Category: Weather and Climate

A Map of Wildfire Damage in Jasper, Alberta

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Municipality of Jasper

Fire forced the closure and evacuation of Jasper National Park this week, and the Jasper townsite itself was directly hit by flames on Wednesday. Parks Canada estimates about a third of the town’s structures have been destroyed. Municipal officials released a preliminary map today showing the damaged and destroyed buildings in the town. They stress that the information “is based on the damage that is visible from the street. We have not been inside buildings or seen the backside of properties. There may be additional damage to homes and businesses that isn’t visible from the street. Buildings marked as ‘not damaged’ on the map could also have internal damage caused by smoke and water. Consider this a preliminary description of properties affected in Jasper.” CBC News coverage.

Canada’s Early Wildfire Season

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
A map of northern North America showing atmospheric carbon monoxide concentrations that correlate with wildfires in northern Canada, from the European Space Agency.
European Space Agency

Another year, another map from the European Space Agency showing the extent of Canada’s wildfires based on data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite. It’s not nearly as bad as last year’s, but it’s way earlier. The above is a frame from an animated map showing carbon monoxide concentrations earlier this month. “The extremely high concentrations, depicted in dark shades of orange, can be linked to active fires during this time period.”

Previously: Two Ways to Visualize Canada’s Wildfires.

The Aurora Seen from Space

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
NASA Earth Observatory (Wanmei Liang)/Suomi NPP—VIIRS

A view of the aurora borealis from space, captured by the VIIRS instrument aboard the Suomi NPP satellite at 3:20 am CDT on 11 May 2024. NASA Earth Observatory:

The VIIRS day-night band detects nighttime light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, reflected moonlight, and auroras.

In this view, the northern lights appear as a bright white strip across parts of Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan. But auroras are dynamic, and different coverage and patterns of light would have been visible at other times of the night. And while these satellite data are shown in grayscale, viewers on the ground saw colors from green (the most common) to purple to red. Atmospheric compounds found at different altitudes influence an aurora’s color.

It boggles the mind a bit that by imaging the aurorae from above, with city lights visible and states and lakes outlined, what we kind of have, above, is a map of the aurorae—at least at a single moment in time.

G5-Scale Geomagnetic Storm in Progress

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
NOAA

The Earth is being hit by a solar storm at the moment; NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has observed severe (G5) geomagnetic storm conditions for the first time since 2003. Among other impacts, this may disrupt GPS and other navigation systems. On the other hand this also means aurorae where they’re rarely seen: see SWPC’s aurora dashboard for maps.

Previously: NOAA’s Aurora Forecasts.

El Niño and Snowfall in North America

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

NOAA map showing snowfall during all El Niño winters (January-March) compared to the 1991-2020 average.
NOAA

NOAA’s ENSO blog maps the impact of El Niño on snowfall in North America.

Obviously, snowfall is limited in its southernmost reaches because it needs to be cold enough to snow, so the effects are strongest in the higher and colder elevations of the West. To the north, however, there is a reduction in snowfall (brown shading), especially around the Great Lakes, interior New England, the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, extending through far western Canada, and over most of Alaska. In fact, El Niño appears to be the great snowfall suppressor over most of North America.

The above map shows the change in snowfall during all El Niño years; additional maps tease out other details (such as the difference in moderate-to-strong El Niños). [CNN]

Mapping Global Sea Levels at Even Finer Resolution

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Launched in December 2022, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite measures ocean surface topography—i.e., sea surface height. It recently completed its first full 21-day science orbit, which is represented in the above animated globe.

The animation shows sea surface height anomalies around the world: Red and orange indicate ocean heights that were higher than the global mean sea surface height, while blue represents heights lower than the mean. Sea level differences can highlight ocean currents, like the Gulf Stream coming off the U.S. East Coast or the Kuroshio current off the east coast of Japan. Sea surface height can also indicate regions of relatively warmer water—like the eastern part of the equatorial Pacific Ocean during an El Niño—because water expands as it warms.

Sea surface height has been measured by earlier satellites (previously); SWOT does so at a much greater level of detail.

The CBC on Inaccessible Flood Maps

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

As the CBC’s evening news program The National reports, flood maps can be incredibly hard to find, with even municipal maps requiring an NDA to view in some cases. Now this story focuses on Halifax, Nova Scotia in the wake of flash flooding this summer; the situation elsewhere in Canada may be quite different (Quebec’s flood maps, for example, are available online, though only in French).

Two Ways to Visualize Canada’s Wildfires

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

European Space Agency map of Canada showing average concentration of carboon monoxide for 1 May to 13 June 2023.

The European Space Agency released this map showing the impact on atmospheric carbon monoxide from Canadian forest fires. “Using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P mission, the image shows the average concentration of carbon monoxide for 1 May to 13 June. The extremely high concentrations, which are depicted in deep tones of orange, can be linked to active fires during the time. The image also shows how this air pollutant was carried as far as New York in the USA and over the Atlantic.”

Also from the ESA: this animated map of fire outbreaks in Canada during the same period.

Previously: Fire and Smoke Forecast Maps; Wildfires in Alberta.

Fire and Smoke Forecast Maps

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Last week my location was blanketed by smoke from forest fires in northern Quebec, with the air quality index pegged as high as it goes (which is to say, eleven). The iPhone’s default weather app has an air quality map that I made use of—you could actually see the fire hotspots—but there are other wildfire maps out there. For example: NOAA’s experimental interactive map based on its HRRR-Smoke model; AirNow’s Fire and Smoke Map; and the interactive smoke forecast from FireSmoke Canada. [Maps Mania]

NOAA’s Aurora Forecasts

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

NOAA aurora forecast map
NOAA

It turns out that auroras are a thing you can generate weather maps for. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has this experimental Aurora Dashboard that predicts the visibility of the aurora borealis and australis for the next two nights.

(And space weather is in fact something that NOAA tracks: the term covers the effects of solar phenomena, cosmic rays, the ionosphere—think aurora sunspots, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and their impacts on climate, communications, the power grid, GPS.)

Wildfires in Alberta

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Here are some links to maps and satellite imagery of the wildfires devastating Alberta right now. The Alberta provincial government’s Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard shows active wildfires and historical data; CBC News has produced four maps that distill and simplify data from that dashboard. NASA Earth Observatory has images of the wildfires from the Terra satellite’s MODIS instrument.

Changing the Cone of Uncertainty

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The cone of uncertainty is a feature of hurricane maps: it shows the potential paths a storm’s centre may take, not the areas at risk when it makes landfall. Not being in the cone does not mean you’re safe: that misunderstanding has the potential to put people at risk. A long piece in today’s Miami Herald reports that changes to the cone may be afoot.

New research from the University of Miami confirms what a lot of emergency managers already knew, that people don’t understand the cone, and the UM experts are working with the National Hurricane Center to reshape it. Meanwhile, one Miami-based TV station, WSVN Channel 7, has already changed the way it displays the cone for storms, starting with Category 1 Hurricane Nicole in November.

Here’s the UM’s news release about that study.

Previously: The Dangers of Hurricane Maps’ Cone of Uncertainty; Rethinking the Cone of Uncertainty.

The Mediterranean’s Summer Heat Wave

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Europe’s summer heat wave wasn’t just felt on land; the Mediterranean Sea saw surface temperatures as much as 5°C above the average. The ESA’s animated map, above, shows the difference between sea surface temperatures from March to August 2022 and the 1985-2005 average for those months. The redder, the hotter than average. [ESA]