Archive Posts: Analysis
4 posts found
October 2026
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A Detailed Look at the September Nor'easter
Early last week, the Northeast US and Mid Atlantic were affected by an unusually early nor'easter producing significant rainfall and coastal flooding. This post digs deeper into its meteorological history, why it wasn't classified as a tropical cyclone, and forecast communication challenges.
November 2024
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Tropical Storm Sara: What Went Wrong?
Tropical Storm Sara is currently producing torrential rainfall and flooding across portions of Central America, and is expected to make landfall in Belize as a weak tropical storm before dissipating inland, with remnant moisture spreading into the southeast U.S. But this was not the original forecast – just a few days ago, many models were consistently showing a hurricane or…
March 2022
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Tropopause Polar Vortex and the Late March Cool-Down
While glancing at the forecast for the upcoming stretch of anomalous cold weather in the Northeast U.S., I noticed that while low-level temperatures are forecast to be near record cold for this time of year, upper-level temperatures are actually forecast to be near record warmth! This may seem counter-intuitive at a first glance, but it ended up being related to…
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Bomb Cyclones: The Forgotten Latitude Weighting
Over the last few years, the term "bomb cyclone" or "bombogenesis" has become increasingly popularized within and beyond the weather community. A bomb cyclone is commonly defined as a decrease in central minimum pressure of 24 hPa or more within 24 hours. This definition, however, is incomplete. The original definition of a "bomb cyclone" from Sanders and Gyakum (1980) included…