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The most direct way to find your question is to search for the name you used when you submitted it (first name, last name or both). If you did not include a name, then you can search using keywords from your question. Of course, since many weather-related terms are common to a lot of the questions we receive, this may turn up a number of others in addition to your own.

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Answer: There doesn't appear to be any real-time reading from the gage station at that location on the river. You can access near real-time river level and flow rate observations, graphs and projections at newweb.erh.noaa.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=rah&gage=llln7 and by mousing over and/or clicking the site at waterwatch.usgs.gov/?m=real&r=nc. There is an occasional water temperature reading taken upstream at the Jordan Lake reservoir that may be in the general ballpark for the river water, although it is certainly subject to some variation as it flows downstream. When available, that temperature is listed as "Lake Temp" in the daily report published at epec.saw.usace.army.mil/dailyrep.txt.
Oct. 24, 2009 | Tags: cool sites, lakes and rivers

Answer: The current convention for naming tropical cyclones in the Atlantic began in 1953, when only female names were used (male names were added in 1979). The term "gale" applies to any wind that reaches 34 knots or higher, and is not necessarily associated with a tropical cyclone. However, when a tropical cyclone does produce sustained winds of 34 knots or greater, it is called a Tropical Storm and given a name, which is retained so long as the system is a hurricane, tropical storm or tropical depression. This was the case with Henri, which produced sustained winds as high as 45 knots during its brief existence. Tropical storms were given names as far back as 1953's "Alice," although during the 1950s and early 1960s some tropical storms were simply numbered rather than named.
Oct. 23, 2009 | Tags: hurricanes

Answer: Rainbows can be produced anytime the sun is in the correct position in the sky and there are rain drops that the sunlight can shine directly on within the view of an observer. It doesn't really matter if the rain is produced by a summer shower, a mid-latitude low pressure system, a passing upper level disturbance or a hurricane. That being the case, it is likely that plenty of people around the world have seen rainbows in association with hurricanes and other tropical cyclones.
Oct. 22, 2009 | Tags: atmospheric optics, hurricanes

Answer: The video and images on the web are a little fuzzy, but it would appear to be a "hole punch" cloud in which the angle of sunlight was such as to make the shallower clouds around the edge of the "hole" appear much brighter than the surroundings. Such clearly-defined round or oval openings in a cloud deck are often associated with penetration by an aircraft, but can occur naturally as well. For more background information in a couple of previous blog posts on our site, just type "holey" into the keyword search box at the top of any web page on our site.
Oct. 21, 2009 | Tags: clouds

Answer: It is indeed. Just click the "Almanac" link in the gray tool bar near the top of our main weather page, and you will see the sunrise and sunset time for Raleigh, along with twilight and rise, et and phase information for the moon. There is also a link farther down the page to "U.S. Naval Observatory's Sun and Moon Data." At that link, you can calculate sun and moon times for any other date you'd like, and for other locations around the country or the world.
Oct. 20, 2009 | Tags: astronomy, cool sites

Answer: A ridge in the atmosphere is an elongated area having barometric pressure greater than the pressure at the same elevation in most directions away from the ridge axis. On a weather map, ridges can be identified by a series of sharply curved isobars, with the isobars "pointing" toward areas of lower pressure, or by an area in which isobars stretch between two or more high pressure centers. The appearance of isobars on a weather map in these cases is analogous to the appearance of ridges in topography on a contour map of ground elevations.
Oct. 19, 2009 | Tags: fronts & airmasses, general meteorology

Answer: For background on the definition and mechanisms associated with the term "heat burst," see one of our Ask the Meteorologist replies from a few years back at www.wral.com/weather/blogpost/1554550/. The combination of conditions that support them are quite rare and they seem to be climatologically favored over the plains states more so than in our area. While it would be hard to rule out that heat bursts have occurred on some occasions in our state, we were unable in a quick search to turn up any documented cases.
Oct. 18, 2009 | Tags: heat, thunderstorms

Answer: The tsunami wave front approached the western Samoan islands from the south and would appear to have done the most direct damage along the southern facing shore of those islands, while for American Samoa the wave approach was from the southwest, with the highest direct impact along the southwestern end of the island. However, the shape of American Samoa is such that a significant increase in water level likely occured along the northwest shore due to refraction of the wave front around the island. Also, a very significant amount of wave energy was apparently channeled into and through Pago Pago harbor, the entrance to which is on the southeast side of the island but which curves up to Pago Pago, which was damaged badly in some areas, near the north side. You can get a feel for some of this by watching a modeled animation of the event at this address - www.gdacs.org/tsunami/?URL=http://tsunami.jrc.it/model/swan/Reports/Samoa_29092009/SWAN_JRC_0.5min/. Note that it takes a while to load, but you can see the animation by scrolling to the bottom of the page. Also, you can see a separate modeled estimate of tsunami height at www.tsunami.civil.tohoku.ac.jp/hokusai3/J/events/samoa_090930/inspection_samoa/pagopago_exposure.png. Note the amplification of the wave where it channels into the constriction of Pago Pago harbor.
Oct. 17, 2009

Answer: There were clearly thunderstorms in the area on the afternoon and evening of 22 Sep 09, as documented by a series of METAR observations from the Raleigh-Durham airport (see www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KRDU/2009/9/22/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA for a listing). As far as specific lightning strike data goes, that information is not publicly available and must be requested in the form of a fee-based "lightning forensics" report from one of two private companies. See the following addresses for more information. You may want to request that the insurance company provide a report, or cover your cost to obtain such a report, from one or both of these sources that shows whether lightning was observed by their networks within 5-10 miles of your address. If it was, the combination of lightning data and the diagnoses from your telephone and air conditioning repair personnel would seem to make a strong case that lightning caused the damages in question. See www.uspln.com/forensics.html and www.vaisala.com/weather/products/lightning/dataarchivereports/strikenetfax (click the "FAQ" link at this address for more details).
Oct. 16, 2009 | Tags: cool sites, lightning, past weather, thunderstorms

Answer: In the United States, mountains that are affected by hurricanes are far enough inland that the hurricanes have usually weakened considerably in terms of wind speed, though there can be some instances of wind damage. Storm surge is only an issue in coastal areas. Flooding, however, has had a major impact in the Appalachian mountains from decaying hurricanes and their remnants, as the storms often remain moisture-laden and may produce very high rain rates that can be enhanced by air forced upward by the rising terrain. In addition, the rugged topography in the mountains can concentrate and channel the rainwater in such a way as to create intense flooding and sometimes very destructive landslides.
Oct. 15, 2009 | Tags: flooding, hurricanes