Ticker for September 23, 2024

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
September 23, 2024 September 23, 2024 September 23, 2024 September 23, 2024


Moo dangit!




Some got a lot, a lot got some, and too many got too little...but it was rain,
right? And it DID finally usher in fall. Proof? Well, we have data, of course, but
the biggest sign? I wore SWEATS to the movies yesterday instead of shorts.

SCIENCE!

Oh yeah...data.







Experiences varied yesterday, of course, depending on where you were relative to
the rain and the front.



The big news now, other than Fall falling on us, is the possibility of a
tropical system forming into a tropical storm...Helene it will be called if
it does form later this week. And it apparently has the Florida Coast in its
sights.





And while we won't see a direct impact here in Oklahoma, some of the model
solutions have it rotating around an upper-low over Arkansas and headed towards
us, which might mean some rainfall...at least across eastern Oklahoma!





That counter-clockwise rotation between the two cyclonic circulations is known
as the "Fujiwhara effect," made somewhat famous in "Twisters," and also it's
believed to have occurred in some recent tornadoes in Oklahoma. It happens when
two cyclones (like hurricanes or tropical storms) get close to each other.
Instead of just moving independently, they start to interact and spin around a
common center, almost like a dance. If they get really close, one storm might
absorb the other, making the combined storm stronger. But if they stay at a
moderate distance, they’ll keep rotating around each other before eventually
going their separate ways.

It's like if you get me and a table of chocolate spinning around each other,
except in this case I will definitely absorb that chocolate.

Gary McManus
State Climatologist
Oklahoma Mesonet
Oklahoma Climate Survey
gmcmanus@ou.edu