Hurricane Harbor: 2023 Winter/Spring in the SE Carolinas... Could We Get Snow? Soon? Maybe... Skeptical. Earthquake Turkey Death Toll Over 11,000 and Climbing. A Look at 2012 Hurricane Season,. Is 2012 A Good Analog for 2023? Maybe. Time Will Tell.

The cold weather in Turkey and that region...

..is adding a layer of Misery to a horrific tragedy.

Imagine being homeless in freezing weather...

...homeless on the street waiting for help.

No heat, no shelters... dead relatives nearby.

Horrible.

Again I'll take hurricanes over earthquakes any day!

As we know from bad hurricanes.

The aftermath kills many who survive the storm.

Illness, bad weather, decaying bodies in the street.

Hate to sound morbid but it's cold truth.

Please pray for people there.

Please give charity

There's something called the Red Crescent there and this article explains, so it's a good place to start.

https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/news/2023/red-crescent-teams-responding-to-earthquake-in-turkey-and-syria.html

Today's blog first discusses earthquakes in Turkey and elsewere and most of us online sharing info Sunday evening knew that the death toll would be above 10,000 most likely and it's possible the final death toll will be an estimate hard to pin down and unimaginable. Again I'll take a strong hurricane over a strong earthquake anytime.

The other night when the news came in that a 7.8 Earthquake hit an interior region of Turkey those of us into meteorology who dabble in geology woke up like Rip Van Winkle ...as if he had just had a triple espresso or a shot of Turkish Coffee! I've said a million times if once, every geologist is a closet meteorologist and every meteorologist is a closet geologist. In truth we just love every aspect of Earth Science be it how the atmosphere works, how the fault lines patch quiltlike together and how the currents of the ocean circle our Planet it strange wonderful ways that make Great Britain more habitable than otherwise. Check out a map, Manchester England is about the same latitude of Latvia and you really learn to appreciate the Gulfstream.

Easy graphic helops to show the story!

As we all spend a good part of our time studying natural disasters or let's say we know the odds of a Category 4 forming at some point and smashing into a major coastline city vs a quiet little National Park such as Hurricane Bret in 1999. Andrew and Katrina were not as kind as Bret; most earthquakes are small and barely felt if people are even awake when the spider plant hanging from the ceiling makes little circles above your head as you may or may not be sleeping. Other earthquakes, such as the Northridge Earthquake in 1971 basically hit at daybreak as many people I know woke up thinking they were dreaming before realizing something fell on their bed or their pool emptied into their living room in the North part of the San Fernando Valley. I lived in Miami then, but by the time I got to LA years later ... every person I knew in Northridge told me where they were when the Big One shook their world. As bad as that earthquake was, there are other faults that could create a much worse tragedy.

From Wikipedia article.

The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in Northern California had a high death toll and casualty count when an elevated highway buckled trapping people underneath. I remember watching the rescue attempts that mirror much worse earthquakes in Haiti where brick built buildings crumble as hillsides collapse burying whole families and sometimes whole towns. After the recent Champlain Towers collapse we are too familar here in the USA without even a Natural Disaster causing it... we know what happens when a tall building pancakes while people are sleeping.

Gee Hurricanes don't seem so bad afterall. Again, you can prepare, evacuate or hunker down...

After I finished writing the blog the other day where I explained that.... I looked down at my phone and my brother had sent me a WhatsApp message saying "give me a hurricane anyday over an earthquake" and yeah I told him... "yeah, I just said that in my blog" and it's true.

Time to prepare is everything.

If we could only get as good predicting earthquakes as we are the formation of a Hurricane such as Ian giving many so much lead time to prepare their property and get further inland. To take the family photos and the family pooch or goldfish with them on their way out as they pray there is something to come back to..

This winter has been a pissant winter for those of us in the Carolinas who love Snow and do not live in Asheville but in the Piedmont region and even Asheville is wanting snow. Usually we get snow, a little or a lot, every year is different. That applies to most of Georgia as well as with every drop of elevation we get a bigger chance of snow. When Atlanta gets snow, often Raleigh gets snow but not always. But this year we have trees beginning to bud, birds singing ridiculously loud at 6 AM and if I have to hear one more person say "isn't the warm weather wonderful!" I will lose it. Yes, I love Spring but I prefer it in late March or early April! At this point the pollen will pop the first week in March...

The GFS is doing that thing it does....

... when it teases me and I'm not buying it yet.

EURO shows cold ....just cold rain.

I really obviously want snow!

Before I jump on the Spring Train...

Today 1 of my favorite mets weighed in...

Larry Cosgrove, like any good meteorologist, knows geography incredibly well down to every little detail. Most of us in the Carolinas have been bitching about the "SE RIDGE" robbing us of winter weather. In fact he is right as it's more Carib/Sargasso Sea Ridge. The Water Vapor below illustrates that well. The ridges is not over us as much as to the East ...SE of us and it's eroding our Winter.

What this feature does is create a carousel of warm weather that rises up after the departure of every cold front that attempts to make it down into the Raleigh region. After cold rain for 18 hours the wind shifts fast around the ridge and the next thing you know warm area snaps back fast from the South/SE and we end up with rain and today it's supposed to top out at 71 degrees!! And, yet the GFS is promising it maybe, might could snow as we say Down South.

I'll believe it when I see it.

But it's definitely in my mind to review the 2012 Hurricane Season when several small lows went tropical along the SE coast, two were named in May and I know as I planned a trip back to Miami to be able to intercept both and so enjoyed both Alberto and Beryl going and coming so to speak. Great road trip chase really....