Belski's Blog

Thursday late morning 7/9

Storm round-up from yesterday:
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Up to baseball size hail hit downtown Wichita, KS last evening damaging a number of vehicles. The baseball game (Wichita Wingnuts) was delayed due to so much ice in the field. No injuries were reported. Over 4,000 were at the game.

Two tornadoes touched down near Peoria, IL yesterday with no major damage.....click   here 

There were 8 tornadoes in North Dakota. The worst one went through the southern part of Dickinson taking the roofs of a number of buildings and blowing vehicles off the road. Here is some night time video of the damage....click  here  

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   Locally, there were some heavy downpours yesterday. The map shows the radar estimates of rain with over an inch from portions of Hardin Co. on south. The yellow area in southern Hardin down into Hart Co. shows 2 1/2 to over 3 inches of rain.

The 5 day rain forecast from the HPC shows a swath of heavy rains right across our area with a bullseye of 3.3 inches just west of Louisville. This will fall in the Saturday to Monday time frame.

Wednesday 9:10 PM 7/8

No space station viewing tonight....too many clouds.
Heavy downpours around Radcliff and south of E'town.
There is a large area of rain over SW Indiana weakening as it moves east.
Over an inch of rain has fallen over western Hardin..eastern Breckenridge and central Crawford counties.

Wednesday 6:15 PM 7/8

I made an appearence on the news...live via Skype on my laptop....with Kevin a few minutes ago.

It has been a week since back surgery and I can get out of bed 3 times a day for about 5 minutes each time. It is a slow process to get back to normal. So there is plenty of time to lie back and follow the weather.

The brightest yet for the International Space Station with a magnitude of -3.9 as it passes over at 9:55 this evening. It will be visible for 6 minutes as it moves from the SW to the NE. Hopefully clouds from thunderstorms about 70 miles to the west will stay away.

Wednesday 5:25 PM 7/8

The SPC has put out a statement about isolated severe from Evansville to Peoria. No watch is expected.

The Evansville radar shows storms some storms in SW Indiana with more widespread activity up around Effingham, IL. These storms are moving slowly to the SE.  Louisville is on the far right hand side of the frame. Click on the radar map for a larger view.

Wednesday 10:40 AM 7/8

It looks like the second rain area this morning is going to stay north of Louisville. Downpours in Jackson county near Brownstown are heading to the ESE.

Look for some rain in Seymour, North Vernon, Austin, Madison and if it holds together...Carrollton & Vevay into Cincinnati.

There is still a chance for a shower as far south as the northern suburbs of Louisville.

We are into the second week of July and I did a quick check to see if there was still any snow in the mountains out west....1) Rocky Mt. Nat'l Park-Colorado  2) Teton NP, Wyoming  3) Glacier NP, Montana

Wednesday 8:15 AM 7/8

One area of rain is moving east out of the area this morning. The heaviest rain totals were from New Albany to west Louisville with about a quarter of an inch. Most other areas had less than 1/10th.

Another area of showers and some thunder is moving SE out of Indiana. If it holds together it will be here late morning or mid-day.

Tuesday late afternoon 7/7

A minor earthquake of 2.3 shook things up a bit in central Virginia last night...no damage....for more details click  here 

Tonight's International Space Station viewing is at 11:06. It will be visible for 5 minutes about 1/3rd of the way up from the horizon moving from the west to the north-northeast. Not as bright as last night with a magnitude of -2.4  last night was -3.8 
Wednesday morning at 5:30 AM it will be visible for 5 minutes moving from the WNW to the SE at a magnitude of -3.5 (very bright)

Arctic sea ice thinned dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thin seasonal ice replacing thick older ice as the dominant type for the first time on record. The new results, based on data from a NASA Earth-orbiting spacecraft, provide further evidence for the rapid, ongoing transformation of the Arctic's ice cover....this is a new report issued by NASA today.....click  here 

At 5:10 scattered showers are developing in Indiana from Vincennes to Jasper, moving SE. There is a slight chance (<20%)  of rain through mid-evening

Tuesday 2:30 PM 7/7

  The stormiest weather in the country at mid-afternoon is in southern New England with a number of severe thunderstorm warnings in effect including the Boston and Hartford metro areas.

There are some storms over northern Illinois moving southeast. Some storms may develop into central Indiana later this afternoon but should stay north of us with less than a 20% chance of anything developing locally.

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There has been a large fire burning the last 2 days at the Patrick Cudahy meat packing plant on the south side of Milwaukee, WI. Over 18 million gallons of water have been used to put the fire out. This has also resulted in several hundred food workers being laid off until the plant can get up and running again.

The smoke from the fire was so thick that it showed up on the Milwaukee NWS radar with the plume going out a number of miles over Lake Michigan.

For our southern Indiana readers....here is a link to this month's Southern Indiana Living magazine.....click  here

I want to thank the readers of Louisville magazine for naming me the "Best of Louisville" for TV weather.  There will be a celebration of past and current BOL winners at the Best of Louisville Bash, to be held July 23^rd at the Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center. Call 451-0014 for information. My favorite categories are the restaurants because you can sample their food at this event.

Tuesday mid-morning 7/7

Thanks to Greg for sending in this picture of the International Space Station passing over last night. Click on the photo for a larger view. It is faint but you can see the line showing the path of the station.

This is a good week to see the space station. I have listed the times on the post from yesterday evening. Just scroll down to see it.

Because of my back surgery, I am restricted to being out of bed for only 5 minutes at a time so I did not see the trailing object that a lot of you have written to me about.

It was an unmanned  Russian supply ship, the Progress 33. During May, the ship brought up 3,300 pounds of supplies to the station. This was the 33rd trip to bring up supplies this way in the last 10 years. It undocked on June 30 but will dock again on July 12 as the crew tests some docking manuevers. After that, the ship will eject out into space and burn up as it reenters the earth's atmosphere.

This picture shows the size of Progress 33 as compared to the International Space Station.

Tuesday morning 7/7

The weather is warming up again. The question is, how hot for later this week. I have seen some internet forecasts of 96-98 for a high. I just can't see that happening. The ground is not as wet as last month when the forecasts were in the mid to upper 90s and I said lower 90s tops because of the wet ground. The highest we had last month was 92. This week is the same situation. We could go 92-93 but to hit mid 90s the ground would have to dry out a bit more

I have been hearing from a number of people vacationing along the Emerald Coast from Destin to Panama City wondering if the storms are ever going to stop. Yet another area of rain moving through Destin this morning heading toward PCB. Some roads are closed in Fort Walton Beach.

It looks like after tomorrow, the storms will become more scattered.

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It has been a stormy time down there. This photo from Tallahassee, FL is from last Thursday when winds of 85 mph blew part of the roof off the Toys R Us store.

One more item from that area. A 30-40 foot whale shark was sighted just off of Shell Island near Panama City in 30-60 foot deep water. One boat captain said it has been 15 years since he had seen one that far north in the Gulf.....click  here 

Monday early evening 7/6

Ever since the new solar panels were installed on the International Space Station, it has been brighter than ever when it passes overhead. This evening at 10:41 the ISS will be visible for 6 minutes as it moves from the SW to the NE. It will be brighter than the planet Venus so this will be quite a show tonight. It looks like the high clouds in the area will be clearing out during the evening.
Here are the times the ISS will be visible in the coming days for Louisville:
 

SATELLITE	LOCAL	DURATION	MAX ELEV	APPROACH	DEPARTURE
	DATE/TIME	(MIN)	(DEG)	(DEG-DIR)	(DEG-DIR)

ISS	Mon Jul 06/10:41 PM	6	68	11 above SW	10 above NE
ISS	Tue Jul 07/00:18 AM	3	15	11 above WNW	11 above N
ISS	Tue Jul 07/05:05 AM	5	37	10 above NW	10 above ESE
ISS	Tue Jul 07/09:35 PM	< 1	10	10 above E	10 above E
ISS	Tue Jul 07/11:06 PM	5	32	10 above W	10 above NNE
ISS	Wed Jul 08/03:55 AM	4	16	10 above NNW	10 above ENE
ISS	Wed Jul 08/05:30 AM	5	53	10 above WNW	11 above SE
ISS	Wed Jul 08/09:55 PM	6	72	10 above SW	10 above NE
ISS	Wed Jul 08/11:34 PM	< 1	13	13 above N	10 above N
ISS	Thu Jul 09/04:19 AM	5	39	10 above NW	10 above ESE
ISS	Thu Jul 09/05:55 AM	3	14	11 above W	10 above SSW
ISS	Thu Jul 09/10:20 PM	5	31	10 above W	10 above NNE

Monday late morning 7/6

The first five days of July have had four days in the 70s and one day at 80 degrees for an average high of 74. This is 13 degrees below normal. 13 degrees above normal would have a 5 day average high of 100 degrees.... so this is pretty extreme.

Not a good day at the beach today along the Gulf Coast. Destin is on the left and Panama City is on the right.

Widespread storms continue this morning after dropping up to 4 inches of rain overnight. Flash Flood Watches are in effect in some areas.

Sunday late morning 7/5

Yesterday's high of 73 ties the record for the coolest high temperature ever on the 4th of July in Louisville.

Click on the map to see the highs around the country yesterday. There were a few locations cooler than Lousiville but not too many. 8 states had highs in the 100s.

90 degree weather will return here on Thursday or Friday and will last only through Saturday or Sunday. Otherwise, highs will stay mainly in the 80s through the first 3 weeks of July.

Thanks to Larry in Springfield, Il for sending me this.......

The January 7, 2008 tornado in Boone and McHenry counties in Illinois
derailed a freight train with over 100 cars near Harvard, IL, many of
which were carrying some pretty nasty stuff. Someone just posted the
"black box" video camera from that train on YouTube. For a few seconds,
you can make out the edge of the tornado vortex---it's definitely inside
of it!

I watched the video...first the train goes into the rain....then the tornado hits and then there is a few seconds where it is quiet and then the rest of the train comes up and hits....pretty dramatic.....click  here  

Saturday late afternoon 7/4

If current radar trends continue, the showers will become more scattered early this evening. The shower chance will stay with us all night but the rain area has really broken up over Illinois in western Indiana so at least we will see some breaks in the rain.

Saturday mid-morning 7/4

Happy Fourth of July. Here comes some rain for this afternoon. The Evansville radar at 9:00 shows showers near Vincennes dropping down toward Louisville so there may be sprinkles or light showers by noon. Louisville is on the right hand edge of the screen. A large area of rain over Illinois and eastern Missouri is moving this way. This may diminish a little during the day but I would still think a steady rain would be around at least for a while this afternoon. Severe storms will develop on the SW side of the rain area this afternoon so probably no severe here. As far as this evening, we will have to watch this rain system for a few hours to see it's progress so I don't have an answer on that yet.