TV Meteorologist Warns Viewers Of Tornadoes As Fire Burns In The Studio His Reporting From

Meterologist Noah Simmons was engulfed in smoke and
fire extinguisher discharge after a fire in the studio that
broke out when he was warning Fort Smith, Arkansas
area residents of impending tornadoes. At least the
green screen was clear, so you could see the radar images.

Have you ever seen that Gary Larson cartoon that shows a building that's on fire, floating down a river and about to go over a waterfall? The sign on that unlucky building says "Crisis Clinic."  

Meteorologist Noah Simmons must have felt like he was in that Crisis Clinic last Saturday.  He was tracking tornadoes that were menacing the Fort Smith, Arkansas area. Then a studio light caught fire.

Full video is at the bottom of this post, but we'll set you up with the run down. 

Since Simmons was dealing with two tornado warnings on Saturday night June 6. A studio light caught fire during this emergency, and producers worked to put the blaze out. 

"So we just had a fire in the studio, but we got two tornado warnings....So we got to keep tracking this and covering this live," as he covered his nose with a button down shirt as he was broadcasting. 

Most of the "smoke" viewers saw was discharge from fire extinguishers.

As People reported, Simmons first noticed some lights flickering in the studio "Five, 10 seconds later, I start to smell a bit of smoke....That's not normal.'

A few seconds later the light in the studio caught fire. 

Simmons was the only person in the studio when the fire started. That's why you see him sort of walk off camera a bit and say, "Guys, we have a fire happening in the studio right now." 

A producer came in armed with a fire extinguisher to douse the flames. The smoke and especially the stuff from the fire extinguisher made it hard to breathe, which is why you see in the video that he pulls his white button down shirt up over his mouth and nose. 

"When you're tracking two tornadoes at the time, I felt there was a need to keep going," Simmons told People .

The radar images showing the tornado-producing storms was clear as it was a green screen image not affected by the smoke. But Simmons, pointing out features on the radar screen,  appears to be in a thick haze.

Simmons said he had a tickle in his throat and watery eyes the day after the incident, but was OK. He said the station had been "gracious" in giving him medical attention.

As it turns out, three EF-1 tornadoes touched down around Fort Smith. EF-1 tornadoes have winds of between 86 and 110 mph. 

The television station in Fort Smith was not the only one dealing with very local disasters. On May 25, television station WDHN in Dothan, Alabama was hit by and EF-1 tornado that damaged the building as you can see in this video. 

Here's the video of meteorologist Noah Simmons dealing with tornadoes and in-studio smoke all at the same time.  Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

Watch House Get Struck By Lightning, Burn Down

A home burns in Spring, Texas shortly after a 
lightning strike. Not all lightning strikes cause fires
like this but once they get going, the
blazes can move pretty fast.

 It's amazing how quickly a lightning strike can can cause chaos.

 Thunderstorms rumbled through the Houston area last Friday, typical weather in that humid part of the nation. 

But lightning is always dangerous and often destructive, and we have a classic case here. Doorbell cameras caught lightning hitting a house. Within minutes, almost the entire roof was in flames.

It looks like a somewhat newer house, and this type modern wood frame homes seem to burn down awfully fast once they catch.  

Watch the videos: 

The first video shows a house being struck by lightning in Spring, Texas, a suburb north of Houston. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Moments have the strike, the house looked like what you see in the next video. The house is essentially a total loss, even though neighbors called the fire department immediately after the strike and those firefighters got there quickly. 

The roof and attic are gone, and I'm sure the rest of the house is trashed by heat, fire, smoke and water. 

Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

I had a little trouble finding reliable statistics on house fires caused by lightning. One source, lightningrods.com, could well have an agenda, but here's what they said 

They claim that one in 200 homes are hit by lightning annually, though many of those don't cause fires. Lightningrods,com also say that between 2014-2018 U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated 22,600 fires started by lightning. 

That statistic didn't break down what percentage were in homes, businesses, other buildings and no buildings at all. It looks like that was the most recent data available, too.

Up here in Vermont, we don't have nearly as many thunderstorms as, say, Florida and Texas, so we're somewhat safer from these house fires. Unfortunately, though, you never know, 

On the bright side, no lightning storms are in the forecast until at least Saturday, and thunderstorm season up here will soon draw to a close, 

 

When Forecasts Unfortunately Come True: Destructive California Wildfires, And Trouble In The East

Unfortunately, as expected, destructive wildfires
broke out in southern California Wednesday and
they continued today. 

The worst fears were realized in southern California Wednesday when an explosive wildfire blasted through Camarillo, California, destroying dozens of homes. 

Wildfires had been predicted, as strong Santa Ana winds propelled 60 mph gusts through canyons and dropped humidity levels to rock bottom levels.

It was a scene of chaos in Camarillo, as the fire hopscotched through neighborhood after neighborhood. Embers flying in the gales would set some houses on fire, while others next door remained unscathed.

Given the chaotic evacuations from the rapidly advancing fire.  The fire was moving so fast that crews had to rush people into fire engines to get them away from the blaze.  Fire victims said they had to flee so hastily that they didn't even have time to grab medication and important papers.

I'm surprised that so far, we have reports of only two injuries among residents. Both had smoke inhalation, and were taken to hospitals where they are expected to recover. 

In all, 14,000 people have been evacuated because of the wildfire.

During a Thursday morning aerial survey, KABC reporter Scott Reiff said he counted 83 homes destroyed by the fire. He might have missed some, and others might have been destroyed after he took his inventory. 

 At last report, 24 hours after the fire started, it was still listed as zero percent contained. 

Santa Ana winds are still gusty today, though not as intense as they were on Thursday. The humidity is still really low, too, so fires are spreading readily. The danger is expected to taper off some on Friday and weak, moist onshore winds are expected in southern California over the weekend and early next week.

The light winds and higher humidity should help firefighters make some gains against the wildfires. However, more strong, dry Santa Ana winds are possible next Wednesday and Thursday. 

EAST

Fires continued to burn in the eastern United States, too, but obviously not as severely as in California. 

One of the worst fires is in Jackson Township, New Jersey. The fire forced the evacuation of 25 threatened homes, but firefighters managed to protect the houses and the residents were allowed to move back in Wednesday night. 

Another wildfire broke out Thursday in a Philadelphia suburb and at last report it was threatening about 50 homes. 

Another wildfire burned for a fourth day near Blue Mountain, Pennsylvania. 

The wildfire risk is forecast to actually increase some Friday in a band from Maryland and Pennsylvania up into Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

Videos: 

News update from the morning after today. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Next video has mostly aerial views that give you a sense of how widespread the destruction is. Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:

 

Rare High Risk Tornado Alert In Midwest as Wild Weather Hits Much Of Nation

The map on the home page of the National Weather Service
is getting colorful again, which means there's a wide
variety of weather hazards in the nation today. 

 UPDATE 1:15 PM

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has issued a rare high risk alert for two areas in the nation's middle, as fears grow of violent, exceedingly dangerous and long lasting tornadoes.

The high risk zones center in one area near the Iowa/Illinois border and another one in northern Mississippi, southwestern Tennessee and eastern Arkansas 

High risk alerts like this are rare and basically a hair on fire alarm that powerful, deadly tornadoes are likely,

This is the first high risk tornado alert NOAA has issued since March, 2021. On average, a high risk alert is issued  two or three times a year, but some years  have none and a few years can have as many as six. 

A "Particularly Dangerous Tornado Watch has been issued for parts of Iowa, Illinois and Missouri, and one will probably be issues soon further south. Numerous supercells were poised to erupt in Iowa as of this writing. 

Also, the moderate risk area, the second highest severe weather alert, has been greatly expanded to include a broad area centered on the mid-Mississippi Valley. 

Pink areas are high risk areas today for violent, long-lasting
tornadoes. It's the first high risk alert since March 2021.
The red area is moderate risk for dangerous tornadoes and
severe weather, level four out of five levels of risk.
That's an unusually large area to be under moderate risk 

It's going to be a dangerous, potentially deadly afternoon and evening across the nation's middle.  We can only hope the strongest tornadoes stay in very rural areas and avoid cities and towns. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

A classic spring storm is bringing a huge variety of sometimes dangerous weather to much of the United States today. 

The biggest threat continues to be the possibility of some large, long lasting and intense tornadoes. The most likely targets for this are Iowa, western Illinois, and a big circle centered just about on Memphis, Tennessee.

There could be other tornadoes between these two higher danger areas, too.  I would say anybody who lives in the highest tornado danger area today and live in mobile homes or other comparatively weak structures should just move out today and hang out in someplace safer until the threat passes tonight. 

Large hail and destructive straight line winds in this region will get at some people who are fortunate to miss any tornadoes. I'm hoping we don't have a death toll like we had in Mississippi last Friday. 

Elsewhere, it's not quite as dangerous but still hair-raising. Outside the tornado risk zone, I'd give South Dakota the nod for the worst place to be today. 

This was the earlier severe weather outlook from this morning
showing only two patches of moderate risk, which is level
four out of five. Compared to the new map, you can see
how much worse things have gotten. 

The eastern half of South Dakota, except for the far southeastern corner, is under a blizzard warning today into tomorrow morning. Up to a foot of snow with gusts up to 55 mph are expected. 

To make matters worse, parts of the blizzard zone are in an ice storm warning, too.  Freezing rain threatens to pile up on trees and wires enough to make them break just before the blizzard conditions hit with those winds. Power outages and tree damage look to be pretty inevitable. 

Well south of this zone, strong, dry winds threaten to set off grass and rangeland fires in vast areas of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and western Missouri. 

Humidity will be in the bone-dry 10 to 20 percent range today as winds gust to over 50 mph. Meanwhile, flooding looks to be a problem in parts of the South today. 

Wind advisories and warnings cover probably a quarter of the nation from New Mexico to Pennsylvania. 

As you'll see in a separate post this morning that here in Vermont, the weather will be wonky as heck for the next couple of days. But at least it won't be super dangerous, so we can count our blessings. 

 

Winter Burn Piles Warm The Heart, The Eyes And the Psyche

An image from the brush pile at my house that I burned
away earlier this month. Wintertime bonfires are lovely. 

 Here at my St. Albans, Vermont, hacienda, we had to cut down a series of large poplar trees because they were dying and becoming a hazard. 

To save money, we told the tree cutters to leave the debris here and I'll take care of it. 

With great effort, because I need the exercise, I organized some of the debris into a burn pile. Once I set the fire, I just keep throwing branches and logs onto the fire. Once the burn pile gets really hot, it's amazing how efficiently even green wood burns. 

To dispel the question as to whether I'm wasting wood that could heat homes or be put to good use as wood products, unfortunately, poplar is junk wood. It's terrible for wood stoves and is even worse for furniture or other wood products, so it has to burn.

I like burning these piles in the winter, because there's snow on the ground. It's pretty much impossible for my fires to get out of hand that way.  

Another image from my recent burn pile/bonfire

And frankly, on even a moderately cold winter day, the heat from the fire has a unique comforting quality, much more so than the warmth inside my house, for some reason. 

When it gets dark, the slowly subsiding fire is especially hot, and the burning branches fascinate me.

 I think that's a human trait. We've always been obsessed with fire, ever since at least the day of the cave men. Watching a nighttime fire is absolutely mesmerizing. 

I still have a lot of tree debris to clean up, so there will be more fires this winter. 

For now, I have recent footage of my recent burn pile. Most of the video was taken in the evening, to get a sense of the scorching beauty of those hot burning logs, branches and embers.   

The video is below. If you don't see the image of it, click on this link to watch. Otherwise, click on the image below to view it on YouTube. 

Viral Video Of Wind Turbine Burning After Lightning Strike Highlights Danger Of Wind Farm Storms

A burning turbine, still spinning
creates smoke rings in Texas after
it was struck by lightning. Image
from the viral video of the incident

 You might have seen the viral video of a burning wind turbine in Texas burning and spewing black smoke rings after being struck by lighting. If you haven't seen it, or want to see it again, it's at the bottom of this post. 

I suppose it's not surprising that wind turbines are susceptible to lightning strikes. They poke up high into the air, and are festooned with electronic equipment. Lightning can strike easily, and if it does, it can do a lot of damage. 

It's not surprising that a German study concluded that lightning strikes account for 80 percent of wind turbine insurance claims. 

The turbine in the viral video was struck in a Crowell, Texas wind farm in July.  A strong thunderstorm in the area was spitting out tons of lightning strikes, and one of those bolts hit the turbine. 

According to Fox Weather:

"Crews with the Crowell Volunteer Fire Department responded, but Fire Chief Perry Shaw said there was little his firefighters could do to put the fire out.

'We're not equipped to handle that kind of fire. Nobody in the area really is to speak of,' Shaw said. 

The fire chief estimated there were 800 gallons of oil in the gearbox and around 1,300 gallons of mineral oil in the ground level transformer, which caused the smoke to appear dark black in the sky."

Nobody was hurt, and the fire did not affect any other turbines in the wind farm, which has 139 windmills.

When I think of Texas I think of oil wells, among other things. However, Texas produces more power from wind than any other state. There's more than 13,000 turbines in the Lone Star State. 

The video is pretty fascinating. The smoke rings continue for awhile, with one arm of the turbine on fire and the whole thing still spinning. Then the whole turbine just kind of melts and falls apart. 

The video: Click on this link to view it, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

California Lightning Barrage Sets New Fires. Also, Tropical Trouble

 Two days of rare northern and coastal California lightning have sparked a bunch of new wildfires as a record heat wave rolls on. 

It's certainly rough going out there this week. 

The thunderstorms only produced a little rain, but created lots of lightning strikes. The vegetation is bone dry, so even the bits of rain that came with the storms failed to prevent fires.

Summer lightning storms like this are extremely rare in the San Francisco Bay area and Napa Valley, so this is another example of weather off the rails.

As the Los Angeles Times reported: "'Wild night in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is probably the most widespread and violent summer thunderstorm event in memory for the Bay Area, & it's also one of the hottest nights in years,' tweeted Daniel Swain, climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research."

These types of thunderstorms are rare in California because the air is dry over land. The nearby ocean water is cool, which stabilizes the atmosphere. But moisture from a dying tropical storm made it northward all the way to the Bay Area.  The heat wave added to the unstable air mass, and thunderstorms blossomed.

Water temperatures along the coast of California are still cool, but warmer than normal, so that might have contributed as well.

By 4:30 a.m,  Sunday, firefighters were at seven brush fires in the Bay Area caused by lightning, the L.A. Times reported.  More storms and dry lightning hit on Monday. A video compilation of the lightning is at the bottom of this post. It's pretty cool.

This comes in the middle of a strong, long heat wave. Records highs have been set all up and down the West Coast in recent days.  After what might be a world heat record of 130 degrees Sunday in Furnace Creek, California, the town had a chillier day Monday as the high only reached 127 degrees.

Today, heat warnings and advisories are up for a huge area of the West from central and southern California, Arizona all the way up to Idaho and Montana.

Red flag warnings for high wildfire risks cover most of these same areas.

TROPICS HEATING UP

Right on cue, the Atlantic tropical storm machine is cranking up right about now, as forecasters have been telling us they would at this time.

Last week we had tropical storms Josephine and Kirk, both of which were really nothing burgers that didn't affect anybody on land to any extent. 

Right now, though, there are two storms brewing that seem to to warrant being put on the watch list. 

The first is a disturbance just about to head westward into the Caribbean Sea.  Its forward motion is so quick that the disturbance can't get its act together, so it's unimpressive now. The National Hurricane Center thinks this batch of showers will slow down and encounter better conditions to develop into something more serious in the western Caribbean in a few days. 

Further to the east out in the open Atlantic, an impressive cluster of storms moved off the coast of Africa a few days ago. This patch of storms is getting more organized, and a tropical storm should form out of this within a few days. 

It's way to early to know how, or even if, either of these wannabe storms will affect the United States or other populated areas.  However, both do show signs that they could hit land eventually.  The National Hurricane Center is certainly monitoring all this. The two wannabe storms will probably be featured in future posts of this here blog thingy.  

Video:

Different views of the California lightning: