I was flying to Seattle earlier this week, and snapped this picture from the plane. I love how clouds look from the top! Notice the vertical development punching it’s way through the deck!
View From The Top
When you start seeing vertical development in storm clouds, there’s a good chance rain is on the way. Here’s a picture of some clouds outside right now, and the associated radar image from my iPhone.
The National Weather Service has issued their Monsoon 2010 Forecast for the southwestern portion of the United States. The overall forecast is neutral while we wait for El Nino/La Nina patterns to stabilize, and while we wait to see how wet the central plains will be. If you track this stuff like I do, you’ll find the forecast to be both interesting and informative.
At this particular moment, I have a total of 10 weather related apps on my iPhone. All but a couple of them are very good, and I figured other people might be interested in benefiting from my purchases! Having an iPhone that can run weather apps is a huge bonus for me. I love weather data, and being able to whip out my phone and check the local radar is very exciting…especially during the summer monsoon months, when I want to know where the next thunderstorm will hit. As more weather apps are developed for the iPhone, I’m sure I’ll purchase those as well. That being said, let’s start with a review of WeatherBug Elite.
Clicking on the WeatherBug Elite icon on your iPhone will launch the following splash screen:
WeatherBug Elite Splash Screen
As soon as the data is loaded, you are presented with the main screen. From here, you’ll be given information about conditions in the default area you choose. For me, these are the conditions in Tucson, AZ. Current temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity and dew point are some of the data available. You also get a nice little graphic that indicates wind speed and direction. Below that is an indication of any active alerts, a synopsis of the current forecast, and buttons for other features at the bottom of the screen.
WeatherBug Elite Main Screen
Clicking on the forecast button gives you a synopsis of the coming days. You can get more detailed information for each part of the day – morning and evening – by clicking on the high and low temperature sections. Not only can you get the next seven days worth of forecasts, but you can also check out things on an hourly basis.
WeatherBug Elite Forecast Page
WeatherBug Elite Forecast Details
Now comes my absolute favorite part – data on maps! I spend a lot of time on this page when storms are in the area, and when I want to know how long until we get rain! WeatherBug Elite does an excellent job displaying data on maps provided by Microsoft Virtual Earth. In addition to the radar/satellite data, you can also get local conditions of a particular area by clicking on a pushpin already in the map, or by pushing and holding on an area you are interested in, placing a pushpin there, and then getting the local data. Unfortunately, WeatherBug Elite does not work in landscape mode, so you have to pinch/pull in order to get the area you want to look at. But, the data is awesome, and this is my favorite page!
WeatherBug Elite Maps
WeatherBug Elite provides you many different layers for your maps, including temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, IR satellite, visible satellite, radar, tomorrow’s high temp and tomorrow’s low temp. You can adjust the opacity of the layers, and you can even remove all dropped pins with a single tap!
For those of you who like video weather reports, WeatherBug Elite has that as well. Click on the video button at the bottom, and you are presented with the latest WeatherCast from Rachel.
WeatherBug Elite WeatherCast
I’ll admit, I’ve never actually watched a WeatherCast, so I can’t yet comment on it.
Finally, on the last page, you can check out cameras for the areas you have set. I have seen up to three cameras for a particular area, and they are generally of pretty good quality. That depends largely, I suspect, on the area you live in. I think these are typically cameras that local weather forecasters use as well.
WeatherBug Elite Camera View
All in all, I believe WeatherBug Elite is fully worth the $0.99 I had to pay for it. I started with the free version of WeatherBug, which gives you essentially the same features, but includes ads. Spending nintey-nine cents to remove the adds, and get a few more features, seemed like a good investment to me.
If you have an iPhone, and like to stay up with the current weather, but require more information than just current temperature and high/low, then you can’t really go wrong with WeatherBug Elite. I’ve fond it to be stable, useful application, and became very quickly addicted to the maps feature. I don’t think you can go wrong by giving it a try!
The monsoons have arrived in Southern Arizona, and I’m loving every drop of rain, every bolt of lighting and clap of thunder. We have had some AWESOME storms so far! I’m out trying to take some decent lighting pictures…you can check out the latest pics here (proudly hosted at SmugMug!).
As a novice storm chaser, I’ve been learning a lot about what it takes to actually form a thunderstorm each day. Fortunately, some local weather forecasters (ErinJordanKOLD, PickeringKOLD and ChuckGeorgeKOLD) have been providing daily storm updates on Twitter, and have parsed out some science knowledge at the same time. One of the things they constantly mention, and which is an important component of thunderstorm formation, is dew point.
According to Wikipedia, “dew point is the temperature to which a given parcel of air must be cooled, at constant barometric pressure, for water vapor to condense into water (all links courtesty of copying from Wikipedia).” Dew point is also associated with relative humidity, in that a high relative humidity indicates that the dew point is closer to the current air temperative. As noted above, dew point is given in degrees (for instance the current dew point temperature in Tucson is 51F). A relative humidity of 100% means that the dew point temperature (temp at which dew forms) is equal to the current temperature, and that the air is maximally saturated with water (can hold no more water, and thus condenses).
Dew point is important for reasons other than storm formation. The higher the dew point, the more uncomfortable it feels outside. In periods of high relative humidity and high dew points, the ability for sweat to evaporate from the body decreases, which reduces the cooling effect related to sweating. That tends to make us hotter, and makes being outside a bit more dangerous.
That’s all good info, but I really wanted to know how dew point influences thunderstorm formation, because I simply love those storms! With an estimated 40,000 thunderstorms occurring world-wide on any given day, and the high occurrence of such storms in areas where factors influence dew point, there must be a correlation, and a direct one at that.
Turns out that dew point plays a great role in thunderstorm formation. There are three factors – moisture, instability, and a lifting mechanism – that contribute to thunderstorm formation. Typically in the Southwest United States (Arizona in specific), dew point levels are very low…in the teens or lower. But each summer a shift in air flow occurs, drawing moisture up from Mexico. That infusion of moisture into the atmosphere leads to higher dew points, and when they have reached the mid-50s for three consecutive days, then the monsoon has officially begun!
Dew point is essentially the low level moisture that actually fuels thunderstorm development. Severe thunderstorms are more likely to occur when the dew point is 55F or higher, providing more potential fuel for the storm as the dew point increases. There are other moisture factors as well, which change in significance as you move higher in the atmosphere. But, for purposes of this discussion, it’s the low level stuff that counts.
So, there you have it. The more moisture in the lower levels, the higher the dew point, the greater the chances of a thunderstorm developing!