Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Nature's Past New Year Shows and Forecast

2011 is coming to an end as New Year's Eve approaches and shortly after the infamous 2012 begins.  Your 2012 forecast is that everything you have seen about the world ending is true.  Just kidding!  Even though the Mayan calender ends on 2012 it is unlikely that the world would end.  What we can look at is how other years have ended and began.  Going all the way back to 1947 where the 1947 New Year's Eve Tornado Outbreak occured.  A year that ones during that time will never forget for the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1948 where 11 tornadoes tore through the Southern U.S. and unfortunately taking 256 lives from entering 1948.  On the bright side, 20 people were spared with injuries to live to tell of the great devastation.  Now moving to a much more recent tornadic event in 2010 when the 2010 New Year's Eve Tornado Outbreak occured in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois from Dec. 31 to Jan 1.  As many as 36 tornadoes touched down with the strongest being an EF3.  Unfortunately, 9 lives were lost from this outbreak, but due to the vast advancements on tornado warnings and preparation ONLY 9 lives were lost and not large numbers like in 1947.

Now you are probably expecting a list of blizzards on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.  Well, as far as recorded history shows there hasn't been any and the same thing goes for significant Nor'easters, but tropical systems is another story.  None have made landfall during this time here in the U.S., but it is always good to notify that hurricanes and tropical storms do exist around that time of the year.  Back in 1954, a storm in the Caribbean Sea developed and eventually became a hurricane known as Hurricane Alice and passed over the Leeward Islands.  It developed on Dec. 30, 1954 and died of on Jan. 6, 1955.  Almost exactly 51 years later another storm developed on nearly the same day as Hurricane Alice did.  During the historic and memorable 2005 season a storm developed on Dec. 29, 2005 and developed into Tropical Storm Zeta, the 30th named storm of that season which is record for the most tropical cyclones in a hurricane season on record.  Tropical Storm Zeta caused no damage to islands as it was a fish storm.  It eventually died off on Jan. 6, 2006.

It is known that New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are not really recognized as a holiday where great weather events occur, but as you have noticed anything is possible regardless of what time of the year it is.  What kind of weather will New York City have when the ball drops to end 2011 and begin 2012?  It is a far forecast, but for those who want to travel to Manhattan and stand in Time Square to see the beautiful 11,875 pound, lighted, crystal ball to drop the weather won't be too bad.  So far it is looking to be in the upper 30's when the ball drops at midnight with partly cloudy skies and winds coming from the NW at around 5 mph.  New York City isn't the only location in the U.S. that is dropping something though.  I have read of foods, fruits, musical instruments, leaves, shoes, disco balls, animals, flowers, jugs, sea creatures, beach balls, and many, many more things to drop at midnight in a number of locations around the U.S.  If you want to know more about it and what they are, go to the following link and find out.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_dropped_on_New_Year's_Eve

No comments:

Post a Comment