>UNUSUAL HAPPENINGS ALONG THE US GULF COAST, WHAT TIME OF YEAR IS IT?

A very interesting weather situation is unfolding in the southern Gulf of Mexico as a strong category 2 Hurricane Ida is starting to create a stir along the US Gulf Coast between Mississippi and the Florida panhandle. It was said that once off the Central American coast, this storm would indeed return to hurricane status since it was destined to cross the 85 degree plus warm water of the Caribbean Sea and over the loop current but now it appears to becoming increasingly likely that Ida may in fact not only touch cat 3 “Major status” but hit the US coast as a hurricane, quite amazing for November.

We do indeed have Hurricane Warnings posted now from the Mississippi Gulf coast to Florida’s westerb Gulf coast. We may see rapid transformation into an extra-tropical system even prior to a US landfall as the atmospheric environment for November is very hostile as the westerlies are much stronger, the upper-levels are colder and this could create a major issue as far as winds go. Very much a summer-like environment within the Gulf and air temps at the surface but a much different mid and upper-level environment as we are now into November now.

The future os Ida takes this towards the Northeast coast as there we may see a strong Nor’easter which I believe could pull in cold air from southern Canada and bring an intense blizzard to INTERIOR Northeast with coastal gales and flooding from the coast into the big cities.

More on Ida soon…

I’m lovin it! Winter has arrived here with a heavy frost out there and an outside temperature of 28 degrees. A blanket of freezing fog has also settled in. in reaction to dew point and temperature coming together as well as the warmth stored within the nearby Forth-Clyde canal, other bodies of water and the low lying fields and solar warmth absorbed within the ground. We tend to get heavy fog form here with our valley-type topography with the hills directly north of our house and a set of smaller hills southeast of the house with a broader valley south of us, robably part of the larger Clyde valley which really makes up the central belt of lowland Scotland where much of the population live between Glasgow to the west and Edinburgh to the east.

So, we should get a little colder here than Glasgow because of the urban heat island but with us living right at the foot oh hills, cold air at night should swoosh down the Campsies and the hills of Lennox Forest, draining the colder air over us. Our low was 27 degrees at 3.30am as I took a peek at the thermometer then, however, for a time it may have bottomed out at 26 degrees.

As stated before, these cold nights don’t mean winter is here but more the time of year is catching up. The pattern remains Atlantic driven, i.e. the cold we have outside right now is because in-between Atlantic low’s small pockets of clear, calm air settle and therefore allowing us to drop of at night, we do have a new weather system already knocking at our western door and by tomorrow morning heavy rains should be pushing across the country, a another, stronger Atlantic depression is between this one coming onshore right now and is expecting to bring heavy rains but also stronger winds, so gales are likely Tues-Wed. The pattern of unsettled, farly mild weather is still the mainstay and I believe it should continue for at least until mid to late month before a potential dominance from a more Arctic origin air mass.