Baseball Sized Hail In Florida, Carlotta Update, Severe Risk Areas for Today

Tropical Update

Hurricane Carlotta is weakening, now downgraded to a tropical storm.  Although it has official lost its hurricane status, storms will continue over the same areas, especially Acapulco, for the next several days as this system isn’t moving anywhere anytime soon. By Wednesday, it will still be sitting right off the coast.

Latest view from Acapulco:

http://www.webcamsdemexico.com/webcam-acapulco.html

From Fox News:   Earlier Friday, Carlotta had toppled billboards and shattered some windows in Puerto Escondido, a laid-back port popular with surfers, where it reached land as a Category 1 hurricane.  “The wind is incredible and the trees are swaying so much. A window just shattered,” said Ernesto Lopez, a 25-year-old engineer who was visiting Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca state for a graduation.  Coral Ocampo, receptionist at the Hotel Careyes, said the wind was tearing down the skinnier palm trees and that she had asked guests to return to their rooms and stay there until the storm had passed.  Oaxaca’s civil protection service said some roads near the resorts of Huatulco and Pochutla were affected by mudslides, and that authorities had opened emergency shelters and evacuated dozens of families from low-lying areas.  Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/16/carlotta-weakens-downgraded-to-tropical-storm/#ixzz1xxkXVuUs

Elsewhere in the Tropics:  Baseball Sized Hail in Florida

Storms have been popping in for the past several days in South Florida.  Several reports of wind and hail damage.  Baseball sized hail reported in South Florida.

From the National Weather Service in South Florida: For those weather savy out there — radar cross section of the thunderstorm which produced baseball-sized hail over Hendry County, FL today! This was only the 5th report or hail of baseball size or larger in the NWS Miami County Warning Area since hail records dating back to 1955!

Picture from Twitter: myster_yeah

Severe Storms Develop in the Central Plains

Risk for severe storms today includes Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis.

Storms have already been producing heavy rain earlier today.  From the NWS in Dodge City: We received 1.00″ of rainfall in 40 minutes at the Dodge City airport with the thunderstorm that moved across during the 3:00am hour!

Southwest Fire Weather and Flooding

Seems odd to combine those two items into one headline – fire weather and flooding.  However the combination of potential storms and burned areas may turn into a messy situation in New Mexico today.  Showers and thunderstorms are possible (usually good news for dry, windy areas)  but that rain will be falling on areas that are already burned so flash flooding is a concern.

Elsewhere across the southwest, it remains hot, dry and windy.  Wild fires continue to rage as fire fighters battle these difficult conditions.

From the National Weather Service in Nothern Arizona:

IN THE AFTERMATH OF RECENT WILDFIRES ACROSS NORTHERN
 ARIZONA...INCLUDING THE GLADIATOR FIRE...WALLOW FIRE AND LOCUST FIRE
 FROM 2011...AND THE SCHULTZ FIRE FROM 2010...LOCATIONS DOWNHILL AND
 DOWNSTREAM FROM BURNED AREAS ARE NOW MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO FLASH
 FLOODING AND DEBRIS FLOWS. A SHORT PERIOD OF MODERATE RAINFALL ON A
 BURNED WATERSHED CAN LEAD TO FLASH FLOODS OR DEBRIS FLOWS. RAINFALL
 THAT IS NORMALLY ABSORBED CAN RUN OFF EXTREMELY QUICKLY AFTER SOILS
 AND VEGETATION HAVE BEEN CHARRED. SEVERELY BURNED SOILS CAN BE AS
 WATER REPELLANT AS PAVEMENT. CONSEQUENTLY...RUNOFF WILL BE GREATER
 AND MORE RAPID THAN PRIOR TO A FIRE. FLOOD WATERS CAN PICK UP
 LARGE AMOUNTS OF ASH...SAND...SILT...ROCKS...AND REMNANTS OF
 VEGETATION. THE FORCE OF RUSHING WATER AND DEBRIS CAN DAMAGE OR
 DESTROY CULVERTS...BRIDGES...ROADWAYS...AND BUILDINGS...POTENTIALLY
 CAUSING INJURY OR DEATH.

20 Years Ago Today…

Picture from the Richard Sennott, Star Tribune

The small town of Chandler, MN was destroyed by an F5 tornado. From the StarTribune.com:  Twenty years ago Saturday, about 5:30 p.m., one of the strongest tornadoes in state history blew apart the small southwestern Minnesota city of Chandler, destroying 49 of its 131 homes, injuring more than 30 people and wiping away nearly every familiar landmark. Damage in today’s dollars was $24.6 million. One woman died six weeks later; she’d been injured when a wall fell on her. She waited out the storm in her basement. It was the last F5 tornado to touch down in Minnesota…The rarity: Less than 0.1 of 1 percent of U.S. tornadoes are EF5s. Minnesota has experienced seven F5 tornadoes since 1883.

Stay safe on this Father’s day weekend!

Meteorologist Gretchen Mishek