Tropical Storm Agatha one of the top ten deadliest Eastern Pacific storms on record
The Eastern Pacific hurricane season of 2010 is off to a bad start. The mounting death toll from Central America's Tropical Storm Agatha has made that storm one of the top ten deadliest Eastern Pacific tropical cyclones on record. Agatha was a tropical storm for just 12 hours, making landfall Saturday on the Pacific coast of Guatemala as a 45 mph tropical storm. However, the storm brought huge amounts of moisture inland that continue to be wrung out as heavy rains by the high mountains of Guatemala and the surrounding nations of Central America. So far, flooding and landslides have killed at least 83 people in Guatemala, 13 in neighboring El Salvador, and one in Honduras. Guatemala is also suffering from the Pacaya volcano in Guatemala, which began erupting four days ago. At least three people have been killed by the volcano, located about 25 miles south of the capital, Guatemala City. The volcano has destroyed 800 homes with lava and brought moderate ash falls to the capital.
Figure 1. Flood damage in Zunil, Quetzaltenango, in Guatemala on May 29, 2010, after heavy rains from Tropical Storm Agatha. Image credit: Sergio Huertas, climaya.com
Agatha is the deadliest flooding disaster in Guatemala since Hurricane Stan of 2005, which killed 1,513. In a bizarre coincidence, that storm also featured a major volcanic eruption at the same time, when El Salvador's Santa Ana volcano blew its top during the height of Stan's rains in in that country on October 1. The eruption killed two and injured dozens, and worsened the mud flow damage from Stan's rains. The deadliest Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone on record for Guatemala was Hurricane Paul of 1982, which made landfall in Guatemala as a tropical depression. Flooding from Paul's rains killed 620 people in Guatemala.
Figure 2. Two-day rainfall totals for Central America as estimated by satellite, for the period 7pm EDT Friday May 28 - 7pm EDT Sunday May 30, 2010. Rainfall amounts of 350 mm (14 inches, orange colors) were indicated for portions of Guatemala. The Guatemala government reported that rainfall exceeded 36 inches in some regions. Image credit: Navy Research Lab, Monterey.
Oil spill update
Light onshore winds out of the south to southwest are expected to blow over the northern Gulf of Mexico all week, resulting increased threats of oil to the Alabama and Mississippi barrier islands, according to the latest trajectory forecasts from NOAA. These persistent southwesterly winds will likely bring oil very close to the Florida Panhandle by next weekend.
Oil spill resources
My post, What a hurricane would do the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
My post Wednesday with answers to some of the common questions I get about the spill
My post on the Southwest Florida "Forbidden Zone" where surface oil will rarely go
My post on what oil might do to a hurricane
Gulf Oil Blog from the UGA Department of Marine Sciences
NOAA trajectory forecasts
Deepwater Horizon Unified Command web site
Oil Spill Academic Task Force
University of South Florida Ocean Circulation Group oil spill forecasts
ROFFS Deepwater Horizon page
Surface current forecasts from NOAA's HYCOM model
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery from the University of Miami
Join the "Hurricane Haven" with Dr. Jeff Masters: a new Internet radio show
Tomorrow, I'll be experimenting with a live 1-hour Internet radio show called "Hurricane Haven." The show will be aired at 4pm EDT on Tuesdays, with the first show June 1. Listeners will be able to call in and ask questions. Some topics I'll cover on the first show:
1) What's going on in the tropics right now
2) Preview of the coming hurricane season
3) How a hurricane might affect the oil spill
4) How the oil spill might affect a hurricane
5) New advancements in hurricane science presented at this month's AMS Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology
6) Haiti's vulnerability to a hurricane this season
I hope you can tune in to the broadcast, which will be at http://www.wunderground.com/wxradio/wubroadcast.h tml. If not, the show will be recorded and stored as a podcast.
I'll be back Tuesday with my first outlook for hurricane season.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Could be quite a bit less since the thickness has gone down substantially but I am not aware of any real data
Watch it soar above normal in 2011.
???
And WAY below normal by summer of 2012. :P
in the eastern canadian arctic, the temperarure was 7°C above normal this winter
Three-month outlook:
I heard the history channel changed the name of Ice Road Truckers, to Boat Captains in the Artic...
Let me guess...Joe Bastardi?
Somewhat off-topic here, I know but...that graph is not a direct measurement of ice volume, but merely a model based on sea-ice-age proxies for thickness. Estimates based on the Navy's PIPS sea-ice thickness model seem to contradict the recent decreases shown by the PIOMAS in particular:
Arctic Ice Volume Has Increased 25% Since May 2008
Navy PIPS data concerning sea-ice thickness shown below:
Images sources below:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/pips2_thick/2008/pips2_thick.2008052700.gif
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/pips2_thick/2010/pips2_thick.2010052700.gif
What about the brown snow? I hear that tastes like chocolate.
Just look at the Pacific. You remember that NOAA forecast I put up a couple months ago of a warm winter for me here in Alaska next year? Well *cough* look at it now....oh yay they caught on.
The PDO going cold this year (you can see its signature in the north Pacific already) cools most of the North American continent, and most of the arctic along with it. Even our precious CFS supports global cooling this winter. Compare June to November.
Cold PDO wasn't invented by Bastardi.
The whole country was 4C above normal while the US was hit by snowstorms and cold waves. This upside-down pattern will exist this summer as well, as the American Midwest will be cooler than normal (and at increased risk of a major flood) while Southern Canada will be above normal in temperatures. If the winter trend continues for Canada, who knows, maybe by 2100 we'll be getting winters in Southern Ontario where the average January daytime temperature is 11C, and during heat waves it gets up to 23C in January!
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/WORLD/americas/05/31/honduras.storm.emergency/t1larg.sinkhole.afp
I can't seem to post the picture though...
Good thing with my geothermal heating system, cooling comes basically free of charge
Current? Look at June of course they are warm. Then look at the following trend here in Alaska/Canada.
Does anyone look at these? Japanese seasonal forecasts:
June-July-August:
Dec-Feb....
You don't believe the sea ice extent graphs?!
Sustained +2C anomalies for Pine Island Bay...uh oh.
Request denied.
YUCK!!!!
Any of them. Business as usual...The plagiarized forecast posted in his blog may have been the capper. I thought that would have earned a real long one but alas, it was not to be...
146 direct, 64 missing
Yeah because climate change is a hoax meant to destroy capitalism...those dumb old scientists. All that schooling and no knowledge. LOL!
Sure...sure...cling to that. Alternative energy...maybe we can lead the world in something again other than oil spills.
How freakin' deep is that sucker? Looks 100's of feet deep.
i wounder if its big too a point to where we can put JFV in there
You kidding me...that is frightening....I got nervous just looking at it..WTH?
Warm Alaska. Love it.
50 minutes???
Well it's still 50 minutes plus 5 hours for me in EST :)
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