John Nielson-Gammon

Weekend weather mayhem?

Texas State Climatologist; Professor of Atmospheric Sciences , Texas A&M University, Sep 01, 11.

Tagged with sprawl, climate change, water, drought, climate, disasters

There’s an unusually massive amount of what we meteorologists call “stuff” going on in the weather forecast over the next few days. You’ll probably hear a lot about something soon to be known as “Lee” and the prospects for rain in drought-stricken areas of Texas, Louisiana, or Georgia. You’ll also hear mention of Katia somewhere out in the tropical Atlantic, and whether it’s a threat to the East Coast. You’ll also hear a bit about the ongoing wildfire problems in Texas and Oklahoma.

The part you probably won’t hear about is how all three of these things are intimately connected within the atmosphere, like a row of dominoes. So in this post I’m going to give you a view behind the scenes at what’s going on in the atmosphere, and what it might mean for United States weather, both good and bad.

In celestial mechanics and other branches of physics, there’s something that’s known as the three-body problem. If you’ve got two astronomical objects interacting, such as the Sun and the Earth, it’s easy to write down the formulas that say where the Sun and the Earth ought to be at any given time in the past or future. Quite simply, they rotate around each other, or more precisely, around the center of mass of the two objects. Since the center of mass of the Earth-Sun system is within the radius of the Sun, you could fudge it and say that the Earth rotates around the Sun, but technically that’s not correct.

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This is potential catastrophe #2. The end-of-summer winds have already started to pick up, bringing with them larger fires. When the so-called cold front blasts through, winds will become strong from the north, and dew points will drop into the 40s. Fire danger across Texas will be higher than at any time since the devastating fires of spring.

There are two differences between spring and now. First, in many parts of West Texas, the ground is so bare that there’s hardly anything to burn. Second, in most of central and eastern Texas, not only is there dry grass, but there are dead vines, dead shrubs, and dead or dying trees.

People in Texas are familiar, from news stories out West, about what happens when fires sweep through tinder-dry forests. But they’re not used to their own forests being tinder-dry. From the Hill Country to the Piney Woods, suburban sprawl and drought have produced a very dangerous mixture of people and dry trees. The unthinkable, a devastating suburban forest fire in Austin or Houston, is now more possible than it ever has been. It’s still unlikely on any given day, but the precise day in which it’s more likely to occur than any previous day in history is Labor Day.

If you’re cooking outdoors on Labor Day, please be very, very, very careful. Have a plan, and a backup plan, if you suddenly smell smoke. And hope and pray that the trough doesn’t intensify.

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Source: Houston Chronicle Climate Abyss Blog, September 1, 2011

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