Great Blizzard pounding Chicago; extremely dangerous Cyclone Yasi nears Australia
The Great Groundhog's Day Blizzard of 2011 is wreaking havoc tonight from Texas to Michigan, and is poised to spread dangerous winter weather eastwards to New England during the day Wednesday. Four states have declared states of emergency—Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas—and the National Guard has been called out in Illinois and Missouri. Up to 1/2” of ice has caused power outages in Indianapolis, and blizzard conditions have engulfed Chicago, where heavy snows of up to two inches per hour are falling in high winds. Winds tonight at Chicago's Calumet Harbor were tropical storm force, 39 mph, with gusts to 49 mph. Winds gusts of 60 mph were occurring at the Chicago buoy, 10 miles offshore in Lake Michigan.
The storm will probably be Chicago's biggest blizzard since January 2 - 4 1999, when a storm dumped 21.6" of snow. With tonight's snowstorm expected to have very unstable air aloft, "thundersnow" with snowfall rates of 4 inches/hour is possible, and there is a chance today's blizzard could rival Chicago's greatest snow storm of all time, the blizzard of January 26 - 27, 1967. That immense storm dumped 23 inches of snow on Chicago, stranding thousands of people and leaving an estimated 800 Chicago Transit Authority buses and 50,000 automobiles abandoned on the city streets and expressways. Twenty six Chicagoans died in the blizzard, mostly due to heart attacks from shoveling snow. Strong winds in Chicago today are expected to generate 14 - 18 feet waves on Lake Michigan, with occasional waves up to 25 feet. A significant coastal flooding event is possible for the city, with beach erosion and flooding along Lake Shore Drive. I'll have a full update on the great blizzard in the morning.
Figure 1. Satellite image of the Groundhog's Day Blizzard of 2011, taken at 8pm EST February 1. Image credit: NASA/GSFC.
Category 4 Tropical Cyclone Yasi nearing Queensland, Australia
Tropical Cyclone Yasi continues to intensify as it speeds westwards towards vulnerable Queensland, Australia. Yasi, now a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds, is under light wind shear of 5 - 10 knots, and over record warm ocean waters of 29°C (84°C). Low wind shear, record warm sea surface temperatures, and favorable upper-level outflow should allow the cyclone to maintain Category 4 strength until landfall Wednesday evening (local time.)
The Austrailian Bureau of Meteorology had this to say about Yasi in their latest advisory:
YASI IS A LARGE AND VERY POWERFUL TROPICAL CYCLONE AND POSES AN
EXTREMELY SERIOUS THREAT TO LIFE AND PROPERTY WITHIN THE WARNING AREA,
ESPECIALLY BETWEEN CAIRNS AND TOWNSVILLE.
THIS IMPACT IS LIKELY TO BE MORE LIFE THREATENING THAN ANY EXPERIENCED DURING
RECENT GENERATIONS.
On Wednesday morning at 9:30am local time, Yasi hit tiny Willis Island, where a minimum pressure of 938 mb and a peak wind gust of 115 mph was observed before Yasi cut communications and damaged the radar.
Queensland faces three major threats from Yasi. The cyclone will bring torrential rainfall to a region with saturated soils that saw record flooding earlier this month. The latest rainfall rates in Yasi's eyewall as estimated by microwave satellite imagery are 20 mm (0.8") per hour. The GFS model is predicting that a wide swath of Queensland will receive 5 - 10 inches of rain over the next week, due to the combined effects of Yasi and a moist flow of tropical air over the region. Fortunately, Yasi is moving with a rapid forward speed, about 21 mph, and is not expected to linger over Queensland after landfall. The heaviest rainfall will miss Queenland's most populated regions to the south that had the worst flooding problems earlier this month, including the Australia's third largest city, Brisbane.
Yasi will bring highly destructive winds to a region of coast south of the city of Cairns (population 150,000.) Townsville (population 200,000) is farther from the expected landfall of the eyewall, and should see lesser winds. Strong building codes have been in place in Queensland since the 1960s, which will help reduce the damage amounts. The fact that Yasi's eyewall will miss these two major cities is lucky, since the coast is less populous between the two cities.
A dangerous storm surge in excess of ten feet can be expected along the left front quadrant of the storm where it comes ashore. The tidal range between low and high tide along the coast near Cairns will be about 2 meters (6 feet) during the evening of February 2. Yasi is expected to hit near midnight, halfway between low and high tide. Thus, the inundation from the storm surge will be about 1 meter (3 feet) less than it would have been had the storm hit at high tide.
Yasi is larger and more dangerous than Cyclone Larry of 2006, which hit Queensland as a Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds. Larry killed one person and caused $872 million in damage (2011 U.S. dollars.) Yasi will bring heavy rains to a region with soils already saturated from record rains, and may become a billion-dollar cyclone.
Figure 2. Tropical Cyclone Yasi as captured by the Willis Island radar, as the western eyewall of Yasi moved over the island. Image credit: Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and kindly grabbed for me by Margie Kieper.
Links to follow:
Live streaming video from Channel 9 in Cairns, Australia
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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(wonder if they have backup power...)
Good for some, bad for others. Hurricane Andrew did the same in 1992; straight line until the coast and drop South sparing a direct hit on Miami.
Yes, just breezy, dry and cold for now. Thusrday night is suppose to bring the snow/sleet/freezing rain. Just more fun to come I guess.
I certainly hope that those being hit by Yasi come out of it well. My best to all of them. Yasi is a monster that I would not like to face.
It's sucking in moisture from as far north as Papua New Guinea
I was watching that, he even said Innisvale will experience storm surge. not when its on the northern side of the eye of a clock-wise turning Cyclone.
If Yasi didnt jump south, Innisfail would of coped it. Population 9000. Mission beach 3000, 99% evacuated.
SHEETS of roof iron have been ripped from a Townsville shopping centre and locals have reported seeing metal awnings flying down the street as Cyclone Yasi batters the north Queensland coast.
Townsville Resident Stewart Mclean said he saw two sheets of roof iron being torn from the top of the Urban Quarter shopping centre in the city's CBD.
"They came off quite early, it got quite hairy there for a while," he told AAP.
From a friend's apartment in the Metro Quays building in central Townsville Mr Mclean also saw awnings and sheets of metal flying down the street.
"We've also heard a lot of glass shattering so obviously some businesses in the CBD have lost windows," he said.
He said the nearby Holiday Inn, known colloquially as the "sugar shaker" because of its shape, also appeared to have suffered some damage.
"There are curtains flapping out of windows and there's no way they'd be open so it looks like they've been shattered."
Castle Hill resident Wil Kemp described the conditions as "scary".
"It's dark outside so we can't see a lot but there a whole trees, big ones, which just aren't there anymore," he told AAP.
"The rain doesn't fall, it just comes in horizontally as the wind goes roaring past."
Not sure why yours appears upside down, butYou are plotting another site. Sry.I think Cairns simply switched coverage patterns for the radar.
They are getting more local detail, this way.
If you're high enough (second or third story), it even appears to go upward rather than down...interesting what rain will do when it's going 150mph
Morning, folks...Aussie, how are you this morning (afternoon)?
Band of Lake Effect Snow moving through the city. Wind Chill Watch goes into effect later today.
Maybe from the South? Wasn't listening to all of it...caught only part of it...what a horrific event this is shaping up to be...
Mine is from Townsville. Cairns went offline for a few frames so i switched to get full view of the eye. Cairns Radar has to "see" throught alot of rain to see through.
history...
As of 9 am this morning chicagos ohare international Airport has
officially had 19.5 inches of snow. This makes the February 1st
and 2nd 2011 blizzard the third biggest snow storm on record in
Chicago.
As of 6 am this morning Rockford has officially picked up 13.9
inches of snow. This makes this blizzard the 4 largest snow storm
in Rockford history.
Afternoon???? 2:42am here mate. I aint in UK mate. lol
I'm doing fine mate. Tired.
Nope...walked off and finished up some reporting and did what you did!
I'll bet you are...
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