Thursday, October 22, 2009

Weekend and Halloween Forecasts/How to Get Weather Data Like Hail Reports

HURRICANES AND WEATHER
Tropical Pacific is quiet this evening. The remnants of Rick raced past the upper Texas coast early today, increasing easterly winds and flooding part of the Bolivar Peninsula. The remnants were picked up and absorbed by the approaching upper trough and associated surface cold front. In the Atlantic, there are 2 areas with less than a 30% chance of developing.

On Friday, highs will only be in the 30s and 40s in the northeast and Great Lakes. It will be warm and muggy in the southeast with highs in the 70s and 80s. Out west and southwest and southern plains, highs will be in the 50s to 70s. There will be some thunderstorms in the eastern US...but not quite to the eastern seaboard.

Friday will be delightful for Houston with some sunshine and low humidity. Through Sunday morning, lows will be in the 50s (and even some 40s Saturday morning). Sunday, some clouds return...possibly a shower late in the day. Highs will be in the upper 60s and 70s into Sunday. Look for rain to return on Monday. Next front moves through late Wednesday.

Looking ahead to Halloween, I think it will be mild, with a southerly breeze and temperatures in the upper 60s to low 70s around trick or treat time. I don't think it will rain. Now, on Sunday (after Halloween), I think there will be some rain.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let's do data or datos, pronounced DAH-toes. Do you want to know how to easily find past weather datos. Go to the AND MORE section.

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AND MORE
Got some new weather links for you.

Have you ever wanted to find out if tornadoes or hail occurred in certain area. Well, if enough time has gone by, you can go to the following link through the National Climatic Data Center.
http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?wwEvent~Storms
Just enter the state and narrow it down from there.

If you want to get weather conditions for up to the last 60 hours, go to this link:
www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/surface/
On the right side, it says text data. Specify translated and the amount of time. Choosing translated will give the results in an easy to read format.

Now, if you need the data for legal purposes (and it's in Texas), you can order "certified" data through the Texas State Climatologist Office.
http://www.met.tamu.edu/osc/

Outside of Texas, you can order "certified" weather data from the National Climatic Data Center.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html
But, I will caution you that this can take a long time. There is also some free data there, but it can take many months to get more recent weather data.

Happy data collecting!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman

Weather Winding Down - 8:15 am Update Thursday 10/22

Good morning all -
Some 4 and 5 + inch rain totals around Friendswood/Clear Lake and there are some areas east of Houston under Flash Flood Warnings until 8:45 am. There will be one more round of rain around midday...as the cold front arrives, but I don't expect a lot of rain. So, in many ways, looks like the worst is over.

National Weather Service reporting that Highway 87 flooded on Bolivar Peninsula due to high surf from strong easterly winds...being attributed to Rick remants moving through believe it or not!

Much driver air arrives late afternoon and overnight...spectacular fall weekend on the way!

Have a safe day everyone.

Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman