2017 failed to produce the grapes and now the wine lovers will be served some whine instead.  Though 25 billion liters of wine was produced it was 1.7 billion short of 2016.  Weather was mostly to blame.  Europe had ill timed freezes, hail then drought,  Both South Africa and California's crop were devastated by wildfires.  Quality has suffered as some blending of better and not so palatable is bringing flavor down a notch.  The price of cheaper wine is already having a disproportionately larger percent increase.  Wine stats can be found here.

Drivers rescued from flood waters at Maitland-Winter Park line WESH 2 News

Locally there has been some heavy rain.  A messed up drainage situation can turn deadly around here.  Luckily people were on hand to fish others out of this car drowning trap on 17/92 at the Maitland-Winter Park line.  They even saved Elvis..check out that license plate.

The one in Fort Walton Beach tossing debris in the water was something..

An 18 year old blind and nearly deaf dog stayed with a 3 year old that wandered off on New South Wales.  The child was lost through a night of rain and 50F weather.  In the morning when searchers got near, the dog ran to them and guided them back to the girl.

Wind is up tonight and from the east for a change.  After watching the day go by with showers coming in off the Atlantic to the south and north, finally Melbourne's turn came this evening.  The wind hitting the east trees, the way it comes in waves off the ocean with certain sounds, reminds tropical season is nigh.  Still has a cool touch to it, subtropical like.  The switch is on.  All the outdoor lettuce got too hot last week and has since been eaten.  Some bush bean are up, a few squash & the tomatoes should be coming in soon.  Blueberries have been very good this year.  Looks like thousands of Surinam cherries coming.

Looking at GEOS-5, shows some long lived storm energy that is currently over the Midwest and Mississippi Valley.  Has it coming to the Gulf of Mexico, then getting swept up in a front that it dominates.  The tail of that and another front forms the possible sub-tropical low people are swirl watching on models in ~240hrs out in the Atlantic.  The GFS has liked it a bit as well.  Below is the real time viewfrom CIMSS.

4-21-2018 Childress, TX Large Hail, Accident, Hail Fog Live Storms Media

As a cold front pushes into the plains and south the atmosphere is destabilizing a bit this week.  So far today there has been only one wind report to the Storm Prediction Center with trees damaged and limbs snapped in Sebastian, AK.  Later today there is a slight risk across parts of Texas with marginal risk extending over a large area from The Four Corners thru Texas & back up into Ohio.  Mississippi River Basin is taking more rain.  They should have near completely closed the Bonnet Carre Spillway from the last flood.  With this rain forecast it was announced the other day that a second opening may happen.  It would be the first time ever it was opened twice in one year.

GEOS-5 has today's worst weather in Oklahoma.  Wednesday still looks like the most severe day and concentrates it in Texas.  Thursday has the worst now over coastal Texas, with lesser thru Louisiana, Mississippi & more severe in Tennessee.

Cyclone NORA has degraded into a remnant low but much of it's water remains over Queensland & Northern Australia.  40 people were rescued from two Cairns caravan parks in the flood.  The youtube below captures some of what is described here, where the campers were smashed into buildings from that event when 100mm of rain fell in a minute.

floods in Cairns, Tropical cyclone Nora damage, inundations Queensland , North Australia Cities of the World
Published on Mar 27, 2018floods in Cairns, Tropical cyclone Nora damage, inundations Queensland , North AustraliaQueensland damage,
queensland storm,
Australian cyclone,
Australia Cyclone Nora

The two most prominent features of the coming week's weather are some fun swirl watching in the Atlantic and severe storms, the worst probably being in Texas and Oklahoma.

The swirl watching should come from the storm over the Mid-Atlantic states.  It should push off over the Carolinas.  When it first spins up and has the most convection it should be half frozen.  Once it detaches from everything and warms up as a storm, it weakens.  NASA's model never shows this firing from the center so it shouldn't make any sort of Sub-tropical classification.

Wednesday and Thursday may be severe weather days for Texas with some spilling into Oklahoma.  Thursday night into Friday the system moves east some as other part of the south begin to take bad weather..notably bad is Mississippi.

NOAA announced today the Kenneth Graham would be the next Director of the National Hurricane Center, starting April 1st.  He has been at the NWS New Orleans-Baton Rouge office since 2008.  With his experience working coastal offices from Maryland to Texas and in events like Katrina to the Gulf Oil Spill, he looks qualified and recommended by his co-workers.

The $1.3 trillion spending package that Congress just approved includes $122 million for NOAA to acquire backup aircraft for its older fleet of "hurricane hunter" jets.

Comedian and producer Byron Allen bought the Weather Channel TV network for $300million.  This was just the television portion of what used to be part of The Weather Company before Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and Comcast Corp. broke them up and sold the digital assets to IBM.  Byron Allen has been putting together a network and is planning on investing farther into the Weather Channel including having more local reports.

Bad night for severe weather across parts of the south tonight.   The worst is across north Alabama, moving into north Georgia overnight.  So far the hail winner is GILES TN with 2.5in tennis ball size.  Wind reports show alot of trees down.  Some were suspected tornadoes, others straight line or rear flank downdraft winds.  Added some tornado footage videos out of Alabama below.

Tornado footage from Falkville, Alabama AL.com
Published on Mar 19, 2018Special thanks to Cody Kustermann for the footage

Tornado in Russellville, Alabama. AL.com
Published on Mar 19, 2018Credit: @paulcannol Instagram

Massive Tornado near Red Bay, Alabama | Mar 19, 2018 Breaking Disaster
Published on Mar 19, 2018#ALwx #RedBay #Russellville

Overall hail events have been up on the up tick this last week.  It's probably aided by the turbulent change in season.  Spring and Fall are times when hail is more prevalent as is during the sort of wavy jet stream pattern that we are in now.  I went to check the Global Wind Oscillation..in certain phases it helps hail readily form in certain areas.  It looks like the GWO plotting ended when the scientists that supported the pages retired.

Pakistan had hail accumulate in Parachinar city and surrounding areas.  The hail flattened crops and damaged orchards mostly.

San Carlos, CA also saw a rare hail, it even accumulated.

Intense Hail Storm in San Carlos, California | Mar 17, 2018
Breaking News
Published on Mar 17, 2018

Hail hit hard in Lesotho's southern Quthing district where a group of School children were caught out in the open.  They suffered wounds to mostly heads and hands.  Below is video of the event where the flooding sweeps up a truck with 10 people, 6 manage to escape or be saved from the flood.

At least 15 people have died across Kenya due the heavy rains that have fallen over much of the country. 

Flooding in Kenya merkeju
Published on Mar 16, 2018

It is pretty far out in time but disturbing to see, all that deep red over the Arctic.  It's extreme southern counter part looks alarming as well with warm anomalies over Eastern Antarctica and what is most likely cold melt water/ice causing the sharp cooler anomalies just offshore.

It has La Nina holding on thru June.  With ESPI falling again recently La Nina conditions looks pretty certain thru at least May.  The next few months overall look less extreme but a little on the warm side.

The precipitation forecast looks overall a little less extreme than some recent years with larger anomalies over the Pacific Ocean.  Hints to be a heavy monsoon year for Bay of Bengal and Philippines may see closer to their normal numbers of cyclones.  Note that these too graphics have far different anomaly amounts for the colors.

Cyclone Hola has been small yet powerful.  It's been traipsing islands leaving flooding and wind damage.  It may affect New Zealand next.

Weather is wild in the Northeast tonight with a huge storm offshore.  Looking at Boston, MA storm reports 89mph wind recorded in NANTUCKET MA by HAM RADIO.  There has been deaths from the trees falling, another injured.. *** 1 INJ *** TREE DOWN ON TO CAR ON 69 FLAGG STREET.  There is damage..NORFOLK MA AMATEUR RADIO ROSS SCHOOL ROOF BLOWN OFF THE BUILDING, SOUTH MIDDLE SCHOOL ROOF BLOWN OFF BUILDING AND LARGE TREE DOWN ON INDEPENDENCE AVENUE.  Seeing alot of coastal flooding in ESSEX MA, I't's cut through the dunes and rolling down Broadway, many other streets are closed due to the surge.  This a large scale storm surge event that extends south DARE NC WATER ACROSS COLINGTON ROAD IN KILL DEVIL HILLS.

Overall 5 has died so far.  Airports, trains and most transportation is shut down.  This is a huge dangerous storm, one to take shelter from.

Images above will update when the page is refreshed. 

StormChasingVideo
Published on Mar 2, 2018A powerful nor'easter floods many streets in Broad Channel, NY and creates dangerous seas along the south shore of Long Island in the Rockaways.
Shot Description

Published on Mar 2, 2018
From Dead-End Street" out on Friday 13th October 2017 via Finisterian Dead End Records (CD), Delete Your Favorite Records & Riot Bike Records (LP).