ryansmorningblog-Bay-Net

I want you to click on the above picture to see some of the items in a unique gift I received today! It was a "Bag of Weather" and each item had a note about weather. I think my favorite was the bottle of "melted snow"! Some of the items are not shown because I have already used them or dropped them off at the house... like the White Cloud Toilet Paper! :)


I was at the Pediatric Day Clinic. They had some great kids and I even had a couple of them help me with some science experiments. This was my second year to go there. Last year, a kid threw up during the science experiments! Luckily, no vomit this year!

If the teachers are reading this, THANKS for the goodies in the bag! My intern and I have been munching on them tonight...

Ryan

The image above shows the storm tracks from SEVERAL models regarding Tropical Depression Alex. It has weakened since it went over the Yucatan Peninsula, but will strengthen once it goes back over open water. That's when the questions begin! Will it continue into Mexico OR will it turn north and hit TX or maybe even LA??? If it does turn north, it will give us some rain and wind, but even worse... it will greatly affect the Oil Spill disaster that is ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico. If you remember, the worst part of a tropical cyclone is the Eastern side. When Hurricane Rita hit in the TX/LA areas... my father-in-law had coastal flooding in the Florida Panhandle. Tropical systems are far reaching! 
Here is a "zoomed in" look at the tracks in comparison to Arkansas. Notice that many models take it just west of us. IF this happened, we would have some rain and wind next weekend. DO NOT alter your your plans for the 4th of July just yet, but make sure you watch the weather this week!
Here's the GFS model for Saturday night. Notice the heavy rain across the state and notice how close the black lines are together. The lines being close together indicates a strong pressure gradient and implies that we will have some gusty winds across Region 8. We would also need to be on guard for small tornadoes.

Let me be clear... There are A LOT of questions and variables with this storm. My point is... we need to track Alex CLOSELY for several reasons!

Ryan

I came back from vacation yesterday to dark skies and thunder. I pull up my radar program at home and see a tornado warning! I turn on the TV and there is J-Lo covering the potential tornado which was a few miles from my home!

I knew it would not last long, simply due to the atmospheric conditions... so I knew it would be worthless to head to work. Plus, Justin had it under control and I was on vacation. BUT, I did decide to go drive around to see if I could report back any information.

I drove all around Greene County and did not see much, BUT some of the Region 8 viewers saw some funnels, snapped some pictures, and sent them to The Loop. Both of the above pictures were taken in Light, AR. These may have briefly touched down because we had some minor damage reported along Highway 412. This occurred before I went driving around...

On the bright side, it was nice to see some more rain in the area!

Ryan

This picture was taken today over Fort Morgan, AL which is near Gulf Shores. Steve Jones snapped this shot as he was doing some aerial inspections. For the most part, everything looked great today! In addition, I got a report from a Region 8 viewer today via email. Here's Carol's report from today:

"We are here now and the water is great at Fort Morgan. That is where we are actually staying. The oil seemed to have gone around here. We drove to the beaches in Gulf Shores today and there are some that are closed but there are some that are open. We also drove to Orange Beach and it is horrible! But, there is no smell. The skimmers are a little closer to the shore in Fort Morgan today but there is no oil. Occasionally we will see a tar ball but they are few and far between. Hope you have a great vacation and I will keep you updated until we leave which will be on Saturday."

If you are heading to Destin or Panama City... all is well right now. Everything changes DAILY! It's amazing how fast they clean up the beaches after an incident. One other note from Steve... none of the beaches are "closed", but there is a swimming advisory for some.

Ryan

We've gone back and forth on whether we were still going to go to Gulf Shores or if we will go somewhere else. We've decided that we are going to head on down to Gulf Shores and we'll do other things beyond swimming at the beach. We have our swimming pool and I have discovered a few other spots to cool off... Plus, there are restaurants, the zoo, go carts, etc. I just hope it does not smell bad. Most people say that it does not smell bad, but there are some naysayers out there. I'm going to find out for myself.

I'm going to blog about my adventures. I hope to show the good and the bad... and maybe some of the ugly (aka BP mess) along the way. This may go down as one of the worst disasters in history. I may be able to teach my kids a few things about being good stewards of this Earth that God gave us.

The folks at http://www.gulfshores.com/ have done great about keeping people informed about what is happening on their beaches, but it is hard to cover 32 miles of shoreline each day. With that said, I won't be able to tell you what is happening everywhere either, but I can tell you what WE are seeing.

If I do not do a full blog, I hope to at least Tweet about it with pictures on my Twitter feed. You can find that on the right side of the page.

We leave next weekend...

Ryan

Here's the radar image at 7:15 AM. The upper-low is right on track and as I said on the news last night, some places will see heavy rain and others will not see that much. I'm still thinking that our western counties (Sharp to Cleburne and surrounding areas) will get the bulk of the rain. I think the Jonesboro/Paragould area will get rain sometime around lunch, but it will not be as much as areas to the west. If you get pictures of the rain, email them to me at ryan@kait8.com or upload them to The Loop at http://www.kait8.com/ and they will automatically post to the web!

Ryan

It feels great outside! I just spent the last hour sitting on my kids' trampoline looking up to the blue sky and enjoying the comfortable breeze! If you notice we have had winds coming from the north, ushering in drier air.

At 3:00 PM, the dewpoint in Jonesboro had fallen to 57°!!! Contrast that to a few hours ago when it was 73°!

The front has moved through to bring in the less humid air. The temperatures did NOT fall. They are still in the upper 80s. This is WHY I stress the dewpoint so much. It is simple. Dewpoints in the 50s feel good and dewpoints in the 70s feel muggy. Isn't that very, very, very simple? So, when you wonder WHY I show dewpoints more than relative humidity, note that the dewpoint is the KEY to seeing how muggy it is outside!

The above graph shows several computer model's (lines) analysis of what the dewpoints will do over the next few days. The black dots are the actual obsevervations. Notice this comfortable air will not last long! Dewpoints will be back into the 70s by Tuesday.

Enjoy it while you can!
Ryan

This picture showed up on Twitter this morning from Gulf Shores. It appears to be oil, but maybe the turtle went through some mud??? ... I DOUBT it, but it IS possible. My point is, my family (and hopefully you) are balancing what you see online and on TV with what is REALLY happening along the Gulf Coast.

I have vacation in a couple of weeks to Gulf Shores. Over the past 24 hours, there have been some reports of the oil hitting Gulf Shores in small amounts. A lot of folks are freaking out and canceling their vacation plans, BUT I urge you to wait as long as you can.

For example, officials say that no oil has come ashore in Gulf Shores today. The oil that is on the beach is from last night and yesterday.... And that oil is being cleaned quickly. What if it goes back out to sea and there is no more oil to make landfall??? It's possible. Fluid dynamics is a tricky science.

So, as of now... here's the latest on some popular vacation spots:

• Gulf Shores- Some tarballs and sporadic patches of goo. Swim advisory
• Pensacola- Some tarballs, a handful of patches of goo.
• Destin- Some tarballs
• Panama City- No impact yet.

This can change, so find a website that updates constantly for your location of choice. For Gulf Shores, I have found http://www.gulfshores.com/issues/ to be the BEST site with DAILY video updates from the beach. They seem to be 100% transparent.

As of now, we are keeping our Gulf Shores plans, but we have looked at Panama City, St. Louis, and Hot Springs as alternates. We're going to have to stay spontaneous! If we can go to Gulf Shores, the lines at Waterville and area restaurants will be short!

Ryan

Well, I'm suppose to be on the beach in a couple of weeks. As I type this... oil is crashing into Dauphin Island. According to one TV station, "Small piles of gooey oil have reached Dauphin Island".... I've added a new feature to shows how much oil has spilled.

I'll be updating the blog a little more often now. I took a little break. I may also revamp it. Any ideas for the new look?

Ryan