Are we seeing the birth of a new kind of storm?

[hedgehog]

Several times this fall, a front has moved west to east from the Pacific. These fronts really pound the west coast causing flooding and mud slides. Upon hitting the Mississippi River and Lake Superior, the front starts pulling moisture from the Gulf all the way to the Great Lakes. A clear rotation starts to develop, I think counter clockwise but I could be wrong. These storms bring very high winds, thunderstorms and so far at least two ice storms. They move through at about 50MPH. It's an exaggeration of old weather patterns, but the moisture and warm air from the Gulf seem to be really really energizing these storms into something new. If the rotation develops just a little more, what we'll be seeing is a species of inland hurricane.

[BlueStorm]

1. Maaybe...

I have been wondering about the weird weather patterns we've been having in the past few years. I very doubt that there could ever be an inland hurricane but we can come pretty damn close to it.

Blue

[hedgehog]

2. I would have thought such a thing impossible myself,

but to rank amateur, the radar patterns are starting to look similar and the wind speeds are picking up. I can see that if these storms tighten up a little, they will evolve into something really serious. So far they've generated at least two major power outages (Buffalo's October Surprise snow storm and the Mid-west ice storms), so they are pretty serious for the people affected.

[hedgehog]

3. Keep an eye on the storm now drenching the Northwest

It looks to hit the eastcoast right around Christmas. Ihope it dies down somewhat before it gets here!

[halobeam]

4. I'm trying to keep an eye on it...

New Yorker here. I don't know where to find info on it's direction. I'd love to watch it.

[Kceres]

5. We noticed that, too.

Interesting. I have to go shovel now: 30 inches of snow in Boulder County, Colorado.

[originalpckelly]

6. I think so. Here in denver we've had two high snow producing storms...

and I've been looking at the most recent satellite images which show an upper level low growing in Arizona. This, if it does indeed turn out to be what I think it is, will be the third such extraordinary storm to form withing only 2 weeks.

[hedgehog]

7. I've been watching those, too.

I'm new to this. Is is normal for storms to draw moisture from the Gulf all the way up to Colorado? I think that's what I'm seeing on the weather maps.

I think what I'm seeing is an exaggeration of older weather patterns. At what point does the exaggeration become routine and at what point does a storm system bear naming like a hurricane?

[MuseRider]

10. I would assume that

Colorado gets moisture from the Gulf, we do in Kansas.

[sabbat hunter]

8. no

these are cold core systems. what you are seeing is the fronts becoming occulded. all low pressure systems rotate counterclockwise, be they tropical, sub tropical or extratropical (typical storms).

a hurricane by definition is a warm core system, with no frontal boundaries.

[hedgehog]

9. I guess the question is what happens when a cold core system

gets really tight and organized like a hurricane. If wind speeds increase past a certain point, if precipitation increases past a certain point, will the cold core system have evolved into something new?

[sabbat hunter]

11. b y the nature of a cold core system

it is highly unlikely or near impossible to deepen as much as a hurricane or get as tight and organized. it has frontal boundaries which elongate the system. even if you do not see them on the radar or satelite they are there. in a cold core system, when it becomes occulded it is on its way to declining, will only survive if a new low pressure system forms away from the first, away from the occulsion.

a cold core system needs the two seperate fronts to survive. it gets its 'power' from the colliding of two different air masses. once they become mixed in the occluded front, it loses its steam.


you can get gale force winds with a cold core system of course.

but it would need a strong high pressure system near by to get the pressure gradient rather than relying on its own very deep low pressure center.