Did Landing Planes Cause Some Weird Little Waterspouts Near Boston's Logan Airport?

Hard to see in this screen grab, but a strange
waterspout is seen approaching shore in
a bay in South Boston. The theory is that
planes landing at nearby Logan Airport
helped set off the strange phenomenon. 

Something strange happened not far from Boston's Logan airport earlier this week. 

This was at Castle Island In South Boston, in a cover of water known as Pleasure Bay. It appeared two waterspouts approaching shore there Tuesday morning.

Video of the incident is at the bottom of this post. 

It's not completely clear from the video, it looks like the two waterspouts, or whatever they were, spun in opposite directions as they both advanced toward shore.

 It seemed like a bit of a mystery, since atmospheric conditions didn't seem conducive to waterspouts.  

There were some rain and snow showers in the area around 8 or 9 a.m.. But they didn't seem the type of thing that would spawn waterspouts.  And it appears the video was taken around 6:30 a.m or so.

On key thing: It appears the area where the waterspout like features appeared was in the flight path of low flying aircraft heading northbound to land at nearby Logan airport. 

The theory is that exhaust from at least one of the low-flying planes somehow reached down and formed a sort of air whirlpool or two which sustained themselves one the plane was gone. 

Obviously, this whole thing wasn't strong enough to cause damage or danger, but it was an example of how the strangest things can cause some local weather effects.  

Click on this link to view the video. If you see the image below, click on that. 

 

No Atlantic Hurricanes Now At Peak Of Season: How Did We Get So Lucky?

Hurricane Erin is so far the only Atlantic hurricane
this year. We've entered a very odd period of no
tropical storms at what should be the
peak of hurricane season. 

Each year, on September 10, there is usually at least one tropical storm or hurricane somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.  

After all, today's date is the statistical peak of hurricane season. This year: Crickets.  

For a few days now, the main map on the National Hurricane Center map has stated. "Tropical activity is not expected during the next 7 days."

This is the first September 10 since 2016 without a tropical storm or hurricane. Only a handful of September 10s in the past half century without an Atlantic tropical storm.

This year, the last time there was a tropical storm was the day weak Tropical Storm Fernand died out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without hurting anyone. 

The fact there is no hurricane currently in the Atlantic to menace anyone is great news. We've had enough of that in recent years. But meteorologists are sort of scratching their heads as to why there are no tropical systems out there.

Water temperatures where hurricanes would form are well above average. Since hurricanes thrive on warm water, this should encourage these storms. Right now, it's not. 

The problem for hurricanes is probably a large area of stable, dry air over the Atlantic.  You usually get the dry air early in the season but the atmosphere gets more moist by September. So far, that really hasn't happened all that much. 

Hurricane Erin did take advantage of increased moisture last month, but it's gotten dry again. There were concerns a system in the eastern Atlantic could form into a tropical storm a few days ago. But it ran into that dry air and completely fell apart.

We are falling behind normal in a year that was expected to give us slightly more tropical storms and hurricanes than usual. Six named storms have formed this year, which is two fewer than average by September 9. And only one of them strengthened into a hurricane. 

This is the second year on a row there was almost no tropical storm activity near the peak of hurricane season. Last year, there were no named storms between August 13 and September 8, which was the first time since 1967 there was nothing in that period of time. 

Of course, things took a tragic turn afterwards, later in the season with Hurricanes Helene and Milton. 

As of yesterday, we've had 16 days in the Atlantic with no named storms. That looks like it might go to at least 23 days, as nothing is forecast through next Monday. 

There were also quiet periods during peak season in 2020 and 2022. That's leading to speculation that maybe climate change is messing with hurricanes in ways we hadn't realized. We do know that when hurricanes form, they've tended to get stronger as they've been supercharged by extra warm Atlantic waters.

But maybe climate change somehow reduces the number of storms that do form, at least near the peak of the season. We don't really know why.  

One theory is the lapse rate - how fast the air temperature falls as you gain altitude.  The thunderstorms that power developing tropical storms need a steep lapse rate, meaning the temperature decreases sharply with height. 

There generally isn't as big a difference than usual this year between surface temperatures and readings many thousands of feet overhead. Is climate change doing that?  Researchers probably want to look into it. 

\As Bob Henson and Jeff Masters write in Yale Climate Connections, a deep dip in the jet stream that's been contributing to drought here in Vermont would have helped steer tropical storms or hurricanes away from the U.S. over the past couple weeks had they formed. 

Now, the pattern is changing with a northward bulge in the jet stream expected to form over the eastern U.S. and western Atlantic Ocean. If a hurricane were to form over the next couple weeks, that pattern would make it a bit more likely for a tropical storm or hurricane to head toward the United States.

So we should hope the hurricane drought continues. 

Last year, as mentioned, the hurricane season perked up in dramatic fashion after the midseason lull. In 2022 the lull came a little later in the season, after devastating Hurricane Ian.  There were several tropical storms and a couple hurricanes after Ian, but those mostly formed late in the season - October and November. 

I guess all we can do this year is whatever is keeping hurricanes from forming in the Atlantic keeps it up. Then again, up here in drought-stricken Vermont, I wouldn't mind the heavy rainfall from a dying tropical storm.  

Mysterious Tiny Vermont Snowstorm Defies Explanation

While most of Vermont got virtually no snow
on New Year's Eve, a small pocket near
Stowe and Waterbury mysteriously 
received several inches. Photo via
Facebook, Scott Brazen/NWS Burlington

 File this under "The weather always surprises."

Remember how I told you on the afternoon of New Year's Eve that things would be great on Vermont roads?  All we had to worry about was a few flurries and a low overcast. 

That forecast proved true for probably 99 percent of Vermont. 

But a small area along the lower reaches of Route 108 in Stowe, part of Route 100 between Waterbury and Stowe, and a small section of Interstate 89 in Waterbury got a snowstorm New Year's Eve. 

During the day and into the night, that tiny area received up to six, seven, eight inches of snow. The snow just kept falling all afternoon and most of the night.  

The roads in this little zone were snow covered and slippery. Meanwhile, just a few miles up the road in any direction from this snow zone, it was just flurries with pretty much bare ground. 

So what happened?

I have no idea. This tiny little snowstorm has Vermont meteorologists scratching their heads.  This was a weird one.

On New Year's Eve, there was a northwest flow of air, which had a bit of moisture in it. Often in the winter, that situation unloads a few inches of snow on the western slopes of the Green Mountains. The slopes force the air to rise. The rising air cools, moisture condenses and that can lead to that snow on the western slopes. It's very common in Vermont. 

But on New Year's Eve, the condition were not quite right for western slope snow. Those areas all received just a half inch of snow or less.  

Now, the theory of what happened around Stowe  needs you to imagine a submerged boulder in a fast-flowing river. The rushing water goes up and over the boulder.  And then there's a series of waves below the boulder, sort of echoes of the initial wave.  The waves all stay in one place, so they're called standing waves.

Mount Mansfield and the rest of the Green Mountains were doing the same thing as that submerged boulder in the river.  

The air having reached the summit, flowed down the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains. Sinking air usually helps prevent rain or snow, so it's not surprising the immediate eastern slopes of the mountains weren't getting much snow. The ski runs at Mount Mansfield Resort were barely dusted.

Once past those eastern slopes, the air began rising again, the first of those downstream waves.  Remember, rising air helps create snow. 

But, if the northwest wind's first encounter with the western slopes of the Green Mountains manufactured almost no snow, how did the snow develop at the down stream wave in the air?  And why just in that spot and not elsewhere?

My best guess - and it's only a guess - is convergence.  Perhaps the terrain in that spot squeezed the air from either side, funneling it into a narrow space.  Maybe the combination of rising air, and that rising air being compressed from either side was enough to produce snow?  

Under the right conditions, convergence can really boost snow totals. Burlington's greatest snowstorm, 33.1 inches, on January 3, 2010.  Most of Vermont just had a moderate snowstorm that day, the usual six to 12 inches in most areas.

But in Burlington, moist north winds coming from Quebec got squeezed between the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains. That added to lift in the atmosphere so it snowed like hell. (Also, moisture off of Lake Champlain helped boost the snow that day, too). 

By the way, the Stowe-area mini-storm might not have been the only one in Vermont on New Year's Eve. There was a report from Victory, in the Northeast Kingdom, of a local spot with up to six inches of snow, with nothing just two miles away from that location.