/1913)
• Topeka, KS (F5, 06/08/1966)
• Lubbock, TX (F5, 05/11/1970)
• Nashville, TN (F3, 04/16/1998)
• Little Rock, AR (F3, 01/21/1999)
• Salt Lake City (F2, 08/11/1999)
• Fort Worth, TX (F3, 03/28/2000)

For a more exhaustive list and details, see the table compiled by Roger Edwards and Joe Schaefer of the Storm Prediction Center on downtown tornadoes.

A crippling duststorm shrouded the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday, halting transportation for hours. (Credit: Jad Saab/AP)

Airport traffic was halted completely for over three hours while the dust settled and the air cleared, allowing planes to again arrive and depart without disruption.

The storm was actually sufficiently forecast as to allow public schools to be closed in sufficient time to permit students to get home safely ahead of the storm.

Sandstorms are caused by strong winds blowing over dry, loose sand and soil, picking up enough of the sand and soil such that the air is filled and visibility is substantially reduced.

The Saudi Arabian capital city of Riyadh was blasted by an intense sand storm this week, dropping visibility to zero and bringing transportation to a standstill after causing dozens of automobile accidents and other disruptions.

Hot and dry conditions that are frequent in the Arabian Peninsula routinely create the type of atmospheric instability that lends itself well to sandstorms.  When the soil and sand are dry, they heat up much more quickly under intense sunlight.  Such rapid heating causes air close to the ground to rise rapidly into the upper levels of the atmosphere, sweeping the sand and soil to higher altitudes.

A Saudi covers his face with his traditional headdress as the sandstorm colors the sky. Source: AP

While such sandstorms were more frequent in the drought-stricken areas of the 1930’s dust bowl era, they are much more rare today as widespread agricultural irrigation has reduced the overall areal coverage of soil that can sufficiently dry to create the conditions necessary for a dust storm.  The smaller scale events that may still occur in the desert southwest are often referred to as dust storms in the United States.

A crippling duststorm shrouded the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday, halting transportation for hours. (Credit: AP).

Drought conditions like these have striken much of California with only 5% of the state reporting at or above average precipitation. (Credit: NOAA)

The worsening drought in California may necessitate water rationing measures in the near future if significant precipitation does not develop in the coming months.

The drought in California has worsened throughout the winter following wildfires in the fall and a relatively dry winter.  The cause of the drier season has been the alignment of the jet stream.  As the jet stream buckled to the north, bringing significant storms to the Pacific Northwest rather than over the northern mountains of California  Fewer storms have resulted in a lower than average snowpack.

The region depends largely on a growing winter snowpack to produce abundant moisture for industrial and agricultural uses throughout the state.

California drought conditions as of February 24, 2009. Red indicates Extreme Drought, while orange indicates severe. (Credit: UNL Drought Monitor

The drought that first developed three years ago has worsened significantly this winter as the majority of significant storms have tracked farther north than normal.

Last week, CA governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency over the severe drought conditions. The declaration may help the state gain access to federal emergency funds.

Schwarzenegger has given support to the legislature to pass a bill that would build controversial dams and institute significant water recycling programs. In a statement, he called on cities to reduce water use or face the first ever mandatory state restrictions as soon as the end of March.

“California faces its third consecutive year of drought and we must prepare for the worst — a fourth, fifth or even sixth year of drought,” Schwarzenegger said. In a statement released Friday, the governor indicated that recent storms haven’t been enough to relieve the region of the significant deficit of precipitation.

As a result of the drought, nearly 100,000 agricultural jobs may be lost or not offered as they are in the normal course of the growing season.

The University of Nebraska – Lincoln Drought Monitor has designated a large portion of northern California as under “Extreme” drought – just one level beneath the most severe “Exceptional” drought.

As of the latest update on February 24th, nearly half of the state is in severe drought conditions with 15% of the state under “extreme” drought conditions.  Overall, only 5% of the state is not under some level of drought, as compared to 45% of the state under “normal” conditions just one year ago.

This photo provided by the U.S. Geological Survey department shows the air temperature sensor at the Big Black River shelter near the Canadian Border. A new record low temperature was recorded here at minus 50 degrees below zero. (AP Photo/Nicholas Stasulis, U.S. Geological Survey)

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a new all-time record low temperature has been recorded in the state of Maine.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s local NWS office confirms that on January 16h, while much of New England was gripped by a chilling arctic blast, a small outpost along the Big Black River near the border with Quebec charted the new record.

The old record was -48 degrees recorded in Van Buren, Maine in 1925.  Not only is this a new all-time record for the state of Maine, but for all of New England.  Not even atop Mount Washington in New Hampshire – a favorite station of meteorology enthusiasts for its extreme weather – has the mercury plummeted this low (current record: -47).

“It is exciting to be a part of this historic event.” said George Jacobson, Maine State Climatologist and Member of the State Climate Extremes Committee (SCEC), the group that vetted this measurement for consideration as a new all time minimum temperature record for the State of Maine. “But the real benefit to the State is in good weather and climate data being recorded daily by the NWS, USGS and other partners in the scientific community.”

Read the official report of the new record low at the Caribou, Maine National Weather Service website.

The lowest temperature in North America — 81 below — was recorded on Feb. 3, 1947, at Snag, Yukon Territory. In the United States, the coldest reading was -80 at Prospect Creek, Alaska, on Jan. 23, 1971. And in the lower 48, the all-time cold spot is Rogers Pass, Mont., where it was minus 70 on Jan. 20, 1954, according to NOAA records.

The lowest natural temperature ever recorded on Earth was 129 below at the Russian Vostok Station in Antarctica on July 21, 1983.

Source: NOAA

For the second year in a row, Kansas tops the list for the state with the most tornadoes in 2008.  Kansas recorded a total of 187 tornadoes throughout 2008, far above second-place Texas which recorded 116 over the 12-month period.

The period of late May into June was particularly significant in the annual tally, with Kansas tallying hundreds of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings throughout the state.

While Kansas may have topped the list in tornadoes for the year, a remarkably small number of fatalities were recorded.  The 187 tornadoes resulted in just 4 fatalities throughout the state in 2008.  Two were killed in a tornado that crossed a highway near Pratt, KS on Memorial day weekend.  A June 11th tornado that struck Chapman, KS killed one, and a fourth victim was killed when his mobile home was destroyed in another tornado that same day.

June 11th Outbreak

While no tornadoes of 2008 ranked as high on the scale as the devastating Greensburg tornado of 2007, significant tornadic damage was still suffered throughout the state in 200.  The single most significant day of the year in terms of damaging tornadoes in Kansas was June 11th.  One of the most damaging tornadoes of 2008 struck Manhattan, Kansas late that evening, tearing apart car dealerships and dormitories on the Kansas State University campus.

The Manhattan tornado was rated an EF-4 with top wind speeds around 170 mph according to the National Weather Service office out of Topeka. The tornado was around a quarter-mile wide and was on the ground for more than 8 miles.  Remarkably, this strongest tornado of the year for Kansas resulted in no fatalities or significant injuries.

Another tornado that evening struck Chapman, Kansas, destroying huge swaths of the town that are still struggling to rebuild.  While this tornado was rated lower on the scale (EF-3)  than the Manhattan tornado (EF-4) due to its slightly lower wind speed of 150 mph, this tornado was nearly twice as wide (1/2-mile) and resulted in one death and nearly a dozen serious injuries.