Chinook

Best wind speeds/gusts Buoy 42039: 40mph gusts Buoy 42012 (Orange beach): 40 mph gusts Buoy 42040: 27 mph gusts Pensacola Naval air station (Airport KNPA): 36 mph gusts Destin Airport: 33 mph Orange Beach/Gulf Shores: 23 mph gusts wave heights peaked at 17 ft at Buoy 42039 This is not really super amazing, with only 40 mph gusts. The convective core is already close to Gulf Shores and Pensacola. How many more hours can it go before landfall? Maybe 6 or 7 hours.

Tornado reported at Vinton, IA, possibly continuing eastward a few miles right now.

Typhoon Jebi has been analyzed by the JTWC as 80 kt (down from 90 kt earlier today) and will most likely make landfall on Japan at Shikoku, (one of the 4 main Japanese islands,) west of Kyoto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikoku

Considering the past several days of precip, some areas of IA/WI are already above 150% of normal for a 30-day time period (Aug 3- Sep 2). That generally gives indicators of where creeks and rivers are above normal or currently flooding. Some sections of Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas are in D1 - D4 drought, but many of those drought designations will change with the current and future heavy rains. Some areas of Michigan are in D0 - D2 drought. Maybe a few positive changes in Michigan are coming up.

I found out something kind of interesting. Football games Nebraska vs. Akron. and Iowa State vs. South Dakota State were football games canceled for impending severe weather and lightning. (Lincoln NE and Ames IA)

Norman, last evening at 0035z, when the NHC analyzed this at 130 kt

I just saw a tweet about Super Typhoon Jebi, affecting the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Territory.

Friday/ Saturday. We have had some upper 80's to 90 on these days. Friday, the visibility was very poor again. My estimate is that the visibility was 4-5 miles on Friday, perhaps improving towards evening. Saturday, the visibility improved greatly to a fairly normal 20-40 miles. Here is my pic of the peak.

Overall, some positive things have happened. Some areas of 0.5" to 1.5" in Colorado and Utah provided some drought relief in the short term. Northwest Colorado had been extremely dry.

Monday: mid 70's with no clouds. It would have been nice, but the smoke was so thick that the visibility was 2-3 miles. There was a smell of smoke in the air. Trace of rain, Monday night. The air quality index showed "unhealthy" values. Tuesday, high of 71 and cloudy. Smoke was still here, with visibility 4-8 miles, with no smell of smoke. Trace to 0.01" of rain. Wednesday, mid 70's again. We had partly sunny conditions. At 7:30 PM, Long's Peak was (finally) visible to me without haze. 20-40 mile visibility. There were some rain showers over the mountains at times. Weather models overestimated rainfall here. Precipitation since Sunday has been very weak here, but 0.3" to 0.5" in some areas

This is an extremely well organized hurricane now. The CPHC put the latest intensity at 115 kt, which is higher than a day ago. Unfortunately, this may not pass by Hawaii as Hurricane Hector did, not long ago. Looks like the 96 hr track is relatively close to Honolulu

There have already been 2 confirmed tornadoes (MO, OK) today, and according to the northernmost tornado warning, another radar-confirmed tornado in Missouri, with some other possible tornadoes

Hurricane Lane has strengthened considerably since becoming a tropical storm recently. Here is the satellite image at 0000z (Aug 18). This shows a pretty strong storm on the IR image. This is another situation when the GOES-E view of this storm is becoming useless (soon) due to its far-west longitude. 200PM Pacific time, 95 kt. This became a tropical storm at 800AM Pacific time, Aug 15th, so not too long ago.

I'm sad to hear that W. Colorado and Utah are remaining in drought. Grand Junction had 0.08" of rain in July (average is 0.61"). Around here, we had some decent rains in Loveland on Tuesday, with trace-0.20" in Fort Collins also. There were rain showers some of the city and foothill areas on Tuesday. These past 2 or 3 days have continued to have moderate to high smoke (vertically integrated smoke, if you look at HRRR-smoke model) My view of the Mummy Range and Long's Peak has been blocked since yesterday. The peaks seem to have disappeared.

I finally captured the weird red sky at sunset - it's just a little influenced by the wildfire smoke

KFWS radar storm totals for the last 48 hrs. Perhaps some areas of Texas will be changed from D3 drought to D2 drought.

Supposedly, the smoke concentration wasn't even that bad today, but then you still get Long's Peak looking like a ghost contrast-enhanced

KFWS storm total precipitation in the past 2 days and 9 hours

Finally, Texas has already seen some moderate rains this morning, and should have more in the short term

Yesterday, I drove about 1 mi from my place of Loveland to see if I could get a good picture to the south. (thunder/hail) then I got some big splatty drops. Then I ran back to my car. Then I got this picture about 1/2 or 1 hour later, of a hailstorm that tracked into Loveland and then went southeast.

perhaps another severe storm, 70dbz, hail, near Mayjawintastawm

Vertical cumulus clouds in the evening light. What you can't see from this picture: the Mummy Range, which is normally visible. Today there were some supercells with 2-3" hail over the plains of NE Colorado.

Central Pacific Hurricane Center:

Thanks, I guess that floaters web site is hidden pretty well, but you found it. Hector is up to 120 kt. It seems that the Atlantic is unlikely to produce a highly active season, but this Cat-4 storm might be scaring some Hawaiians, to some degree

Anybody remember this? A blast from the past. Currently, this forum doesn't really look or feel a lot different. But I would suspect there were more in-depth weather conversations going on in 2004 or 2005 or something.