2009.03.23
Storms, blizzards, floods and volcanic ash
Several interesting weather things have been going on across the nation.
* Tonight's severe weather outbreak in the Plains has been hamstrung by a lack of moisture and limited instability, thankfully for residents out there who have a long season yet ahead, but still enough atmospheric dynamics for a handful of tornado reports and scattered large hail and high winds. Click here for a look at the Storm Prediction Center's severe weather reports.
* Mount Redoubt in Alaska has been in a series of ash-belching eruptions, the latest late Sunday. Volcanic ash injected into the atmosphere often tends to have a medium-range (several months to a year or two) cooling effect. We'll see in time if these eruptions have emitted enough ash to have a noticeable effect on North American or Northern Hemisphere climate.
* The same storm system responsible for severe weather in the central and southern Plains is blasting the western Dakotas and nearby parts of Montana and Wyoming with a massive blizzard.
* Meanwhile, eastern North Dakota is bracing for massive flooding as a winter of deep snowpack rapidly melts, with some rain on top of it.
Southwest Virginia looks cool and rainy most of the week after Tuesday. Temperatures will hover in the 40s and 50s most days. That should dampen the severe weather risk, while any rain that falls will help with continuing dryness that has improved some with March rains.
RSS feed 
Kevin, I saw that the storm in the central US spawned a tornado and a blizzard warning in the same couny in Nebraska yesterday. It's a larger county, but that is still wild.
Comment by Other John — March 24, 2009 @ 7:14 am
You would be talking about Cherry County, Nebraska ... I've driven across that county on a storm chase ... imagine the sand dunes at the Outer Banks continuing for mile after mile ... that's Cherry County, the Sand Hills of Nebraska, with only a couple of major roads crisscrossing that whole giant sand trap ... I love it, though, even though it would be a good place to lose a supercell you're tagging for lack of roads
Comment by Kevin Myatt — March 24, 2009 @ 1:34 pm
I've yet to get further west than central Missouri, so that would be interesting to see sand dunes like Jockey Ridge somewhere away from water. I still remember getting woken up around 7 in the morning to the tornado sirens when I spent a few weeks in early summer in Missorui. I went outside to see the clouds rotating and spriraling around, though at least the cell that passed near us never managed to get a rope on the ground, thankfully.
Comment by Other John — March 24, 2009 @ 1:54 pm