Thursday, April 26, 2018

Weather It Is (Severe Storms Batter the Area)

Good Evening:

I have never seen a severe storm like the one that hit the Jerusalem area this evening.  There were winds of 50 km/h, hail greater than 1 cm in size, constant lightning/thunder, and about 20 mm of rain in only 10 minutes (or so).

If you take a look below, you can see a screen shot of lightning and lightning derived radar from the Israel Total Lightning Network, which is part of the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network.  You'll  note below that there is a circular shape to the convective clouds.  You might remember that in our last blog we wrote that a Sharav storm would move eastward and then up the coast, becoming absorbed in a winter-type trough dropping down from the north.  The results was a storm that brought floods yesterday (on Wednesday) and today's terrible tragedy (in the south), as the storm stalled over our area, spinning counter clockwise.

Because the storm is located over the land, it is picking up huge amounts of dust, which is being absorbed into its convective clouds.  Dust has been shown to invigorate convective clouds, and one might be bold enough to say that today proves the theory -- and then some.

The rain should taper off tonight, and at least the first part of Friday may be partly sunny.  However, more moisture is suppose to be advected in from the north Friday night, which should lead to more storms as the day ends and Friday night progresses.

There should be a break next week ahead of the next weather system -- another Sharav.  It too should bring a warm up before it arrives. This one is suppose to move inland, and merge with a "Red-Sea-Trough," which would bring more convective showers to the southern and central areas during the mid-week period.

The Education Ministry was quick to deny that they gave permission to the Mechina (Pre-Military Religious Academy) that sent its students on a dead sea (bonding) experience.  They are now, very unfortunately, bonded in death.  It should be pointed out that the Israeli Water Authority and the Israeli Meteorological Service had both issued advisories for flooding in many locations today.  Yet, I would argue that there is a disconnect between the issuing of advisories and the public (which are done at fixed time intervals).  I believe this is because real-time (as in just prior to the event) warnings are not generally issued, and if they are they are not disseminated over cell-phones, for example.  This is for two reasons: these ministries don't have access to a real-time warning alerting system/App, and they don't have the broad view, such as shown below.  Our system, developed by Earth Networks, does both these tasks.

Note, during the severe storm that hit our area after 6 P.M (1800 IDT), one can clearly see the imprint of the storm on the second map below, which shows high radar reflectivity and lightning (cloud-to-ground and intra-cloud) within.  This system is available to government ministries -- they need only ask.  It would supplement very well the current efforts to improve forecasts and provide better warnings to the public.

Barry Lynn







Saturday, April 21, 2018

Weather It Is (Chilly, Some Light Rain, Then More Rain?)

Good Evening:

It's been a roller coaster week.  The weather was hot, and now it's cold and windy.

A storm will drop down from the north tonight and bring us some rain on Sunday.  There isn't much moisture associated with this storm, so the rain should be on the light side.

What's interesting is that the global forecast model is showing a very strong storm moving across the southern Mediterranean as the mid week approaches.  One might call this a "Sharav," and indeed temperatures should bump up on Wednesday ahead of the storm.  Moreover, the storm is forecast to stall as it moves north by to our west and up the coast.   As it receives an infusion of colder air from the north, it should redevelop and linger over our area for at least a few days.

The 500 mb maps show that this storm should bring plenty of moisture at mid- and upper-levels, as well as bring strong upward motion associated with what meteorologists call a "vorticity max."  The storm should be proceeded by tropical moisture and then moisture should wrap back around the system as it stall over our region. The result could be a heavy rain to end the month as we move into May (which itself may bring more rain as the first week in May begins).

I was thinking that our recent forecasts have been excellent.  For example, last week we spoke about hot weather for Wednesday and Thursday, and that's what happened. We said that Friday would turn windy and cooler and that happened, too.  It seems like our 5 or 6 day forecasts are getting to be quite good. What's still difficult is predicting the timing of the arrival of precipitation and surface temperatures the next day -- which means that it's still hard to predict snow, even if we storm coming several days in advance.

What's not hard to predict is the reaction of world powers to anything that Israel does to defend itself.  Considering that only the United States voted (actually vetoed) against a resolution to investigate what is happening along the Gaza border fence, one might think it a miracle that we're not condemned by everyone who has anything to say about it.  Thank God for the United States!

What's even more amazing is that people seem to miss the obvious: why are these people protesting at the border fence and not against the Hamas government that has brought Gaza to the brink of collapse.  In continuing to criticize Israel, it becomes apparent that in the end it is really all about politics.  It's obvious that Israel is morally correct in protecting its citizens from infiltration -- we can't have our country inundated with 2 million Gazans who would like to flee Hamas.

The hypocrisy of the world is even more obvious when considering what is happening in Syria.  Recently, the Syrian government gassed its own people  -- again.  The world, led by the US, responded by targeting a few locations in Syria, and then congratulating itself on taking a moral stand (see for exanple, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/world/europe/theresa-mays-statement-on-the-syria-strike.html).  Somehow, the death of 500,000 plus Syrians by rifle, mortar, bombs, and starvation is not a problem really worth of response.

Basically, nations act in their best interests, and morality plays only a small part.  One might note, for example, Israel's response to the Russian nerve agent attack on an ex-Russian agent on English soil. While England and other nations issued a strong condemnation, Israel only offered mild criticism (we need to be on Russia's good side, or we won't be able to attack Iran in Syria as it tries to build based from which to attack us). Ms. May responded by pointing out that friends support friends.

What is she talking about?  During the Arab riots from the end of World War I until the Israel war of Independence, the British would arrive at the scene three days after the fact, leaving the local Arab populations to murder as they wished.  They also embargoed arms to the Jewish population, and during world War II they closed the gates of Palestine (later Israel) to Jewish immigration (politics again).  While the British didn't kill the Jewish people directly, their actions made it a lot harder for those fleeing Europe to escape.  Moreover, after the war, they refused to allow the vast majority of Jewish people fleeing Europe to migrate to Palestine, interning them instead in camps in Cyprus.

Well, here's what I have to say.  When friends come to visit, friends open the door -- but the British slammed the door in our faces!  This is hard for me to forget, no matter how much they profess friendship while voting against us at the UN.

Enjoy the week!

Barry Lynn

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Weather It Is (Getting Hotter)

Good Afternoon:

After a few cooler and even rainier days, this coming week will become quite hot.

There's an old "adage" that I've adopted over the years: it's hot before Yom Ha'Hatzmahut (Independence Day) and then it gets cold on the day itself.  In fact, it's usually warm on Yom Ha'Zikoron (Remembrance Day), but the winds start to blow and temperatures fall as the ceremony switches from one day's remembrance to one day's celebration. This year should be no exception.

Westerly winds will give way to southerly winds and lower pressure, which will bring temperatures into the 30s on Wednesday, leaving them around 30 Celcius on Thursday.  However, Thursday will see a change over back to more spring-like temperatures and next week might even bring a more "winter-like" rain!

So, where's the exception? You might say that Independence Day is Thursday,  but Independence Day really occurs on Friday, which shows forecast temperatures in the low 20s in Jerusalem.  However, the celebration was moved up so as not to impinge on Shabbat preparations. So, in Israel, the  Hebrew calendar date seems to determine the weather rather than the calendar date.  As to why it cools off at this time: I think that there is an intermediate period when the Indian Monsoon (that brings our summer's dryness) is not quite established, opening the door for cooler weather from the north via Europe.

Keeping all these wind directions straight is not very easy.  This leads me to note that I finally figured out why men don't ask for directions.  During the holiday we did a bit of traveling here and about.  We needed to make a turn, swing around, and head into a parking lot.  Of course, we didn't know it was that simple when we started. So, I say to my wife: "which way?"  She starts to speak when suddenly the Waze-Woman (W-W) starts to argue with her.  They couldn't decide between left or right, and we missed our turn.  Then, W-W tells me to turn left into a street that's backed-up.  I was forced to do a u-turn in a place where I'm not sure that it's legal (but the police didn't mind) and we gave it another try -- which also didn't work out.  My wife threatened to turn off W-W and W-W told me this would be a mistake and that I should listen to her instead.  Fortunately, my daughter who is not a wife (yet) managed to extradite us from this situation and we arrived safely.

So, it's not that men don't ask directions ever, it's that they do not want to ask the occupant in the right front seat.  Of course, I should have known this because I used to sit in the back seat of our family car, offering my advice as well when things didn't seem to be working out between the two front seats -- and that was before W-W made things even more complicated (or worse, if you prefer).

Fortunately, when the wife says to take out the garbage, I know how to get there without directions.

For those who must observe Yom Ha'Zikoron in sorrow, I wish only future happiness.

Happy Yom Ha'Hatmahut!

Barry Lynn

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Weather It Is (Inclement Weather)

Good Evening:

So the Hamas border protesters chose the wrong day to burn tires.

Another warm day brought light northeasterly winds, and a fairly stable boundary layer.  This combined (I believe) to push the smoke back over Gaza.

However, winds will be switching the the west as a series of weak storm pass through our area through mid-week.  Each could bring some showers, and even some measurable rain.  However, the mid-week storm is now forecast to be weaker than originally thought -- so these are more "nuisance" rains, rather than rain that could bring a real soaking.

Still, the showers could reduce crowds at the border fence.

It is interesting to note that the West Bank Palestinians insist that Israel withdraw to the old 1948 border, which was the border up until the 1967 War, which Israel won -- conquering more area to build new towns and adding a layer of protection in the Jordan Valley and Golan.  However, everyone knows that they say "old-borders" when they really mean no borders.  That's why they insist that the descendants of people who left during the first war return to homes they lost in the war of 1947-48.

Until now, you might have thought that the International community meant -- in contrast - that Israel's borders were those that the Palestinians don't really accept.  They say that everything outside the 1948 border is occupied territory, implying that everything within is not.

But, then low and behold we see that's not even true.  When Israel defends itself from border incursions during the demonstrations along the Gaza fence, it's being told to act "proportionally, " which really means not at all. In other words, one might wonder if the international community (like the EU and Britain) really recognize Israel within any borders.  Are we really suppose to just let the Gazan Palestinians break down the fence and move in mass over the border?

Apparently, the answer is yes.  I hope that we've learned an important lesson. When push comes to shove, politics trumps all -- even so-called international law, and it would be better politics for them if we simply disappeared.

Have a good week,

Barry Lynn