Thursday, May 1, 2014

Long Range Severe Weather Threat Looming

I'm watching for a severe weather threat in about a week's time.

Tropical Tidbits
On the afternoon of May 2nd, we see a small but still-substantial ridge of high pressure pushing over Japan, as a strong storm system to the west begins pushing in the direction of the island nation. There is a rule, well explained by Joe Renken, that states a weather phenomenon in East Asia will be reciprocated in the United States 6-10 days later. This means that if there is a storm system in Japan on a certain day, we can expect a storm in the US 6-10 days after that. The same goes for high pressure and warm weather. Seeing as this ridge appears on May 2nd in Japan, we can expect some warm weather around May 8-12th.

Tropical Tidbits
By May 3rd, we see a strong storm pushing into Japan in the wake of the ridge we saw in the image above. Looking at the trough, it looks like the system is negatively tilted, as seen by the pressure contours pushing in a south-east direction. If this trough reflects on the United States in about a week, which it very well may, the negative tilt may result in a pretty substantial severe weather threat. Locations of this threat are unknown at this time, but be cautious for some severe weather in this timeframe.

Andrew