Tracy Arm

Tracy Arm might be the coolest place I have ever been! It's a Fjord in Alaska named after the Civil War General,  Benjamin Franklin Tracy. As we started getting close to the fjord, we started seeing icebergs in the water. They were BLUE, very BLUE. We were told that they are so blue because of the density of the ice. Everyone was out looking at the site. We were on the back deck with many of the people from our group. It made for great pictures! Here are a few that we took:

We also saw a lot of cool things in nature, including waterfalls... and Bald Eagles. Can you spot the Eagle in this first shot:

I have so many pics of this place, but will stop here. If you ever get the chance to go to Tracy Arm in Alaska, DO IT!!!


More to come,
Ryan

On The Boat...

So many things happened on the boat! I'll go ahead and tell you that our luggage did not make it and neither did the luggage of three others in our group. Thanks American Airlines! Our tour guide, Greg, rocked though. He made sure that our clothes were cleaned, that we had clothes from the stores on-board, and that we even had a some formal-wear for dinner! The above picture is what I did 80% of the time on the boat (covered my shorts with a jacket) and the pictures below are during formal dining time at night.

As you can see, we were still having a great time without luggage! Here are some more pictures of people in our group. First, Vic and Jeanie. Vic is a friend of ours from Church. Him and Jeanie are great!

Another group we bonded with were the "three sisters". They were so much fun! Some of the comments from  them made me blush! They were with us in Chicago when the storm canceled our flight and almost blew us away!

We had a great time at dinner. I'll admit that I had to step out for some fresh air every now and then, but overall... the motion sick medicine was working!

The boat was moving north and the scenery to come is the greatest I have ever seen! Pics coming in next post!

Ryan

Bon Voyage!

Being a person that can get motion sick from riding in the back seat of a car for a couple of miles, I was a little concerned about this trip. All 50 of us from Region 8 boarded the ship, ate lunch, and went back out to enjoy the skyline of Vancouver. We sailed away at 5:00 and had a GREAT view of the city. At this point, we were still not sure if we had our luggage or not, but we did not care that much... we were having fun!

One of my favorite things at the start of the cruise was watching the float planes take off and land. This is not something we see too often in Arkansas! At this point, we were just getting to know everyone on the trip. It's amazing how we went from being strangers to good friends in a week! On the first evening, my wife and I hung out on the deck enjoying the scenery.

The bridge seen above is similar to the Golden Gate bridge. It was pretty cool to see as we left. There were some kids looking over the edge waving at us and the Captain blew the horn a couple of times, which scared me to death.

Still no luggage, but happy :)
Ryan

Leaving Seattle For Vancouver

So we left Seattle for Vancouver last Wednesday to board the ship. We were told that our luggage would be in Vancouver for us before we got on the ship (remember that for later ;)) Jenn and I had been to Seattle before, but still enjoy seeing the Boeing Jets! Boeing builds many of their jets in the Seattle area! Here are a couple of shots of the cool jets!

We quickly get to Vancouver and I quickly notice that the city is AWESOME! I'm not sure why, but I really like it... Here are some shots of the scenery as you come into Vancouver:

We had considered a quick run to the mall to buy some clothes in case ours did not arrive, but chose to wait and see if they were waiting on the ship.... to be continued.

Ryan

On the Way To Alaska, Catch up Post

Sorry that I could not blog on my Alaska/Canada Trip! I should have known that data was limited! Anywho, let me take you through the trip over the next few posts.

The above image is from the Chicago airport last Tuesday. We were under a TORNADO WARNING while on the jet on the taxiway. This warning came after we sat on the jet for 2 1/2 hours for weather delays! When the tornado warning was issued, they did not want to let us off of the jet to go inside! They pilot said we would be safer on the jet and said... "It's only a warning". I assume he does not know the difference between a watch and warning. Anywho, they finally let us off.

While waiting for the jet to take off, I snapped this shot of all of the jets grounded:

To make a LONG story short... we finally took another flight and arrived in Seattle at 2:30 AM, which was 4:30 AM our time! When we arrived, we did not have our luggage!!! 6 others from our group traveled on the same route we did and three were without luggage as well!

To be continued,
Ryan

Bumpy Start

Not many flights were canceled this morning, but one of the ones that were canceled included our flight to Dallas, which would lead us to our connection to Seattle. Transferring flights for a group as large as ours is a challenge, but our tour guide, Greg, is doing great.

18 people in our group got direct flights to Seattle and ended up in a much better position, but a handful will not arrive until midnight. We're with the group that arrives around 8pm. It's nobody's fault, just a side effect of travel.

As I sit here and blog from the Memphis Airport, I realize that we may be a little later than expected, but should still end up in Seattle tonight and be on a boat in Alaska tomorrow!

Ryan

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Active Weather This Week and A Little Cooler

It's still warm and muggy across Region 8 today, but some changes are coming this week and it looks rather active. First off, let's look at the projected 5 day precipitation forecast from the HPC (Hydrological Prediction Center). Notice they project 1.50-2.00" of rain in Region 8 over the next 5 days:

In addition to this rainfall, we will see a change in temperature due to an increase in clouds and rain, but also from cooler/drier air working in from the north. Here are the projected 1 PM temperatures via the GFS model for today:

Not only will it be warm today, but the mugginess is with us as well. The map below is the projected Dewpoints for tomorrow, which really shows the muggy air pooling ahead of the storm system. Dewpoints in the 70s translates into some VERY muggy air... which is typical for us in the Summer months:

Now... let's watch the change unfold... Look at the dewpoints by the end of the Wednesday. Do you see the 50s and 60s on the dewpoint moving in on Wednesday? That's the change:

By the end of the week, the temperatures will start getting cooler. Here are the temperatures on Thursday. Can you see that colder air in Northern MO? Will it make it here? Some of it will...

By Friday, the cooler air really starts working in... With rain chances, clouds, and cooler air "advecting" into Region 8, here are the projected 1PM temperatures via the GFS model at 1PM on Friday:

NOW.. This is NOT a BLAST of cold air. It's NOT that huge of a change, but it will be better than the 100 degree weather we had! While we transition weather patterns this week, we will see some decent rain chances.

I'm leaving for Alaska/Canada tomorrow morning and will be blogging from the trip. We're expecting clouds, highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s on our trip!

Have a great week!
Ryan

Ice Cream Cake!

I'm testing the Blog App from my phone by posting a pic of my wife's homemade ice cream cake that she made for Father's Day! It's awesome!

Using this App, I hope to blog from our Alaska trip via my phone.

Take care!
Ryan

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June Tornadoes Are Rare

The above image is an estimated map of the tornado path from yesterday. The NWS has given the damage a rating of EF1 with winds near 90 mph and ruled that the damage south of Greene County was caused by straight-line winds. If you click the image to enlarge, you can clearly see that the tornado was east of the the city limits of Paragould. I have heard that the sirens did not go off in Paragould and if you notice on the map... that was a good call. They are tornado sirens, not straight-line wind sirens. The tornado warning was issued for threats outside of Paragould's City limits.

As I mentioned on the news, Facebook, and Twitter... Tornadoes in June are RARE in Region 8. In fact, Monday's tornado in Greene County was only the SECOND tornado in June since 1873. In 1954, a tornado touched down on South 12th street between Linwood Cemetery and what we now know as AMMC. If we had a skycam in 1954, this tornado would have video! Here's a map of the F2 tornado that hit in 1954 (click to enlarge):

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Here are the number of June tornadoes since 1873 for the following counties.

• Clay County: 3
• Craighead: 1
• Lawrence: 2
• Poinsett: 2
• Randolph: 1
• Mississippi: 5
• Dunklin, MO: 3
• Pemiscot, MO: 6

As you can see, these numbers are rather low. Having a total of 1-6 tornadoes in your county over 138 years is quite impressive. Let's not let our guard down in June, but let's also realize how rare it was to see a tornado in Greene County yesterday!

Have a great week,

Ryan

Recap of Yesterday's Storm, 6/13/11

A lot of folks say they were caught off guard by the storms yesterday and I'm not sure why. Here is why nobody should have been caught off guard:

• If you look at THIS blog post from last Tuesday, I talked about the chance of MCS type activity (glob of storms)
• Justin mentioned that some of the storms could be strong in Sunday night's newscast
• Justin was tracking the storms in MO yesterday morning on GMR8 and mentioned them heading south.
• Storm Prediction Center had a Severe Thunderstorm Watch in effect for a couple of hours prior to the storm.
• The Severe TS warnings gave 15-45 minute lead times.
• We had information on the bottom of the screen on KAIT, including radar. From 12:00 to almost 2:00 we broke into regular programming.
• We sent instant updates via Twitter and Facebook.

With all of that said, we still had people surprised by the storms. I think when we get into the summer months, people let their guard down. Granted, we only had a 30-40% chance of rain, but that does not mean you can't have severe weather. People think that if it is not 80% or higher, they will stay dry. Let me put this in perspective. If your doctor told you that there is a 30% chance that you will die of a heart attack today, you would be scared to death. When we say there is a 30% chance of storms and some could be strong, most people think they will stay dry. Perspective. Let me get back on track! Ha!

Here is a look at radar at 11:10 am yesterday. Also plotted on this map from the NWS are the storm reports from yesterday's storm:

If you notice in the above image, the storms are entering Arkansas. We already had warnings for counties in Southern MO and the NWS had issued warnings in NE Arkansas, providing as much as 45 minutes to take cover. This next image is at 11:35 am and the winds are really starting to get wild with the storms as they move from Clay County into Greene County. Notice the storms reports from the storm as it raced south. Click the image to enlarge. At this time, SVR warnings were in effect, giving people a 30-45 minute warning:

This next image is from 12:05 PM and the wind damage had occurred in Paragould with numerous trees down, some structural damage, and signs damaged. 4 minutes before this image, a tornado warning was issued for parts of this storm (click to enlarge):

The storm continued to race south with 70-80 mph wind gusts! Parts of Craighead and Mississippi County had extensive wind damage. This radar image is from 12:25 PM:

Even though the rain had not arrived in many locations, the winds arrived much earlier causing a major dust storm in many areas. Take a look at this wild footage from Caraway! This was taken from Bryan McCormick of Region 8 News:

The NWS should be in Region 8 today to survey the damage and to determine if we had a tornado. There were some indications of a tornado on radar from SE Greene County to Mississippi County, but the surveys will determine what caused the damage. Regardless, the straight-line winds need to be taken seriously and those winds caused most of the damage from yesterday.

As we head into the summer months, let's make sure we have a way to get the warnings. There are several ways to get instant warnings:

• Weather Radio
• KAIT
• www.kait8.com
• Twitter feed of @Region8News
• Facebook page of Region 8 News

Stay "weather aware". The warnings were there, but if you do not have a way to get them... they are worthless to you.

Take care,

Ryan

Wild Dust Storm

Twitvid - andrewsloan

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What's An MCS or MCC?

A Mesoscale Convective System or Mesoscale Convective Complex is simply a big glob of storms! Kind of. During the summer months, storms fire along some sort of trigger in the heat of the afternoon and then are steered over long distances through the upper-level winds. Typically, it starts as a few strong storms and then spreads out into large blob of rain and thunderstorms. These are typically where we get our "million $$$ rains" for farmers in the summer. Whenever I see a pattern change that draws a NW flow in the summer, I start getting more optimistic about a million dollar rain.

Not much rain today! Here's the upper-level pattern right now. If you notice, the upper level ridge is ruling us and surrounding areas.

Over the next couple of days this ridge will break down and little and we should see a few pop-up storms. It's not a huge chance of rain, but a 10-20% chance of a pop-up storm. You can see the ridge breaking down a little here on Thursday:

Next week is when I think we "may" see a MCC/MCS move through. Notice that the ridge is south of us or at least we are on the NW side of the ridge. The lines tend to show the movement of the upper-level winds and notice the NW flow that is trying to set up. We're right on the edge and I might be wishcasting a little, but we may get some rain in Region 8 with this pattern:

It may happen... There's a chance, but it is not guaranteed. We do have a 30-40% chance of rain Sun-Mon and even that may be pushing it. We'll see.

Stay cool everyone!
Ryan

Hurricane Season and Region 8

The above image shows the paths of the tropical systems that have impacted Jonesboro within 100 miles. If you notice, we have reasons to watch the tropics closely. If you recall, on a Sunday morning in September of 2008, we had the remnants of Hurricane Ike plow through Region 8. It brought down trees and power lines, and knocked out the power to 200,000 customers. It spawned 5 tornadoes and killed someone. In addition, it caused millions of dollars in damage to crops in Arkansas.

So what about 2011? I always enjoy reading the forecasts from Phil Klotzbach from Colorado State University. I had the opportunity to meet him a couple of years ago and heard him speak about hurricanes. He is a very bright guy. Here's 2011 forecast is below and you can read the entire forecast by clicking here.

So as we move further into the Hurricane Center, know that we will be tracking the storms closely as well!

Have a great night!

Ryan

PS- Next blog will be about what an MCS is...