Of course, it will only be a matter of time before some pundit blames this storm on “global warming”. Readers feel free to post links to such stories in the comments.
click images to enlarge. Loop the radar image here
The record nature of this storm is the low barometric pressure (< 960 mb), on par with a major hurricane (if this storm were centered in the tropics and not in Minnesota). However, this system is not typical Arctic blizzard, but a more subtropical/tropically oriented monster. Nevertheless, Southern Canada will be covered in snow.
RUC Analyzed Sea-Level Pressure and WRF Simulated Radar Reflectivity Forecast
AccuWeather News Forecast FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Violent Storms Spawning Tornadoes Across Midwest
State College, PA — October 26, 2010 — AccuWeather.com reports a rip-roaring squall line (or line of severe thunderstorms) got under way in the heart of the Midwest Monday night and has already spawned tornadoes and caused widespread damage from Missouri and Kentucky to Illinois and Wisconsin.
Indianapolis is getting hit by these thunderstorms right now.
This dangerous line of thunderstorms will continue racing eastward across the Midwest today, expanding the damage swath all the way through Ohio. Destructive winds and tornadoes will remain the primary threats.
Several tornadoes have already been sighted in northeastern Illinois, southeastern Wisconsin and southwestern Kentucky. Damage to homes has been reported with one of the twisters near Peotone, Ill. Another reportedly uprooted and downed trees onto homes near Racine, Wis.
Before sunrise Tuesday, the thunderstorms were lined up from Paducah, Ky., to just west of Chicago, Ill. The main line blasted through Chicago between 7 and 8 a.m. CDT.
The line will continue roaring eastward at about 60 mph throughout the day. If you are able to safely take photos or video of the damage from these thunderstorms, be sure to post them on our AccuWeather.com Facebook page.
Other cities in the path of these vicious thunderstorms include Louisville, Ky., Toledo, Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio as well as Detroit. It’s in this general area where the worst of the severe weather can be expected.
Severe thunderstorms will also affect areas farther south through Tennessee and northern parts of Mississippi and Alabama, including Nashville. However, damage is not expected to be quite as widespread as in areas farther north across the Lower Midwest.
People in the path of these thunderstorms need to stay alert to their local weather conditions and head to the lowest level of a sturdy building immediately if a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning is issued.
These thunderstorms will be knocking trees and power lines down, potentially onto roadways, buildings and vehicles. Often times when this happens, lives are tragically lost.
Again, some of the thunderstorms could also spawn more tornadoes. Any tornado that touches down in a populated area today could be devastating.
Even though the nasty thunderstorms will exit the Midwest tonight, howling winds will pick up behind them through Wednesday with gusts up to 70 mph threatening to cause more wind damage.
Story by Heather Buchman, Meteorologist for AccuWeather.com
Try to stay safe, everybody. The storm rolled through with high winds at my home in AR but thankfully no tornado. Hickory nuts went flying out of the trees so hard they nearly broke out windows I’m told.
AJB, yeah this is bad. Earthquake, tsunami and eruptions. Erik and his readers have a lot on it and are adding news all the time.
Merapi erupts on a tragic day for Indonesia | Eruptions | Big Think
http://bigthink.com/ideas/24670
Pray for them
Nothing much to report in southern Minnesota. A fairly strong wind and a little rain but nothing unusual and not as bad as the forecast. Suppose to get some snow flurries tomorrow.
Yawn! Been there, done that. That beast was here a few days ago. Hit land as a nasty looking front but went through rather meekly. Just some precip and some mild winds. Boy has it grown angry now… How about surfing that pressure wave out front? The classic comma shape and everything!
Nasty!
Ottawa county, Michigan
Huge horrible storm went right over us and we got….NOTHING. Not a crack of lightning, no thunder, nuthin. Rain and some wind, but no storm here.
I don’t wish harsh weather on anybody. However, as a resident of the Puget Sound basin in WA state, I find the media treatment of a big storm in the eastern half of our nation tiresome. We get 24 hr saturation on TV that includes ding-dong TV reporters clothed in rain gear being stupid.
Along the Pacific coast we get storms like this every year. These storms are for the most part ignored elsewhere. 50 to 70 kt gales are something we deal with. Trees blow down, buildings are damaged, and power outages are common.
Sometimes the big ones blow down tens or even hundreds of thousands of acres of standing forest. When this occurs, the tree huggers have to grovel, but still do everything in their power to prevent salvage logging of the blow down so that bark bark beetles and bud worms can feast.
How come our big storms get ignored? Better yet, why are big storms publicized as the next greatest disaster ever experienced?
RyanMaue: “The idea is that the “mean” global temperature is increasing. Thus, assuming the distribution of temperatures stays the same, the whole thing shifts to the right, meaning a longer [tail] towards more extreme warmth.”
That longer hot tail is very difficult to maintain, given T^4 disposal of heat to space.
Here in northern Minnesota it has been one for the record books. As I type this, the pressure is 958mb here (28.31 inches) with a record 955mb just east of here. This not only blows the old record of 963mb set on Nov. 10, 1998 for Minnesota, but is now officially the lowest non-tropical storm pressure in the mainland U.S. ever recorded. Winds have gusted to near 70mph in Fargo, ND… and have been up to near 50mph here, which is pretty amazing considering how forested this region is. The pines and spruces don’t like this wind! The deciduous trees are lucky, I guess.. no leaves left to drag in the wind and pull branches off. There are blizzard warnings in ND and winter storm warnings here in MN. We could get a few inches of snow here. It’s a pretty amazing storm… and completely not surprising given the La Niña. The last two low pressure records for Minnesota were set in November 1998 and November 1975… both La Niña years.
That ‘thing’ passed over us in No. California, leaving one of the earliest snows stuck to the Trinity Alps like flocking on a Christmas tree. It wasn’t warm, and it’s still brisk around here…. even for late October. It also made for the heaviest rain on the 23rd, beating out 1940 and making a storm total of over 5″.
I am thinking MKelly is going to say that there were very few freighters hanging out near the bridge. The storm blew through here quick near metro Detroit and I didn’t see much in the way of sustained winds. As is, I think there are only about 200 freighters total operating on the great lakes.
This upper map shows a jet stream at FL270 to the north of system and another below the great lakes. The later is going west but the former is going east. The two jet streams may be combining to cause the low pressure. There was a system that went through Winnipeg area yesterday from west to east and now is reversing and going back east to west.
http://www.flightplanning.navcanada.ca/Latest/anglais/Latest-sigwx_fl250-fl630-e.html
Paddy this storm is much like the Storms of the 50’s 60’s and 70’s .Blowdown is the
nemisis of foresters, it an reate fire hazards as well as bug incubators. Now the next big thing is closing all the roads. not enough Airtankers Helicopters or Smokejumpers.
to go around…
Big burn of 2011? watch…
From Jean Williams…
Monster storms and tornadoes decimate homes from Midwest to Gulf of Mexico
October 26th, 2010 4:58 pm ET.
“Scientists believe the abnormal weather is the result of climate change caused by global warming.”
http://www.examiner.com/environmental-policy-in-national/monster-storms-and-tornadoes-decimate-homes-from-midwest-to-gulf-of-mexico
It is poetic justice that the I-5 corridor folks have to suffer under cold weather (meant to say climactic disruption) and then send those La Nina systems to the midwest where conservative folks get hammered. The icing on the cake is when, with a straight face, these green freaks try to shove global warming, climate change, catastrophic climate change, climate disruption, whatever, down our collective throats. It simply proves to us, you can’t fix stupid. But you sure as hell can vote it out of office.
As snowguy716 noted, a low pressure reading of 28.20″ (955mb) was set today in Bigfork MN at 5:13pm CDT.
Just as Ryan Maue (and the GFS model) predicted!
Very impressive storm for any time of the season but even more so considering the time of year.
R. Gates says:
This storm may owe much of its origins to the warmer than normal waters of the N. Pacific (which are ususally warmer than normal duirng both La Nina periods & cool phases of the PDO)
=============================
This storm may also owe some of its origins to the energy of Supertyphoon Megi.
She also helped flood the southern part of the nation with record warmth under her Marilyn Monroe skirt. LOL
While up in North Dakota, it is colder than a witches *** and it looks outside like a scene from Chronicles of Narnia. Happy early halloween.
Check out Government Camp elevation 4000 feet on US 26 southeast of Portland.
Brrrr. Time to dust off the snowboard.
http://www.tripcheck.com/Pages/CCview.asp?Num=1&cam1=624
End of October here in VA and its in the mid 70s at 11 at night.
Summertime [in October], and the livin’ is easy.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Scratch that record: New record low pressure set in International Falls MN of 28.18″
I forgot to segue…”meanwhile, in Oregon….”
Was not saying Portland or Gov’t Camp was in ND, just in case you conflate.
Reading my last post I failed to transition.
Pamela Gray says:
October 26, 2010 at 7:37 pm
It is poetic justice that the I-5 corridor folks have to suffer under cold weather (meant to say climactic disruption) and then send those La Nina systems to the midwest where conservative folks get hammered. The icing on the cake is when, with a straight face, these green freaks try to shove global warming, climate change, catastrophic climate change, climate disruption, whatever, down our collective throats. It simply proves to us, you can’t fix stupid. But you sure as hell can vote it out of office.
======================
I love you, Pamela. 😉
The front stretched from Texas to Canada. That’s impressive.
northwestern Michigan, well if this is the way the pineapple express is going this year….. I want to move!!!!!!!!!!! WINTER OF 75 WAS NO JOY RIDE!!!
oh well
@Patty
“we get storms like this every year.” On the coast 3 to five times a year yes and then every once we get a corker like three years ago. Max gust 129! and sustained 50 mph+ for three dasys!! See
Somehow the link was missing
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/pqr/paststorms/20071203/monster_storm.php
R. Gates says:
This storm may owe much of its origins to the warmer than normal waters of the N. Pacific (which are ususally warmer than normal duirng both La Nina periods & cool phases of the PDO)
You may also be interested to know that the latest storm dumped snow down to 4500 feet in Calif and froze it to the trees in October.
Some warmer than normal water that was (the big blue blob on the Unisys map sitting off the Pacific Northwest).
johnb says:
October 26, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I am thinking MKelly is going to say that there were very few freighters hanging out near the bridge. The storm blew through here quick near metro Detroit and I didn’t see much in the way of sustained winds. As is, I think there are only about 200 freighters total operating on the great lakes.
Update from last night and this morning. I saw only 3 freighters anchored in the south channel of the Mackinac Straits. Possibly one more nearer Cheboygan and Bois Blanc Island. So you are correct johnb.
My son texted me and he was “bobbing around on Lake Michigan”.
The people at NOAA and the local civil defense went bonkers. The tornado sirens went off twice yesterday morning for no reason other than MSM induced hysteria. The squall line was a real sleeper. Lack of low level thermal dynamics really put a crimp on the alarmists party. There was some wind, a little thunder, and a little rain. NOAA will attempt to use the destruction of a 110 year old barn (with plenty of dry rot and a collapsing roof) to justify an EF0 tornado. Very unprofessional hysteria by the local TV weather people. At one point every county in Northern Indiana was covered by tornado warnings despite the fact that all of the “action” had quickly advected into Eastern Ohio.
Many people here are pissed. And, of course, local “experts” from schools of higher education are telling viewers to get used to these storms, as Climate Change is real and here to stay. Pathetic.