The Black Sea Breeze - as a trigger

Visible channel (sat24.com) from EUMETSAT. The sea breeze acts like a lifting mechanism for convection initiation in Dobrudja. The general circulation in SE Romania is from South, and will produce propagation toward the South, and there is a strong low level flux of moisture from the sea to Moldova. Severe weather is expected in the Eastern half of Romania, several supercells.

Later: a supercell splits: on satellite (two red circles), and radar (zoom on the SE part of Romania). Is nice to observe the huge dimensions of the anvil.

A Mesovortex Over South of Romania

High Resolution Visible. EUMETSAT, NMA

6 UTC formed over the precipitation pool last night.

Radar mosaic first tilt, under Google application, NMA.

A Bow Echo

An early morning bow echo approaching the Bucharest area. Seen on Radar (with a zoom around Bucharest). visible sat chanel (from sat24.com) and RGB-airmass product (EUMETSAT,NMA).
The dry air behind the system (west of Bucharest), is the trigger of the bow, but the rear inflow jet is high, so instead of wind, a rain-pool can form with a flash-flood.

Heavy rain is expected.

An Innocent Outflow

The arrow points a small convective cell that produces a significant outflow 30 minutes later. The cell doesn't contain rain, so the radar (OWT national mosaic) doesn't get it. This is an example on how subtle mesoscale features and sources of weather changes can be. 

Undular Bores on radar and satellite

Undular Bores leaving a strong convective system.
Easier to see on visible satellite because they are too shallow for the radar horizont.
We expect severe weather today in the Western and Southwestern Romania, heavy rainfall, wind gusts.

Radar, Nowcasting Course

Here you can find details about some interesting courses in radar and nowcasting: www.erad2010.org/Course.htm

Deadline for application: 30 May 2010

ERAD2010 - participants

The deadline for early registrations has come.
I wonder how much this event is impacting on my life. Well, I am addicted to it.

I look everyday, several times, at the list of people who registered. People I admire so much. I know their work, I know their passion. Some of them are my favourites, my models.

Some of them are new to me but "old" in the branch, I am so glad to discover them. Some of them are students. This edition is dedicated to them, to their courage to follow a scientist career in difficult times; and to women in radar science. If I could bring closer to 50-50 the percentage in gender participation, I could say I have accomplished one target.

I am going back now to contemplate again the list of great radar scientist people that will reach and enrich ERAD. I can not work too much these months for my own life, but I know that ERAD will bring something good to many people, and this is the most important reason to do things.

Black Sea El Ninho

Strong temperature differences in the marine waters on the Western Basin of the Black Sea. Wind is from N, 13 km/h. Air Temperature at Constanta is -17C.


Satellite IR EUMETSAT image from sat24.com

ERAD 2010 - Merry Christmas !

www.erad2010.org

Mesocyclonic Waterspout, Gloria platform, Black Sea

High resolution - VIS, EUMETSAT

WSR98D

RealitateaTV

Waterspout over the Black Sea, 18 August 2009, produced by a splitting supercell, initated in a horizontal roll clouds PBL environmnet.






A non-mesocyclonic waterspout still requires a convective cloud.

from: actualite.lachainemeteo.com

Bow echo

A reflectivity image with a bow echo, C band, and a sattelite image, visible low resolution, with the clear spot behind the bowecho where the rear inflow jet is, red arrow, and a lot of rolls in the southern part or Romania, nice to act as local enhancers.
Last evening Bucharest had a severe storm with 40 mm in less than one hour, the fears are if again the storms will be severe for Bucharest or not.

Birds on radar

While satellite in visible (EUMETSAT) shows clear skies (top image), radar shows plenty of echoes from birds and insects after the Sun rise (bottom); no, it wasn't dust. The south-eastern radar of Romania, with big lakes and the Danube Delta, has a lot of "noise" during summer, but sometimes we can easily monitor low level circulations due to these tracers. Well, sometimes birds can mislead the forecaster !

Gust front

The red arrow points toward an outflow from a convective cell. The thin line is the leading edge of the diverging outflow, it is called "gust front".

(visible channel, satellite images, 15 minutes apart - EUMETSAT- northern part of Moldova - Romania)

Cloud streets

I am reading now some papers on horizontal convective roll clouds, street clouds and other similar shallow structures and how they can interact with other phenomena like the sea breeze.

The first image is about what an ignorant could think about a cloud street; the second image is what radar iamges show very often but people do not know what they are looking at (convective rolls) , the third one is a nice one from satellite Terra, with streets over the Black Sea, the last one is an airplane view of the street structure, maybe the closer to our sense of Nature. True. Meteorology is a lucky science where concepts get to a structure that can be "seen".

I struggle to find a language that can ease the process of learning, to avoid difficult math and to build concepts beyond equations. But... there are concepts that reveal only with hard work and math.

The two last days I have advanced only two pages in my reading and my conclusion is that many forecasters might have only "cartoons" and nice images in their minds... and do their jobs in the same way a gipsy "musicant" can play violin without ever seeing scores. In the same way, there are composers that never played a piece. But art and science have a different consequence of "amateurism". Art is gentle with amateurism and kitsch.

How deep do we want to go in our profession depends on how much we need a "profession" or we just want to remain "amateurs". Is the difference between a "profession" and a "job".

Of course, amateurs can be much better payed, jobs can have a role in society, but... the real advance of our society has been done through the long effort of people conceptualizing, working hard, creating new theories for days and years in a row.

There is a "natural" selection among professionals: the real ones remain for research at any price, the amateurs go for better "jobs".

I remember a cross moment in my life when I had to choose between arts and physics, and I understand now that arts wouldn't have been enough for me, that I am a better artist now, as an amateur artist, than the professional artist I would have been without my professional work in science.

Education in Radar Meteorology

I am reading now a radar monography book, a collection of essays in honor of David Atlas. Leaving apart the joy of reading a book in nice format and good paper, it has some great overviews that really help understanding where we are in radar. My favourite is a paper on Some Educational Innovation in Radar Meteorology, by Steven Rutledge and V. Chandrasekar (I do not know why one is listed with the whole first name and the other only with initial, maybe because the very known name of the second author is simply, the great "Chandra").

Reading this paper a lot of ideas come into my mind to improve my training in radar. Is that kind of work that gives you real hints on what you can do, if you REALLY want to change something in good. "There is no replacement for direct experience when it comes to radar meteorological education" is one of the ... conclusions they start with after a survey among students. Of course there is a lot we can do via internet to simulate "hands on" experience.

I was thinking to bring a mobile radar during the pre-conference ERAD 2010 course in Sibiu, and organize few sessions of real experience.

I was thinking at the enthousiasm that is always coming out from the field work of radar people (in the image, Rita Roberts and Jim Wilson on high resolution refractivity (moisture) data), how they present their results "hot", just taken out from fresh fiels data, and how could I develop a serial sessions that could be held in different universities in Romania, a real radar on wheels from door to door.

Well, maybe if I buy a mobile radar for the met service and organize it, or if I buy my own radar and travel with it around... well, I do not drive, but I could arrange it with students that drive.
Well, look what a good paper can do !

www.erad2010.org

Looking back at previous ERAD conferences, I found a very nice video with images from ERAD 2006 in Barcelona, here. Barcelona was celebrating a famous fiesta, la Merce, in that period so we had the chance to build a real ERAD castle. It was a very touching moment in ERAD's life, getting us closer, feeling we can build something together.

I will try to uopload it also on the http://www.erad2010.org/ site.

ERAD 2010, 6-10 September Sibiu, Romania

The Romanian National Meteorological Administration will host the sixth European Conference on Radar in Meteorology and Hydrology, ERAD 2010.

The city will be Sibiu (Hermanstadt) in Transylvania, Romania. The dates are from 6 to 10 of September 2010, with a pre-course in radar.

The site is www.erad2010.org with a backup at www.erad.eu and we will provide soon more details.

Some information is also available at www.meteoromania.ro in Romanian and English.

Wave perturbation

The last two images are a rough analysis of almost the same moment, seen on radar and satellite, as a sinoptician would do: a classical wave-like perturbation.

On top, in the first image, you can see my analysis, where I am more interested on the banded character of precipitation.

What is nice to observe is that strong echoes develop around the occlusion and in the warm air mass, and not around the cold front as we would be temped to think.

A tornado witness, in 1928's Romanian literature

"Over Moldova, beyond the Bolandars hills, the sky was moving and bending as it was turning against the earth ; and a roar beyond measure, one never heard before, filled the valleys as it was getting near; and all those present, turning their faces and staring around saw the dragon coming in a spiralling whirlwind at a great speed. I saw it with my own eyes and I trembled. It was coming straight towards us. With a thin tail like a black scroll, it was touching the ground and its body was high up in the air and its mouth was gaping like that of a lioness in the clouds.
It was coming roaring and swinging its tail; its very breath was sucking throwing into the sky haystacks, house roofs and uprooted trees. Beneath the roar, a downpour of hail and water was unleashed as if the whole Moldova riverbed was taken to the sky and then knocked down on us.”

Mihail Sadoveanu, Excerpt from “The Dragon” (from Ancuta’s Inn, collection of short stories)

vremea.meteoromania.ro - web site

The web site of the National Meteorological Administration, is presenting information in a new and attractive way at this link.

You can find forecasts, warnings, animated radar images, detailed products, very useful and information about more specific products, road maintenance and conditions, etnometeorolgy, nivometeorology.

Behind this page is a very talented person, Darius Popa, that found a way to merge the interests of a private company with public needs. He has been close to the meteorology over the last 10 years and struggled to find ways on a wild land (private business with public benefits). He managed to work with professionals outside and inside the institute and to develop meteorologic products.

I am happy that my institute found a way to convey better service to the public.

Congratulations and go on!