HEAT: Play It Safe

Picture: inhabitat.com

It’s that time of the year again when we roll out the grills, sit by the pool, take extra long vacations, and stand outside in the heat for extended periods of time. Sounds fun, right? Yes, it does, but if you don’t play by the rules and keep heat safety a top priority, you could fall victim to one of the most underrated weather elements that can cause severe bodily injury.

In fact, heat is the top weather related killer in the United States. Taking the averages of weather related deaths between 2003-2013 across the county, heat is at the top of the list. On average, there have been 117 heat related deaths on a yearly basis. Second on the list is a tie with tornadoes and hurricanes at 107, and floods comes in third with 76 deaths per year. The reason why heat is primary killer is because it affects more Americans than any other weather phenomenon.

Hot air can do a number on your body and it does not take much time to be out in the heat to feel its effects. If you are suffering from heat related illnesses, you will likely experience dizziness, muscle cramps, weak pulse, overall weakness, nausea, and even fainting. If you, or someone you know illustrates these symptoms, make sure to move to a cool place, apply a wet cloth to cool down, sit in front of a fan, and sip on cool water.

Not only can the actual heat cause problems, but the sun angle is at its peak during this time of the year. Not only are the daylight hours extended, but the sun’s intensity is another reason to keep it safe this summer season. This time of the year, it takes less than 10 minutes of unprotected exposure to cause sunburn. Sunburns are not fun at all, and if you are severely affected, you might feel a flu-like fever, nausea, headaches, chills, weakness, and even blisters. Apply SPF 30+ sunscreen all over your body as often as you can, at least every 60 minutes, wear a hat, lose light colored clothing, and slap on a pair of sun glasses to prevent as much as the sun’s harmful rays.

Overall, just have fun out there this summer, but make sure safety is always on your mind. If you take care of these simple things, and stay hydrated too, you will have an amazing summer season.

“Take a look up once in a while; you never know what you’ll miss.”

For more news and weather you can log onto: www.facebook.com/plushnickweather or www.facebook.com/KAGSTV. You can also check out our twitter feeds: @KAGSweather and @KAGSnews. Furthermore, you can download our new weather app. Search: KAGS Weather, in the Apple App Store or Google Play for Android.

Twin Tornadoes, Rare, But Has Happened Before

Before going into detail about the potential of how a twin tornado occurred yesterday in Pilger, Nebraska, know that this is something very rare, but has happened before. Additionally, there are many more storm chasers now than ever before and we can capture more information, in vast volumes, plus it spreads all over the internet, as well as media at rapid rates. Furthermore, meteorology is a growing science where we keep learning more over time. We know a lot, but there is much more research ongoing.

Anyway, below is one of the pictures of the twin tornadoes taken by storm chasing expert, Reed Timmer. 

This picture can say well more than a thousand words. To have two tornadoes that are extremely violet, right next to each other, is very unusual. Several theories do exist, but again, no straight up answer at this time.

For this type of situation to happen there could have been two different updrafts within one or two separate super cell thunderstorms. On the other hand, for two supercells or tow updrafts to be adjacent to one another is atypical. What tends to happen is one supercell takes over while the second collapses and transfers its energy to the other. In the picture above, it appears that the two updrafts, or supercells balance each other and create an environment where two strong tornadoes can exists side by side. Overtime, the two eventually linked together and created one larger tornado.

This goes into the next potential theory, a multi-vortex scenario. In most occurrences, there is only one vortex (rapidly rotating spin) per tornado. However, there are some single tornadoes that generate multiple vortexes, but tend to be very hard to see. Here, we might have and extreme case of multiple vortexes.

These are just a couple of theories, but more research will help the science of meteorology come closer to a real solution.

This has happened before, such as back in 1965 on Palm Sunday in Elkhart, Indiana. Paul Huffman snapped this picture of twin tornadoes during that outbreak below.

Another such occurrence happened in Hesston, Kansas in 1990. I was not able to find a picture of this event, but has been documented.

It's always saddening to see how destructive tornadoes can be, and what occurred in the Nation's Heartland last night was devastating. As more research continues on severe weather, forecasting steadily becomes more accurate.

In the meantime, if there is a Tornado Warning for your area, please make sure to respect Mother Nature's fury and take every precaution possible to protect yourself from the elements.

"Take a look up once in a while; you never know what you’ll miss."

For more news and weather you can log onto: www.facebook.com/plushnickweather or www.facebook.com/KAGSTV. You can also check out our twitter feeds: @KAGSweather and @KAGSnews. Furthermore, you can download our new weather app. Search: KAGS Weather, in the Apple App Store or Google Play for Android.

Minor Activity In The Tropics

Typically the beginning of the Hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin is quite slow, but by August and September, things really begin to heat up. Below is a chart laying out the percentages (%) of the amount of storms that typically generate. The greater the percentage, the greater amount of storms in that given month.

Easy to see that June and July are relatively quite compared to August, September, and even October. This is because the water temperatures reaches its peak and upper level winds favor development and strengthening of tropical systems during this time.

Also, if you are curious, the list of Tropical Storm/Hurricane names begin with Arthur and end with Wilfred this year.

Aside from the typical tropical jargon and names, there is a disturbance that bares watching in the southern Gulf of Mexico and Bay of Campeche.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is going to monitor this swirl for further development. At this time, there is only a 20% chance that over the next 5 days, this area will turn into an organized tropical system. Its early in the season and the right ingredients are not in place for a major storm to take shape.

Even the computer models are confused on an exact forecast due to the ragged nature of this system and its disorganization.

Sure, one model brings this into Texas, but that will likely NOT happen. Nonetheless, I will watch this and other tropical cyclones that develop this season for you.

In the meantime, we can sit back and relax as our weather should be repetitive with warmth and tranquility.

"Take a look up once in a while; you never know what you’ll miss."

For more news and weather you can log onto: www.facebook.com/plushnickweather or www.facebook.com/KAGSTV. You can also check out our twitter feeds: @KAGSweather and @KAGSnews. Furthermore, you can download our new weather app. Search: KAGS Weather, in the Apple App Store or Google Play for Android.

Huge Severe Weather Mess In Central Plains

Here in the Brazos Valley, severe weather season has come and gone without a scratch. This does not completely means that we will not see any severe weather during the summer or early Autumn, but looking at the records and seasonal trends, this part of Texas tends to quiet down. Also, when you encompass all of the events for our region, there have been several episodes of torrential rain, but other than that, nothing to really talk about around the water cooler. Now the shift in moment is for the central Plains and the Mid-West. 

In the upper levels, high pressure is building in and will shut down any chance of rain through the rest of the week and into the weekend.

This type of pattern mimics one of the "ring of fire" highs that we are familiar with during the heat of the summer. We call this the "ring of fire" because in the center of the ring, the weather remains tranquil, but around the "ring" is where the action takes place. Energy glides along the periphery of this "ring" and interacts with the difference in temperature that helps to generate thunderstorms, which can become severe. 

In the case of what happened this afternoon and evening, a multitude of severe thunderstorms unleashed their fury on parts of Wyoming, but especially in Nebraska and Iowa. Below is an image of Max Storm, Doppler Radar illustrating how ubiquitous the severe weather is.

  
As you guessed it, there are very nasty storms that created all modes of severe weather from large damaging hail, tornadoes, and extreme straight line winds.

Reports were plenty and consolidated along a couple of lines where storms gerated and traveled like a train on a train track.

As of 9PM CDT, there have been 11 reports of tornadoes. Know that there can be multiple reports for a single tornado. Its up to the National Weather Service to determine how many tornadoes actually touched down following the event as they survey the damage.

It's not just tornadoes, but incredible reports came out of Nebraska of hail and straight line winds too. In both Minatare and Kennard, Nebraska, softball size hail was reported. In addition, 100mph winds were estimated in Newport, Nebraska.

There is more ongoing at this time, and flooding will be the main issue across Iowa all night long.   

"Take a look up once in a while; you never know what you’ll miss."

For more news and weather you can log onto: www.facebook.com/plushnickweather or www.facebook.com/KAGSTV. You can also check out our twitter feeds: @KAGSweather and @KAGSnews. Furthermore, you can download our new weather app. Search: KAGS Weather, in the Apple App Store or Google Play for Android.