Witch of November

[Robert Dewey]

Just looked at the 12Z GFS for early next week, and it looks like a nice "Witch of November" storm may setup shop just north of MI. This would of course mean severe weather somewhere to the south, with a significant wind storm to the north...

GFS shows 50-60knts pretty close to the SFC with CAA and the turbulent mixing layer extending through this region. That would yeild 50knt winds, with even higher gusts - Pretty amazing for an inland cold core system... Another plus for the winds would be the isallobaric component, with the low "bombing" out, and a very tight pressure gradient, certainly would be a good setup...

Other memorable "Witch of November" storms include the November 10th, 1975 storm, which sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald and generated significant wave heights of up to 26FT on Lake Superior, with rare-peak wave heights of almost twice that :shock: An identical storm tracked across the Great Lakes on that same date in 1998, which produced wind gusts in excess of 90MPH (peak gusts) in northern lower MI near Lake Shore counties, and frequent 75MPH across most inland locations, producing minor structural and tree damage near my house, I will just say that it was a WILD night!...


Source: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mqt/fitzgerald/gales.htm

238 of the more important storms that tracked across the Great Lakes during the period 1876 to 1900 were described. With 45 severe storms in that 25-year period, November was the month with the most frequent strong storms in the Great Lakes region.

Given that, climatology is with us...

 

[Jason Hetzel]

lol i am really looking forward to the next week and a half and hope that major system brings me at least one last supercell or tornado for this year in the next 2 weeks . maybe we can get a true full setup for a change and make michigan storm chaser history eh? rofl ill keep up on this also.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Here some more information on these types of synoptic storms:


Source: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mkx/document/wind/...nd_11-10-98.htm

Powerful synoptic-scale southwest winds raked Wisconsin again on the 10th of November in 1998 as a deep low pressure system moved northeast through Minnesota to Lake Superior. Duluth, MN, set a new all-time record low barometric pressure of 28.45 inches, which is similar hurricane values. Peak wind gusts in the "dry slot" were generally 55 to 80 mph, with most winds in the 60 to 70 mph range. Five locations had gusts of 80 mph or higher: the La Crosse National Weather Service Office on top of Grandad Bluff (93 mph), Waterford in Racine County (81 mph), Salem in Kenosha County (81 mph), Belgium in Ozaukee County (80 mph), and St. Francis in Milwaukee County (80 mph). A gust of 87 mph was recorded on top of the 15-story Atmospheric and Oceanic Studies Building on the UW-Madison campus.

 

[Jason Hetzel]

info

hey thanks for that info i apreciate it very much and have read it. looks good thus far as of now

 

[Jeremy Lemanski]

GFS did the good ole flip flop and now a very weak low moving south of michigan. The euro did the same thing two runs ago, then the last run had a strong low again, and the current run is back to the weak low.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Talk about a windy forecast! Anyone who follows inversion heights/momentum transfers/etc. will instantly see the intensity of this:

The "white line" (along the temperature) is the momentum transfer line - The lower number (46knts) is the sustained wind speed, while the top number (65knts) is the mean gust speed... If any sunshine is present during Saturday, that mixing layer could be realized, which is pretty incredible... ETA is probably overdone (usually is overdone by about 10knts), thats still wind gusts in excess of 65MPH over an inland area...
The ETA maintains these wind speeds between 2PM and 10PM...

[Broken External Image]:http://www.waveformpc.com/bufkit.JPG

 

[Robert Dewey]

Anyone else live across the Great Lakes get quite a bit of wind? My weather station reported several wind gusts of 65MPH around 3PM-4PM, with a MAX wind gust to 70MPH. Quite a few trees and branches are down, as well as several houses having roofing material peeled off (shingles). Quite a few traffic lights are out as well...

We have a gondola that was nailed to our patio, it was ripped out and sent flying into the power lines :shock: , we have since recovered it, though it's a bit more beat up... Several other stations reported 55MPH-60MPH... I may add some damage photos, but that depends on if I get out to take them, and if the damage is cleaned up by that time...

Weather station screen shot (The sunset time is off):

[Broken External Image]:http://www.waveformpc.com/wind_10302004.JPG

 

[Jeremy Lemanski]

measured around 50mph gusts along the sag. bay shoreline around a hour ago, strongest winds came about a hour before that, so i would say 60-65 were blowing during that time.

A few limbs/trees down around here, not much.

 

[Robert Dewey]

measured around 50mph gusts along the sag. bay shoreline around a hour ago, strongest winds came about a hour before that, so i would say 60-65 were blowing during that time.

A few limbs/trees down around here, not much.

Yeah, it actually got a little scary there between 3-4PM... I was out working in the yard, and I thought a few trees might come down on me. It was the strongest non-convective windstorm that I have witnessed in quite awhile...

Here are some photos: http://www.waveformpc.com/october30_windstorm/

I like the second photo... It's a porta-potty that traveled about 50-75ft during the strongest of the winds, and ended up sideways on the fence.

I would have taken more pictures of tree damage around the city, but it was getting dark by then...

 

[mikegeukes]

Lake Michigan around 6pm EDT in Muskegon, Michigan
Weather: Cloudy with occasional lake effect rain showers
Waves estimated at 7 to 10 feet, when I took this pic.
[Broken External Image]:http://mgweather.com/waves1.jpg
Mike

 

[Andy Wehrle]

It was very breezy today in Green Bay, but certainly nowhere near high enough to cause damage.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Well, the numbers are in here in southeast lower MI... Highest wind gust was 72MPH... other gusts were in the upper 60's... Not too shabby, and it isn't even November yet :wink:

Heres the Public Information Statement from DTX:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/wxnow/product....10217&format=ci

 

[rdale]

The higher gusts all came from rooftops which likely inflated the true speeds...

- Rob

 

[Robert Dewey]

The higher gusts all came from rooftops which likely inflated the true speeds...

- Rob

Yes, that's what it says at the bottom of the DTX Public Info Statement...

Mine is on the roof, a good 25 feet off of the ground, but SFC speeds were still pretty high (my report is the 67.5MPH out of Rochester Hills) It's interesting that all of the other higher gusts were reported at the same time. Either way, there was still quite a bit of damage over a pretty large area, for being a non-convective event. Detroit Edison was out in full force, quite a few stop lights were out, and I seen quite a few trees down -Mostly around 6-10 inches in diameter.

 

[Joel Wright]

I had a hard maple tree that looked awesome on Friday, totally covered in bright yellow and orange leaves. Between the 50mph winds in the thunderstorm Friday night and the 40mph gradient winds all day Saturday needless to say it is now totally bald. The nice thing is all the leaves blew into the next county..

This wasn't even close to a witch of November type storm though. The really big ones are very rare.