Beyond the Forecast | Thunderstorms & Hurricanes

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-23

[00:01:13][music] >> Welcome to Beyond the Forecast on this Thursday. Thursday because we're we're talking about hurricane season. That's going to be the first topic of today's show because the big announcement from the National Hurricane Center did come out and it's the forecast for the season coming up.

[00:01:31]>> Yes. Yes.

[00:01:33]Below normal year.

[00:01:36]Yep.

[00:01:36]>> There it is. Below normal year. The official NOAA forecast. Yep.

[00:01:40]>> Eight to 14 named storms, three to six hurricanes. What my mic is way over here.

[00:01:45]>> There we go. [laughter] I was wondering like why can't I not hear you?

[00:01:47]>> One to three You wanted to be all the way over there and you didn't let me reach into your I guess I can >> I guess I can [laughter] I can restart that. Named storms eight to 14, hurricanes three to six, major hurricanes 1 to 3. Remember, it only takes one. But yeah, it looks like with the developing El Niño, uh NOAA kind of looking towards more of a quieter season, so to say.

[00:02:10]>> Yeah, what was it on the this cuz this is just the graphic that we updated, but their chart also has a little bit of a pie chart to it. It was around like 50-some percent of it being below normal, right?

[00:02:20]>> below normal season probability, 35% near normal, and 10% above normal. So, they're they're really thinking that an above-normal year is extremely slim.

[00:02:29]Mhm. Um and they were talking about this uh El Niño coming in soon.

[00:02:35]In the coming weeks and sticking around.

[00:02:37]>> Christie had a uh story about that yesterday.

[00:02:40]>> Mhm. Yes, she did. Uh so, this is kind of a follow-up to that conversation about the El Niño cuz we knew that we're heading into one maybe as early as June, but uh but definitely into hurricane season and definitely looking likely for the end of the year going into winter as well.

[00:02:55]>> Yeah, I think it was what, 96% probability for an El Niño going in going into winter, so. Yeah, I have the chart here. I'll just pull up our graphics from yesterday cuz so we can now take a look in case you missed what we were talking about yesterday. So, that El Niño prediction for this hurricane season and into winter, 82% chance really starting now and into July, and then that 96% chance going through the 2026-27 winter.

[00:03:18]That's that's significant. 96% That that it's pretty confident.

[00:03:22]>> Yes, yes, [laughter] it is. It's extremely confident.

[00:03:24]>> And usually, I guess, we would see more snow, but it's going to be a case-by-case basis.

[00:03:32]It's It's It's very hard to say with certainty, yeah, we're going to see more snow than normal this next winter because of El Niño.

[00:03:40]Uh in years past, it's been kind of hit or miss. The thing about El Niño is that you have the warmer waters or the cooler waters, depending on the El Niño or La Niña type of pattern, over that spot in the Pacific Ocean. So, when that water temperature changes in that zone south of us, that is when we see the weather pattern change then into our area across the United States and across North America. So, the Pacific jet, the polar jet, those positions of those jets change a little bit and that can increase things, especially when it comes to hurricane season, wind shear in the ocean in the Atlantic.

[00:04:14]>> Yeah, we >> When you have wind shear, it can kill a storm.

[00:04:17]>> Yes. It can shut it down.

[00:04:19]>> it apart basically in the upper levels.

[00:04:21]It never gets going. Uh you Hurricanes like really quiet environments. Yes.

[00:04:26]>> They like They like to not be, you know, battered around by winds in the upper levels. They don't want that. Where normal thunderstorms, for them to be prolonged, they like that tilt. Yes, they do.

[00:04:38]>> They like those upper level winds to separate the downdrafts and the and the updrafts. For hurricanes, they're basically their own engine, their own source of energy as when it gets to a certain point. So, you don't want anything disrupt- -ing that engine as it's going and wind shear is the primary disruption factor usually in a hurricane season. And so, a lot of times the Saharan dust as well, we all know, uh that can inhibit development, but the shear is going to be a big thing that we're looking at this season. It will be a definitely, especially into the Atlantic basin. We'll have to see if that shear is high enough across the Gulf because, Brian, we were talking before beyond the forecast today thinking, "Oh, this could be a season where maybe more storms possibly develop in the Gulf." We just kind of have this feeling that maybe that this that could happen this year. Yeah, um >> Just the way things have gone the last couple of years.

[00:05:25]>> year pretty much nothing happened in the Gulf. So, I just have that gut feeling that, "Okay, nothing happened next year.

[00:05:31]What if it's this year that it happens?"

[00:05:33]Uh usually, you know, we can also look if wind shear is a huge factor, we can sometimes look closer to home for systems because those long track storms, if there's a long area that that storms need to cover. Say they're coming off the coast of Africa with higher amounts of wind shear in the Atlantic like looking likely this season, that really wouldn't favor those long track systems. Right. Because there's just so much distance to cover and so many times down the road that it can encounter some of this wind shear and rip it apart. We may have to look closer to home for some of these storms to kind of spin up really quick. Quick spin up. Rapid intensification which we know now with how warm the water is and at a certain depth, you know, you can get storms to go from a cat one to a five in 24 hours sometimes. Um, it's going to be these homegrown storms that I think are the ones we have to look for this season. Yes. So, Unfortunately, >> form a little bit closer could be the type of thing that might be the troublemaker.

[00:06:32]>> Which is unfortunate because yes, while there is the forecast for a high likelihood for a below average season, it only takes one storm. We could have the most active hurricane season in terms of names of all time. We could We could get a 2020 situation happen again where it's 30 named storms in a season, but if nothing hits anything or comes close, it's pretty good season. Yeah. I just wanted to pull up on this this graphic here just talking about wind shield wind shear in a more kind of visual sense in case you're a little bit confused. So, low wind shear is when the surface wind speeds are similar to the upper level wind speeds. And then a high shear environment can be when those upper level wind speeds are stronger.

[00:07:13]So, for speed shear specifically, the change in wind speed with height, we're watching for that. An example of what the wind shear would be like right now just looking at the atmospheric profile.

[00:07:24]Right now we have winds at the ground here in Hampton Roads out of the east at 12 miles an hour and then you go 30,000 feet up in there out of the west at 30 30 miles an hour. So, that's what we're seeing at least right now.

[00:07:34]>> And because of that, we were all outside about a half hour ago looking at the clouds that were literally developing over us And that's that's a good example of There you go.

[00:07:46]So, you have very good example of uh that cloud formation and the shear and everything that's just that's bubbling up out there. It really is. It is. Yeah, we're going to spend some more time talking about uh the chance for thunderstorms and the rainfall into our forecast a little bit later on tonight.

[00:08:01]But, a big reason why we have you on the show also, Bob, is not just about the hurricane season forecast that came out today, but the hurricane special. We do have uh our next edition of Tracking the Tropics. The award-winning Tracking the Tropics as as we know because we did win uh an award and nominated for an Emmy award uh coming up here uh next month. But, uh yeah, so it's it's time. We need to get people ready.

[00:08:23]Um this goes a little bit beyond the typical, you know, tie down the stuff in your yard and and make sure you have a case of water and stuff like that. This is There's a lot of science behind this, uh which is fascinating to me. I learned a lot myself, but um we will do obviously the the forecast. You're going to take a look at that um this afternoon, and we're going to put that in the show, which we're going to send off, and it will be ready on WAVY Plus on Memorial Day at 3:00 p.m. in place of Beyond the Forecast, so you have something to watch uh over the holiday. And then uh next weekend uh on uh CW and on Fox 43, and then June 1st, first day of hurricane season, at 7:30 primetime on WAVY. So, >> Yes, it'll be on television. Yes, it'll be This is a This is a big deal because it's it's it's You learn a lot about the science. We know the rules about what to do. That's always on wavy.com as well in the severe weather section. Um but, a a lot of good science involved in this one. So, I'm really excited about >> this is using the whole team of meteorologists here that we have at WAVY TV 10. We kind of broke it apart into different sections, where uh Jeremy Christie talk about and focus on one thing, Brian myself focus on another thing, Don Slater myself focus on one thing, too. So, we kind of uh we specialize each part of the storm and our geography as we go through that. And also, we touch on throughout the whole piece this time some of the history as well of historical storms, which we always have to mention the Isabel and the other storms, but we kind of sprinkle them through the special. So, it's a really a fun special. It keeps you on the edge of your seat and you learn a lot, too. So, it's a it's a it's a good one. Yes. I learned a lot.

[00:09:57]They'll learn a lot. You'll learn a lot.

[00:09:59]Mhm. Did you learn anything? Um sure.

[00:10:02]>> [laughter] >> And I won't ask you what.

[00:10:06]Penn State taught me a lot of it, but That's true. That's true. I didn't learn a lot about hurricanes from uh Iowa State. Well, maybe because it's in Iowa.

[00:10:13][laughter] Yeah, we didn't do it we didn't do a tropical meteorology at all.

[00:10:16]>> Really? Yeah, I came here and learned from Don and Jeremy. Yeah, even the even the Penn State online classes when I did um meteorology classes uh at Penn State World Campus, the the fourth one was tropical weather. Yeah, I mean, we just do the basics Saffir-Simpson scale and then we look at some of the maps and there's a we touch on it, but we didn't do any uh really intense stuff. Learned a lot here. Yes. You kind of have to learn a lot here. That's for sure. So, Yeah.

[00:10:42]All right.

[00:10:42]>> Okay, so I think we'll take a break. I think we'll take a break and then we'll uh and then we will talk about those thunderstorms because again, when we look at the view on satellite right now, there are some interesting stuff going on. Looks like there's a front coming in out of the north. Looks like there's some cumulus clouds that are getting pretty tall across the peninsula and the Hampton Roads cities on the south side.

[00:10:59]We'll have more on this episode of Beyond the Forecast coming up.

[00:13:13]>> One thing that I found here on our computer system in regards back to the wind shear and hurricane season is I did find this graphic here and this is just looking at where the wind shear is right now. This is model data, but it's doing a pretty good job and you can just see at least at initialization, we're not going to forecast this out cuz there's no point, but you can see where that shear is intense and it's pretty much intense the whole zone where storms develop in the Atlantic basin. Yeah, that would rip anything apart. Yeah, so as we see and as we go throughout the hurricane season, we are definitely going to have to watch and see how that hurricane wind shear environment looks and how it changes especially across the Gulf as we go into time. Again, this is just 24 hours.

[00:13:53]>> though is just that nothing is Yeah, if it looks like that the whole season, you can you can guarantee it's going to be quiet out there. Yep.

[00:14:00]>> Yeah.

[00:14:01]And again, that's why when we look at the hurricane season outlook, we have the number of storms at at 13 for last year, but 8 to 14 will be the number for this year.

[00:14:13]That's the expectation right now.

[00:14:14]>> And the name returning that we all know way too well, Isaias Isaias >> back. So, it's >> that 2020 names list with obviously some differences because of the amount that got retired from that 2020 season. Yes.

[00:14:30]>> Right. Yeah. I don't remember which ones were retired. I don't remember.

[00:14:34]>> so many storms that year. Yep, there were a lot of storms. So, that's kind of the overview for the hurricane season, but now we'll just kind of switch it over and then the banner changes at the bottom.

[00:14:44]I did that. Cool. It's I will make that work. [laughter] I've never actually done that on the show where it looked good. So easily amused.

[00:14:49]>> Yes.

[00:14:50]Oh, nice mug by the way.

[00:14:52]We uh We have a chance for some thunderstorms now and that's what we were looking at before we started the show today like 20 minutes ago. We were standing outside looking at the clouds. I got some cool pictures. Yes, you did.

[00:15:04]>> Yep. Yeah, so these towering cumulus are just starting to build and as I was pulling to work, I saw this took this cloud. I looked up, wow, it's getting taller and you could actually see it happening with time and you can see that on the >> Oh, yeah.

[00:15:16]>> now. What do we have there? That radar.

[00:15:17]Radar is just it's popping something right now.

[00:15:20]>> It's really close to our studios. I may have to dip out of the studio here in a minute just to go observe it myself. See you guys later.

[00:15:27]>> let's zoom in on the metro there cuz that's where the Me and Bob will go take five and we're going to go look at this [laughter] cell popping up. There it is.

[00:15:34]Right there over us. Almost right over us. Yep, so it's got parts of Norfolk in there, parts of Chesapeake, it's got a Kempsville in there, and and a good chunk of 264 on the way out to Virginia Beach. So, that's Dude, that's going to be a rough drive. Let's see if this scene works. I think the banner will be wrong on it, but I'm going to pull it up anyway. Yeah, the banner's wrong on it.

[00:15:52]But yeah, look at that.

[00:15:54]Oh, we'll clean up the Avon here part in a second, but that's the view from tower cam 10 right now.

[00:15:59]>> We should we should have had a time lapse going. We have the other camera that is time lapse looking north. Oh, okay. That one and we'll take a look at that here if I can find out where the tower cam scene is, but this is the view not from Avon. I'm just about to clear it out. It just takes a second to load.

[00:16:14]This is the view from tower cam 10 looking east.

[00:16:17]>> Another one popping out. I'm just looking at my little radar app here and the amount of outflow boundaries that are about to collide with each other west along in the south side is crazy. I'm anticipating some cells to probably start to fire near Wakefield towards uh Sussex and maybe the Courtland area probably pretty soon. Totally dry at the airport.

[00:16:40]>> Yes.

[00:16:40]>> drop. Not a drop.

[00:16:41]>> see it's it is kind of it's kind of looming there though and and of course at the oceanfront and and up towards the Bayside there at at the Lesner Bridge looking not too bad, but >> Yep. they could get swallowed up in part of that. There's there are no statements from National Weather Service yet. So, I guess they're uh uh it's just a a whole bunch of rain.

[00:16:59]That's that's the guess. There's no lightning in there, so Nope. No lightning. These are propagating kind of west and developing west probably going to go with the sea breeze. What do you think? Do you think it's going to follow this line right here? It very well it looks to do that.

[00:17:13]It looks like it's trying to do that at least.

[00:17:14]>> Kind of snake over to the west.

[00:17:16]>> But my the go little west a little more.

[00:17:18]Um this is what I was talking about with if you maybe turn the You may have to turn the sensitivity up on the radar just a tad. Okay.

[00:17:24]>> That cell south of Wake Forest that boop quick >> Yeah. Yeah, you can see it on the developed a little outflow boundary. And I'm looking at it here on this other radar and it looks really cool. So, it may be something that is worth kind of looking at. A bunch of outflow boundaries though about to collide with each other. So, There you go.

[00:17:40]>> Yeah, maybe a little too high in the sensitivity, but It's cranked all the way up. Yeah, I was going to say the the the dark green in there is is what we're talking about there. But, the that one that's over 264 right now, it looks like it might be could probably rain itself out.

[00:17:55]>> will. It's not >> to shut itself down. that much, but Stabilize the temperature right there.

[00:18:00]Nice little cool off. Maybe a free car wash.

[00:18:04]Yeah, I mean it's definitely [laughter] a good downpour. And you know, this is going to be This is fading away fairly fast, so I'm not too concerned, but a little bit of street flooding is going to be a possibility. This rain is not soaking into our lawns when it comes like this. It's going to run right off.

[00:18:18]>> that heavy. Yes. Yeah, it's just it's hitting hard pan. I I took my hose yesterday and blasted one area of the grass where the dogs walk cuz it's it's kind of stressed and I just blasted it and the water just sat there. And then I walked away, turned off the hose, and I walked back and it just sat there. It didn't even soak in. It started running off onto the pavement. So, flooding is probably going to be a problem.

[00:18:40]>> Yeah, it's not Especially and and ponding on the highway, too, because sometimes some of those those gutters there on 264 are getting blocked with stuff and and that causes the ponding there. But, anywhere around To the 757, please, can we not drive like maniacs today on 264? Please. Yeah, cuz it's you know, the old rule is the faster you drive, the faster you get out of it. That's not really the case when it comes to rain. As we keep going here like in the in the in that area of 168 in the Avalon neighborhood on 464 there towards South Norfolk, it looks like it is starting to go a little bit west. Yeah, but it's it is propagating a little bit west, so >> Yeah. I mean, we're definitely seeing that. I maybe may stop at our poor studio pretty soon if it keeps I was going to say, it is literally right across the highway from us right now.

[00:19:23]>> Yep, [laughter] it's close. It's close cuz we are located right Maybe street.

[00:19:29]>> early.

[00:19:30]>> so close.

[00:19:30]>> So, it's it's literally right there.

[00:19:32]>> take five and go look at this thing.

[00:19:34]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, actually. No, because the minute we walk out there, it'll just start pouring on us, and then It's all right.

[00:19:40]Well, the break is usually 2 minutes over there. I think we can probably pull it off.

[00:19:44]All right. Well, I think where are we at here? So, we are have about 10 minutes left in the show with with still one more break to roll. So, that's what we have right now. Let's just take a quick look at the future radar, and then we'll take a break. So, this is where we are right now with the rainfall across the south side, but not forgetting about you across the peninsula. Towards James City County, northern James City County, this thing is faded out. There's some lightning with it, but now it's starting to fade away near Chickahominy River, Chickahominy Haven area, and and Norge and Lightfoot. Kind of raining itself out. Yep. So, that one not looking as healthy. That's probably going to be the theme for a lot of these things. They're going to pulse up, and then they'll pulse down, and then also into North Carolina, too.

[00:20:19]>> we were seeing outside? Very vertically stacked clouds. Yes. So, clouds that the updrafts and the downdrafts are not really you know, they're they're they're not separate from one another. So, it's just it's just going to it's very vertical.

[00:20:33]Uh if you have a stronger wind shear in the upper levels to tilt those clouds, you'll have a longer sustained storm.

[00:20:41]But, it doesn't look to be the case here. This is the same system that did a lot of damage in Philadelphia and its suburbs, too. I saw some down trees and stuff like that, and heavy rain. Crazy into New Jersey, too. It was wild. Yeah.

[00:20:51]And you can see where the tallest clouds are, that's where we have the rainfall right now, and we might get some of that development into the probably where the Great Dismal Swamp is where this thing is headed. Yeah.

[00:21:00]>> It It They like to head there where the air temperature is a little bit warmer.

[00:21:03]It's a little bit more humid. So, it's probably next stop, Great Dismal Swamp, Lake Drummond. Here we go. Nice little nice little microclimate down there.

[00:21:11]Yep. So, that's where we are right now with the satellite and also looking at the radar and then just looking at the future radar here. We'll look at the HRR model first. This one has Let's let it load in here. It has the rain Oh, wow. Good initialization.

[00:21:25]>> Really good initialization.

[00:21:27]>> [laughter] >> Okay.

[00:21:28]>> Almost perfect. That is almost perfect except for the direction. Which okay, there it goes. So, that's That makes difference and then it starts to pick up a forward speed. So, now through 9:00, we're kind of looking at showers and maybe some thunderstorms across parts of the Southside and maybe the peninsula. Not everyone will see rainfall this afternoon. Yeah. And there is a lot of us that will stay dry. Yes.

[00:21:48]But the chance going forward like I think over the next 7 days, you're almost guaranteed to see at least some sort of rainfall. Yeah. Whether it's a lot or little. Okay. All right, we're going to take another little break here.

[00:21:59]We'll take a little >> look real quick. See you guys later.

[00:22:02]Yeah, we'll be back [laughter] in a minute. Yeah. What do I have to hit?

[00:22:04]This button right here?

[00:24:09]>> [music] >> Welcome back to Beyond the Forecast. You can see we're missing one person right now.

[00:24:18]>> And uh and the thing is, Bob, the way we have this set up is it's just going to have to be like this for a little bit until he comes back. Uh but uh but I'll take it away here. So, let's take a look at the >> [laughter] >> Here's a look at the radar right now.

[00:24:29]So, we have uh one thunderstorm or at least shower. It's a good downpour that's right over our station right now.

[00:24:35]This is affecting areas into the south side. It's a small little area. I don't believe this is going to get severe at least as it looks right now. If we can get some lightning out of this, it might get a little bit stronger.

[00:24:44]>> But yes, uh Eyewitness Weather it is in fact raining outside the uh WAVY uh studio complex here in uh downtown Portsmouth. Yes. And one thing I know Here comes Brian. Welcome back to the show. I I have my card. Oh, jeez. Oh, he locked himself out of the building. They locked me out. I thought I thought that maybe you didn't know what 2 minutes was. I know it is I know you don't know what 2 minutes is on the air. I was having fun with Andy. [laughter] Me and Andy were filming videos all day. Oh, god. Oh, you're soaked. Yes, because um there was wind, too, with it. A little gust Yeah.

[00:25:15]>> came through and just went right under the little overhang.

[00:25:18]>> [laughter] >> So, one minute and second I was dry and then the next second, whoosh, a face full of water.

[00:25:24]>> [sighs] >> I haven't seen the latest discussion from the Storm Prediction Center regarding the level one risk for today.

[00:25:29]I don't know if you've seen anything, Brian, but they still kind of have that this level one risk for parts of the area, mainly because of wind gusts. Just because of the wind gusts.

[00:25:36]Um That's what I saw too earlier, so I think that's what's happening with the storm.

[00:25:39]>> the lack of shear, I don't think we're going to be seeing very long sustained thunderstorms or even the chance for spin-ups. I think it's just going to be something where the gusts themselves, uh they mainly come from those outflow boundaries, from that heavy rainfall that drops on down and it just displaces the air below it. Um that's pretty much all we're looking at, but severe thunderstorm warning west. Yeah, look at that. Oh, Greensburg. There you go. And this is the kind of thing that we'll be looking for on radar. See how we have that area of purple? This is a much stronger cell that's really developing.

[00:26:10]Uh so, that could create some stronger wind gusts out ahead of it.

[00:26:13]>> probably more shear into this environment out west. You can kind of tell there's a little bit fat