Real Climate Science

Heavy rain has been falling in recent weeks on the burn area near Los Alamos, NM – which has led to flash flooding that threatens the Bandelier National Monument headquarters.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/

http://irene.windalert.com/

Jeff B says:

August 28, 2011 at 1:35 am

Two skeptic blogs in the top five on WordPress today. WUWT is always in the top five.

http://botd.wordpress.com/?lang=en

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g6FoF1fsOY0]

http://abcnews.go.com/

Gusts at NCAR’s Foothills Lab were clocked at 75 miles per hour, while 80-mph winds were recorded about 25 miles north of Boulder. Some NCAR employees who were blown across the parking lot or observed windows shaking in the Mesa Lab estimate that gusts on the mesa might have been as high as 100 mph.

http://www.cisl.ucar.edu/news/03/fotoweek/1117.wind.html

There have not been any recent SFMR data…but based on the earlier sharp discrepancy between the flight-level and surface winds…the initial intensity is reduced to 70 kt. A slow weakening is expected as Irene moves along the coast of the mid-Atlantic states due to land interaction…colder waters…dry air entrainment…and increasing southwesterly shear. Because the large wind field will take time to spin down…however…Irene is still expected to reach the New York area at or near hurricane strength.

More so than with most storms…the winds with Irene increase sharply with height above the surface. As Irene moves through areas with high-rise structures…these structures will experience winds significantly stronger than indicated by the advisory intensity. Winds at the 30-story level will likely be 20 percent higher than at the surface…and winds 80-100 stories up could be about 30 percent higher than at the surface.

http://weather.herald.com/

h/t to David

Some of the worst storms in Texas have been tropical storms, rather than hurricanes. A slow moving tropical storm can dump huge amounts of rain.

The costliest storm in Colorado history was on July 11, 1990, with $625 million in insured hail damage, or about $1 billion in today’s dollars, association Executive Director Carole Walker said.

http://www.aspentimes.com/