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Answer: There was not a large scale weather system in place that day (May 17, 2003) that would have produced especially strong winds over a sizable area. We did, however, have a number of intense thunderstorms develop in the vicinity that afternoon and evening. These storms produced locally heavy downpours and significant amounts of lightning, and certainly could have produced strong downdraft-driven winds that fit the description of a microburst. There were no official reports of winds meeting severe criteria that day, and no warnings were issued by the Raleigh NWS office for those thunderstorms, which were strong but generally below severe thresholds.
May. 24, 2012 | Tags: past weather, severe weather, thunderstorms

Answer: We typically try to stay away from answering fairly short-term forecast questions here, as we encourage you to check our 7-day forecast online or tune in, but to make a rare exception here it appears so far that a building ridge of high pressure aloft over the eastern U.S. should give you a good chance at partly to mostly sunny skies and dry weather in the morning on Friday, although we will be heating up to finish out the week and it could well be rather warm and humid, with morning temperatures in the mid 60s likely climbing to low 80s by the time you're done at noon, and up near 90 later in the day.
May. 23, 2012 | Tags: weather & health

Answer: In a general sense, you want to avoid outdoor burning when ground fuels and brush are dry, and when weather conditions feature low relative humidity (under 25%, especially), warm temperatures and winds that are strong and gusty (over 20 mph or so in particular). When there are official advisories such as a fire weather watch or "Red Flag" warning, you will see either of those highlighted on government web sites such as www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/overview.html or www.nws.noaa.gov/view/largemap.php. You can also sometimes find information on conditions more specific to our state through ncforestservice.gov/fire_control/fc_fire_environment.htm.
May. 22, 2012 | Tags: cool sites, weather & health

Answer: We aren't aware of any scientifically credible information to this effect, although it is easy to find many web sites that refer to assorted mystery planets, rotation-axis reversals, Mayan calendars ending in December 2012 (except that a different one was just found that stretches 7000 years farther in the future!), threatening comets and the like. A NASA site provides a reasonably good overview, in FAQ format, addressing some of these issues. You can find it at astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/intro/nibiru-and-doomsday-2012-questions-and-answers.
May. 21, 2012 | Tags: controversy, folklore

Answer: The term gustnado is a non-technical way to refer to a swirl of air that may spin up into a moderate-intensity, short-lived vortex near the outflow boundary from a thunderstorm. Gustnadoes form when the air flowing outward from a thunderstorm downdraft lifts and stretches air just outside the downdraft. If that air has a pre-existing shear or weak rotation, that may be intensified by the vertical stretching into something along the lines of a very strong dust devil or whirlwind. These are sometimes made visible by dust and debris lifted by the winds, and on occasion can do some minor damage. They differ from classic tornadoes, which are generated most commonly by rotating thunderstorms called supercells. These vortices are directly connected to the base of the thunderstorm and can in some cases become much stronger and more long-lived than a gustnado.
May. 20, 2012 | Tags: tornadoes

Answer: Your point is well taken, since the majority of temperature readings shown in a weathercast these days are obtained with thermometers that use some other method of measurement than the mercury-in-glass technique. On the other hand, as a colloquial expression of temperature trends, the "mercury" reference is pretty well established and unlikely to be misunderstood. In addition, there are still cooperative observing sites that use mercury-based maximumum-minimum thermometers to obtain temperature readings, not to mention record temperatures that show up in our historical database that were established using similar instruments.
May. 19, 2012 | Tags: folklore, instruments

Answer: That's a tough call so far. The La Nina pattern that persisted through last winter ended in April, and most applicable models, along with the folks who make official predictions regarding the behavior of the "El Nino Southern Oscillation" system, make it appear likely that the Pacific will remain in a "neutral" pattern through mid-late summer or so. After that, models are split about 50/50 on whether conditions remain neutral or progress to enough warmth to constitute an El Nino pattern as we head into the fall. For now, all that can be done is note about an equal chance of El Nino or neutral conditions then, with a much lesser chance of a La Nina recurrence.
May. 18, 2012 | Tags: el nino/la nina

Answer: For on-air use, we refer to the radar display you mentioned as "3-D Stormview." It is a software product that uses something called "volume scan" data that is produced by National Weather Service Doppler radar systems. These data are translated into 3-dimensional grid fields, and can be contoured to show surfaces of reflectivity and velocity that meet selectable threshold values, and the surfaces can be shaded to allow analysis and visualization of the shape of storms and their precipitation and wind fields in order to provide clues as to the storm's behavior. You can see some other interesting examples of this software application at www.grlevelx.com/gr2analyst/volume_renderer.htm.
May. 17, 2012 | Tags: thunderstorms, weather radar

Answer: While grass and weed pollens will continue in various amounts through the summer and fall, tree pollens started diminishing in late April, and the pine pollen in particular should no longer be much of an issue. That is the variety that concerns most people due to he gritty yellow coating it produces, so you are probably good to go by now for power washing.
May. 16, 2012 | Tags: pollen

Answer: One can never say never, but it appears very unlikely that we would reach 100 degrees or higher during May. This could change at some point, of course, but so far the Raleigh area has never recorded a 100-degree maximum temperature any earlier than June 3, and that last happened back in 1895. We did get this May off to quite a warm start, with a three-day stretch of highs reaching at least 90 degrees from the 2nd through the 4th, but it was nothing that would constitute record heat as we came up just a little shy of records on each of those days.
May. 15, 2012 | Tags: heat, past weather, records/extremes