1 WATERSPOUT & 1 TORNADO?

BY MY ESTIMATE WE HAD ONE WATERSPOUT (the one we all saw over the St. Johns River) AND A VERY WEAK TORNADO (that toppled a few trees in Riverside).

That’s right two!

**Just talked with Peter Wolf at the NWS-JAX and he say’s the official call on this will be made sometime tomorrow, Tuesday, after the reports/pictures have been compiled.

Here’s the Best picture and Best Video…

Best Picture of the main Waterspout (that most folks saw) from Julia Bluett.

And Best Video…

** WARNING EXPLICIT LANGUAGE USED, ONCE… PG-13 rating **

This video was recorded by Jon Shepard and Gabriel Cox and friends).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9Efi8LwUfs

JG

HEAT WILL SLOWLY FADE, POOR WAYCROSS (SW GEORGIA)…

TEMPS FAIL TO REACH 100 ON THE THERMOMETER, BUT THE HEAT INDEX…  Said it was a brutal weekend.

Here were some of the area high temps and (heat index) values:

• Waycross, Georgia… 103 (118)
• NAS JAX… 100 (112)
• Brunswick… 100 *(114) *number is a little suspicuous
• Saint Simons Island… 98(111)
• Valdosta… 98
• Everyone else, not kidding, had a high of 97, Heat Index values between 106-110.

NOTABLE OTHER LOCATIONS:  Albany Ga, 103 (115) and Tallahassee 102 (114)

Today’s highs will be again near 97.

 

THE ATLANTIC’S FIRST TRUE TROPICAL STORM IS BREWING?  Not quite yet…

Tropics are trying to stir in the Bay of Campeche, extreme Southern Gulf of Mexico, see image below.  All models push whatever it becomes into Mexico over the next 3 days.

Stay Cool…  Looks like a round of Heavy Storms later tonight, dropping in on us from Georgia…

JG

MORNING RAINS ROLL-IN…

EXTREMELY HOT AIR HAS BEEN FUELING MASSIVE THUNDERSTORM COMPLEXES THE PAST FEW DAYS…

You can see them on the satellite images at www.justweather.com as large orange blobs…

Yesterday evening a large mass of storms was in Tennessee, which by midnight had moved into Northern Georgia.  This complex of storms had already traveled some 500 miles and seemingly had peaked in Tennessee, dumping large hail and a couple of tornadoes.  But… No…  The complex of storms rolled on.  As rain-cooled air pushed out ahead of these storms they generated additional storms all the way to Jacksonville.

This Satellite image shows the intense storms well north of us at 1:15AM.  Yet, yesterday’s daytime highs in SW Georgia-Tally area were around 100 and this helped to fuel these storms all night long.

And now… at 10:30AM… We still have storms around Jacksonville.

These storms will give us rain through 2pm followed by a hazy sunny hot finish, today’s high around 92.

Unfortunately, the winds above us will shift to be more westerly which means any massive thunderstorm complexes that develop tonight will stay north of us, leaving us with brutal heat and humidity the next few days as our afternoon highs will be 98-100 and the feel-like temps will be  105-108.

More on the heat later…

JG

OZONE AT UNHEALTHFUL LEVELS… THE IMPACT…

Will be mainly with the young and the elderly with pre-existing lung / heart issues.  Most of us can routinely go about our day, but it’s a reminder that our mini-heat wave and stagnate air can stress our bodies.  A simple adjustment would be to limit outdoor excersize to the morning hours, not just because it’s cooler but ozone levels are lower. 

Look at the yellow portions on this map (below) and you will see the urban areas of Florida are actually seeing the worst air quality in the entire Nation.

 

THE CITY OF JACKSONVILLE MONITORS OUR AIR QUALITY, CHECK OUT THEIR WEB SITE…

http://www.coj.net/Departments/Environmental+and+Compliance/Environmental+Quality/Ambient+Air+Monitoring+Activity.htm

 

AND HERE’S ANOTHER LINK FOR JAX…

http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.showlocal&CityID=111

 

ARE WE IN A HEAT WAVE?  No…

By the way, we are experiencing a mini-heat wave… For Jax,  a true heat wave would be if we had a series afternoon highs at or above 95 degrees, so far we are couple of degrees shy of this each day.  Also, it has been a few years since we have had brutal afternoon temps near 100, the last time was in July of 2000.  From July 15th thru the 21st, the daytime highs were… 98,91,98,98,101,103 and 99, respectively.  Whew!

JG

CRAZIEST LOOKING CLOUD EVER, GETTING SEA SICK…

SEND THIS LINK AROUND THE OFFICE AND YOU WILL GET SOME WILD REACTIONS…

The atmosphere (which is all around us, whether in the room we read this, or outside) undergoes some amazing forces, the most overlooked force is GRAVITY…  This YouTube video clips show how gravity can be seen as a series of large waves (ocean rollers).  When you watch this video clip, imagine yourself under the ocean, looking back up to the surface when a series of ocean waves roll past you.  For those who have seen a surf movie, or two, have seen this when photographers follow a surfer past them and the wave rolls over them…

The really crazy thought is this…  What if you could create anti-gravity surfboard?  You could ride one of these waves!

I would like to thank “Dave”, one of our loyal viewers for this link which shows how scientists are looking to classify these clouds into their own unique category. 

Here are some still images of these clouds…

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/new-cloud-pictures/index.html

JG

AIRPLANE MISSING, LIGHTNING SUSPECTED…

WHAT MANY MAY NOT KNOW IS THAT AIRPLANES ARE FREQUENTLY STRUCK BY LIGHTNING…

They are designed such that the metal skin of the aircraft dissipates the electric charge in such a way that lightning passes right around the interior of the aircraft.  This leaves the engines and most of the computer’s on board untouched…

However, when lightning does cause damage, aircraft are typically able to get back to an airport.  But, in the case of the Air France flight, they apparently were over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and as such may have doomed the aircraft…

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNEZipGyRQ4 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=036hpBvjoQw&NR=1

JG