Hailstorm and flooding in Houston.

I will write a more detailed post later, but here is some of my video of the storm yesterday.

West, Tx Explosion Video

By now I'm sure everyone has heard of the explosion in the town of West, Texas. Also I'm sure everyone has seen the two cell phone videos that captured the explosion.

What I decided to do was put those videos together into one video. Using the flash from the explosion as a reference point, I was able to sync both videos together giving the viewer a look at the same event from two different angles.







Using an aerial photograph and landmarks in both videos, I was able to determine the location where both videos were shot. See the photo below

What you also see in the photo is that the entire chemical plant was obliterated. The railroad tracks to the left of the plant in the photo were almost fused together by the blast. There was also a playground that was completely destroyed. Just beyond that is the nursing home and apartment that were also completely destroyed.

Below is the video I synced up. On the left is the Father and his daughter. On the right is Erick Perez.

After the explosion the cloud resembled a nuclear mushroom cloud.

Hopefully the town can recover from this disaster. Send your thoughts and prayers.

A Redshift Lookup Table for our Universe

How far away is "redshift six"? Although humans are inherently familiar with distance and time, what is actually measured for astronomical objects is redshift, a color displacement that depends on exactly how energy density has evolved in our universe. Now since cosmological measurements in recent years have led to a concordance on what energy forms pervade our universe, it is now possible to make a simple table relating observed cosmological redshift, labeled "z", with standard concepts of distance and time, including the extrapolated time since the universe began. One such table is listed above, where redshift z is listed in the first and last columns, while the corresponding universe age in billions of years is listed in the central column. To find the meaning of the rest of the columns, please read the accompanying technical paper. Although stars in our galaxy are effectively at cosmological redshift zero, the most distant supernovae seen occur out past redshift one, which the above chart shows occurred when the universe was approximately half its present age. By contrast, the most distant gamma-ray bursts yet observed occur out past redshift six, occurring when the universe was younger than one billion years old, less than 10 percent of its present age.

Comet PanSTARRS from Sky & Telescope

Swinging northward now, Comet PanSTARRS emerges above the western sunset horizon this week for skywatchers in the world's mid-northern latitudes. Look due west about 30 to 45 minutes after sunset. Bring binoculars; the comet is about magnitude +2 or +1.5, but it's low in the twilight: a fuzzy star with a short upward tail. It should be brightest this week, since it's passing closest to the Sun and is also barely past its closest to Earth. On March 12th through 14th the crescent Moon will help point the way, as told below.

If you live north of about latitude 35° N, the comet will climb a little higher into better view during the next week as it fades.


The chart below is drawn for viewers in the world's mid-northern latitudes (U.S., Canada, Europe except far north, China, Korea, Japan).
Image credit: Sky & Telescope
Visit skyandtelescope.com for more information.

Winter Storm across Central United States

In late February 2013, a major snowstorm made its way across the continental United States, dropping snow from Colorado to the Great Lakes region. The National Weather Service reported snow totals of 5 to 8 inches (13 to 20 centimeters) in many parts of the Central Plains and Upper Mississippi River Valley. Some parts of the Central Plains experienced snowfall rates as high as 4 inches (10 centimeters) per hour, along with thundersnow. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this nighttime view at 1:55 a.m. Central Standard Time on February 23. This imagery is from the VIIRS “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared. The day-night band takes advantage of moonlight, airglow, and starlight to brighten the landscape and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights and snow cover. On the night of this image, the Moon was nearly full. City lights glow like clusters of stars against a backdrop of grey and black in this image. The snow appears medium gray, and stretches from northern Texas to the Dakotas,and from the Rocky Mountain states eastward past Chicago. When VIIRS acquired this image, snow cover across multiple states had persisted since the previous night. Mission: NPP

NWS DAMAGE SURVEY FOR 02/18/13 TORNADO EVENT

EVENT DATE...FEB 18 2013
EVENT TIME...2:03 PM CST TO 2:06 PM CST
EVENT TYPE...EF-1 TORNADO
ESTIMATED PEAK WINDS (MPH)...95-105
INJURIES/FATALITIES...0/0
DAMAGE PATH LENGTH... 0.6 MILES
DAMAGE WIDTH... 30 YARDS




NWS SURVEY TEAM TOURED THE DAMAGE AREA WITH THE SAN JACINTO COUNTY FIRE MARSHALL. EF-1 TORNADO DAMAGE (ON THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE) WAS OBSERVED WITH A LARGE BARN DESTROYED AND PARTIAL ROOF LOSS TO A BRICK HOME. THERE WAS ALSO EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO THE FRONT DOOR AND GARAGE PORTION OF THE STRUCTURE. ON EITHER END OF THE DAMAGE PATH, LARGE TREES WERE UPROOTED. A SECOND SMALL SHED WAS DESTROYED ON THE EASTERN END OF THE DAMAGE PATH. SOME DEBRIS WAS OBSERVED MOVED A LARGE DISTANCE...ABOUT ONE HALF MILE...INCLUDING SHINGLES, SHEET METAL AND BEER CANS. THERE WAS ONE WITNESS WHO SAW THE FUNNEL MOVE OVER THE MOST SEVERE DAMAGE AREA, AND THIS PERSON SAW A THIN LIGHT COLORED FUNNEL AND SWIRLING DEBRIS FROM A HUNDRED YARDS OR SO AWAY BEFORE TAKING SHELTER. THE RESIDENTS OF THE DAMAGED HOME WERE AWAY WHEN THE TORNADO STRUCK AND THE ANIMALS AT THE FARM WERE NOT IN THE DESTROYED BARN, SO THERE WERE NO INJURIES WITH THIS EVENT. SEVERAL PEOPLE COMMENTED ON RECEIVING THE WARNING. A NEARBY MARKET SAW A FUNNEL CLOUD AND LED ITS SHOPPERS TO THE REAR OF THE STORE IN A SMALL ROOM.

For more damage pictures visit: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/?n=severe_2013_02_18

KHGX Radar @ 200pm

KHGX Radar @ 205pm

TIAH Radar @ 205pm

Image Courtesy NWS KHGX

Dual-Pol Radar Sees Hattiesburg Tornado

EXCERPT FROM THE NWS JACKSON, MS STORM SURVEY:

Thanks to recent dual-pol upgrades at area Doppler radar sites, we could also confirm the presence of tornadic debris. Here is a screen capture from the Mobile, AL radar at 5:13 pm as the tornado was moving through the West Hattiesburg/Oak Grove area. The more traditional radar products shown at the top (base reflectivity, storm relative velocity) were showing a severe thunderstorm, with strong and tight rotation at just over 7,000 feet above the ground. It was the dual-pol products on the bottom of this image that provided additional confirmation that this rotation must have been extending to the ground. The correlation coefficient (CC) product in the bottom-right helps to provide an idea of the consistency of the shape of the targets being reflected back to the radar. Higher values shows greater consistency (for instance, all rain), while lower values show less consistency (a mixture of targets). In this image we see an area of lower CC, which is actually an indication of tornadic debris of various shapes and sizes. In addition, the differential reflectivity product indicated values close to 0, which would also be expected with tornadic debris. Dual-pol continues to prove to be a powerful tool in our arsenal of technology enabling us to track severe weather.