Astronomy, Photography and Weather

Has anyone else noticed that this tropical storm is almost about to make landfall around Kerry right now.  Met Eireann said last night that this storm would dissapate as it merges with the atlantic low tracking across the country.  The latest sat pics seem to suggest that this is intensifying if anything. http://www.sat24.com/gb

By the look of things this storm looks like tracking right across the south of the country.  I'd say Kerry Cork and waterford look most at risk from some serious amounts of rainfall at least.

Interesting - the visual gives the impression or a north easterly track whereas the infra red looks as though the central swirl is tracking east, or even slightly south, missing the land altogether.

Just wish that the finger of cloud we have overhead & which should be clearing from the NW would get out of the way.

Hi Dave

Grace is expected to be obsorbed by the front and weaken although it's still packing a punch. The frontal system currently over the Republic has been an extremely impressive sight on radar all through the day with persistant red and white echoes of large size indicating torrential falls at the top of the scale which might be dropping from embedded cumulonimbus cells. ESTOFEX have a level 1 out today for tornadoes and a risk of scattered lightning. Keep watch!....

http://www.estofex.org/

Storm Forecast
Valid: Tue 06 Oct 2009 06:00 to Wed 07 Oct 2009 06:00 UTC
Issued: Tue 06 Oct 2009 05:26
Forecaster: VAN DER VELDE
A level 1 was issued for England and NW France mainly for the chance of an isolated tornado.
A level 1 was issued for W Iberian Peninsula for chances of wind gusts, large hail, excessive precipitation and tornado.

SYNOPSIS

A low pressue area near the Faroe Islands moves eastward. The increasing thermal gradient due to colliding warm subtropical airmass advected by a steady SWly flow and a polar maritime airmass should inforce the cold front over Ireland and central UK during the period. The occluded front will drag over western Norway causing intense precipitation. Slight instability will be present over England and NW France, and marginal signals track downstream over the southern North Sea, Benelux, N Germany and Denmark, perhaps partially elevated in nature.
Another low pressure system arrives from the Azores to Portugal later during the period and is filled with an unstable airmass.

DISCUSSION

...S Ireland, England and NW France...

GFS predicted widespread convective precipitation over the eastern Atlantic for yesterday, however almost nothing occurred in reality. Lack of significant quasi-geostrophic forcing or even subsidence may have prevented this, and predicted LFC-LCL differences, which were quite substantial, could have played a role as well. With this in mind, a look at GFS reveals some CAPE over the southern half of the UK and NW France predicted mostly for 9Z-15Z, and now LFC-LCL height difference should be small and initialization easier, while QG forcing is better. Other models also predict a band of rain passing during this period. The cold front may provide additional forcing over Northern England, at the margin of CAPE.
Since CAPE and dynamics seem quite marginal (not very baroclinic situation and absence of the jet), it looks like a low end situation, however there is 15 m/s DLS, 150 m²/s² SREH and >12 m/s LLS predicted, with low LCLs, which in principle could yield cells with rotating characteristics and possibly an isolated tornado. Strong but probably not severe gusts are possible.
If convection is able to develop at the front, it could train parallel to it and augment precipitation sums locally.

From Sat 24

(http://i33.tinypic.com/2jaybro.jpg)

There are recent thunderstorms in Britain associated with the front.

Yes I, too was looking at the Sat24.com animation earlier today. It has to be about the most impressive and dramatic scenes that I've ever seen on Sat24 since I 'discovered' it!  :o

That's a cheeky looking satellite pic!   :P

We had a very warm and muggy day with periodic bands of torrential rain, nothing exciting...