Meteorologist Kyle Noel

06/04/2023

Trying to brainstorm ideas to get local weather forecasts going again... is there an internet in Patreon service where I'm writing highly detailed daily weather forecasts at certain time to subscribers? Or business-oriented services? I'm open to ideas!

Edit: it's probably worth noting this maybe be more effective than my posts disappearing to the algorithm abyss.

28/09/2022

Obviously, we have a rather catastrophic Category 4 hurricane moving into southwestern Florida. Ian is an once-in-a-lifetime hurricane for them with widespread destruction expected. 20-40 inches of rain, 10-18 feet of storm surge, and major hurricane wind gusts are all expected there.

Afterwards, Hurricane Ian will make a secondary landfall on the Carolinas as a strong tropical storm. Moderate coastal flooding, a few inches of rain, and heavy gusts up to 60-75 mph are all expected. Power may struggle a bit, especially along the coast.

10/04/2022

This isn't really about North Carolina weather... but I did a severe weather vlog on what to expect in the central US over next few days -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UE9TAgrS_4

08/04/2022

I did a vlog on what to expect from the upcoming 2022 hurricane season! Go check it out and make sure you subscribe for more :) -> https://youtu.be/KcfkJDpET4o

Going into my 6th hurricane season as a professional tropical meteorologist, I try to break down on what to expect from this upcoming year while citing a sea...

07/04/2022

Might do a video on what to expect from the hurricane season... so keep an eye on that!

21/03/2022

Starting a new YouTube channel for 2022 so hopefully y'all can go ahead and subscribe to this page for my future meteorological thoughts -> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo0p6D5qmyK83u_E3814Vfg

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21/03/2022

Should I start creating weather videos and stream ongoing events in 2022?

03/02/2022

I'm not sure where these rumors are coming from... but no, there isn't a winter storm this weekend, most likely. The coastal low is getting suppressed by another low pressure over the Great Lakes... so there's hardly room for both storms over the US. We'll get some rain and just move on to the next one.

28/01/2022

So... it is important to mention that it's entirely possible that people along I-95 corridor in North Carolina may not get any snow. Why?

The dry slot. Because of the structure of the nor'easter moving up the coast, there will be a dry slot along the western part of the storm as the coastal low explosively develop toward the Northeast. It's just a nature of these coastal lows. A deformation band will set up somewhere over I-85 corridor (Charlotte to Greensboro) and they should be 1-3" of snow. A dry slot will move into the Triangle and the I-95 corridor to choke off the moisture... resulting in dusting to 1" for the forecast there. We had our fun last week, but it's unlikely we'll see the repeat of winter wonderland for us snow lovers in the Triangle region.

27/01/2022

Another widespread winter event is on the way for late Friday evening into Saturday. A coastal low should develop off the coast, but we'll at least get the far western edge of the storm and get minor snow accumulation. Northeast NC should see some of highest totals from this one. A surprise 2" or 3" totals cannot be ruled out for central NC due to mesoscale bands that could linger around a bit.

21/01/2022

I'm getting questions about where's the snow at... don't worry, it's still coming. The reason why schools are closed is because the precipitation is expected to overcome the dry air during the typical rush hour and it will snow in a hurry once the atmosphere gets moisten enough. Trust me, school closure was the right decision and the media isn't hyping it up. Heck, the National Weather Service expanded Winter Storm Warning a few counties westward into the Triangle to account for the uptrend in snow totals for later this afternoon and tonight. Patience, y'all.

20/01/2022

There was a downtrend of our upcoming winter event for Friday and Saturday, but I'm still thinking at least an inch of snow for everyone north and east of Raleigh, NC. The jackpot zone should be around the northeast corner of the state with at least 6 inches. Two to four inches should be widespread northeast of Wilson, NC. with Raleigh, Smithfield, Louisburg, Henderson expecting 1-3 inches.

A friend pointed out that our upcoming event could be similar to what we witnessed on December 26, 2004... and I'll have to agree about the similarity here. Our final snow total could look something like this... just less than this for Fayetteville to the coastline, where they should be expecting more of a sleet/freezing rain event.

19/01/2022

I don't have my tools to create custom weather maps at the moment... so this will have to do. What you're seeing below is what I think is the most realistic snow total for the upcoming event to account for the sleet and the freezing rain along the coast.

Pretty much almost all models are in the agreement that there will be a moderate snow event across central North Carolina into southeastern Virginia this Friday. The snow is coming from a sort of anafrontal setup with a coastal low that is popping out during the event. It's a funky type of event, but it's good enough to squeeze out plenty of snow with the cooler air in place ahead of the front. This is one of more consistent showing from models so the confidence in this is somewhat good.

This event will start on Thursday night with some light precipitation, most likely rain, before the coastal low pressure ramps up to expand the precipitation shield deeper into the colder air aloft to produce snow flakes over central North Carolina into southeastern Virginia. The developing low will also lead to some warm air advection during the event to sneak in a minor warm nose... therefore, someone is going to get a lot of sleet out of this event somewhere along the I-95 corridor in North Carolina. I'm talking about like 2 to 4 inches of pure sleet. Areas staying all snow could break 6 inches between Raleigh, NC to Norfolk, VA. Coastal areas of NC should see more of mixture containing sleet and freezing rain so power outages are possible east of I-95 toward the coast. This will be a rather long event with the wintry precipitation peaking during Friday afternoon into Saturday morning.

16/01/2022

It's certainly slick here in Wake Forest, NC! Roads are pretty bad and trust me on this as someone who lived through a few New England winters. Definitely don't go out unless it's an emergency!

16/01/2022

Tomorrow's winter event is by far the most complicated one I'm having to track. I meant to sit down and actually create my own forecast... but then my girlfriend got into a car accident and I had to rush to the scene. She is okay and unharmed, but her car has a major damage and we're figuring that out.

Thankfully, my friend Eric Webb is a military meteorologist and was also tracking this storm. He has come up with a great regional weather forecast for people to use. As you can see, this storm is a giant mess...

For most of us outside the mountains, this event will start as snow before transitioning to sleet and freezing rain. People living east of Raleigh, Charlotte, and Columbia will then turn over to rain after a couple hours of freezing rain.

Ultimately, unless it's an emergency, I recommend people to stay in tomorrow and maybe enjoy some football. Again, thank you to Eric Webb for coming up with this forecast. All credits go to him on this one. His Twitter is:

14/01/2022

I'm not feeling very confident with this upcoming weather system. Will re-evaluate tomorrow and post my "first call" forecast or something. It's a giant mess of a wintry event across the state.

11/01/2022

One key word for the upcoming wintry threat... PATIENCE.

Yes, I know y'all are wanting details for this Sunday, the 16th, into Monday, the 17th. So do I! However, this is a rather dynamical low pressure system that is coming up to the Southeast. It is a terrible idea to rely on single deterministic runs over 5 days out. Model ensembles are your best friend here... and it is showing many different possibilities depending on how the atmospheric vorticity pattern play out over the United States the new few days.

The leading "shortwave" ripple in the atmosphere will move over the Southeast with minimal impacts on Friday (mostly light rain). However, the path of this leading shortwave will absolutely play a role for the trailing shortwave moving in right behind it. Essentially, what the leading shortwave will do is the pour the cold air into the Southeast for the next shortwave to take advantage of as a major wintry precipitation event somewhere. Our next shortwave will move right over the Great Plains and will try to do three things...

1) It will try to continue plowing straight into the Southeast as an Alberta clipper low. It will be reliable for a moderate snow event without the mixing mess. The ceiling would be low widespread, but the floor would be higher (mostly 3-6" across NC)

2) It will try to "dig" deeper into the Southeast and bombs out into a classic coastal low up the coast of the Carolinas. This is a "boom or bust" type of event with someone getting at least a foot in NC, with the county to east getting nothing.

3) the cold-providing northern jet stream could overpower the moisture-providing southern jet stream and suppress the low pressure into a deep cold snap that is entirely dry.

So that's why it's wise to not even look at fictional snow maps on these single deterministic runs. How can we even break down the upcoming into little details if we still don't know the type of low pressure system that we're getting this weekend? We are still in the time period where we're still figuring the big picture out so there's no point in stressing about little details at this time. I'll try to give y'all another update tomorrow and almost every day leading up to the event.

02/01/2022

Yes... there's a chance of snowflakes for Monday morning... but it shouldn't be too significant for us here in North Carolina. This is the Miller B low setup with the cold air chasing the moisture... so this is NOT an ideal setup for us to see a nice wintry event.

Some people are throwing around larger totals for the mountains and up in the Mid-Atlantic... but I think this is a more realistic forecast given how warm the ground is after 3 weeks of above-average weather. I don't think any snowfall rate can overcome the warm surface. That said, a few flakes are definitely possible for a couple hours as the low pressure system pivots eastward with the cold air wrapping around behind it. This cold air is also dry so it'll eat away at any remaining moisture left behind the cold front with the rest falling as snowflakes. I wouldn't expect any snow accumulation across the Triangle and the Triad, but it wouldn't shock me to see some toward NC/VA border counties.

07/12/2021

As y'all may know... the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on this day 80 years ago to start the devastating Pacific War. But what was the weather’s like on that fateful day? Miraculously, this Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) paper survived the bombing of Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor so we can tell you exactly what atmospheric conditions were like. As y'all may know... the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on this day 80 years ago to start the devastating Pacific War. But what was the weather is like on that day? Miraculously, this Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) paper survived the bombing of Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor so we can tell you exactly what atmospheric conditions were like.

Back in 1941, in days before computers, all hourly weather reports demanded an observer to be at the site to write numbers down as part of the COOP. It was often done in a rotating shift of multiple people. Indeed, that was the case for the official weather reporting site of Honolulu, Hawaii at Hickam Field in the Pearl Harbor area. At 7 am in the morning, Hawaii time, a young Jewish teenager from Chicago took over weather observing duties. He was fresh out of graduation of high school over the summer before deciding to enlist into military due to ongoing tensions between United States and hostile foreign nations. He had a promising athletic future somewhere as a letterman of three different varsity sports (swimming, baseball, basketball), but he enlisted anyway to serve his country. He had just turn 18 over the summer when he found out his assignment was to be part of the Air Corps at Pearl Harbor.

His name? PFC Sherman Levine. He did his regular duties as a weather observer by checking all instruments. Then, in the brand-new row to go with the 7 am hourly report, he wrote down details.
Air temperature was 72, with the dew point having that touch of tropical air at 61. Wind was blowing out of the east-northeast at 60 degrees at 12 knot (13.8 MPH). Altimeter rose a bit to signal better weather was on the way with higher pressure. Sky was partly cloudy with 35% coverage of clouds up to 4000 feet. The ceiling of lowest clouds was at 900 feet. It was a perfect winter morning in the tropics. Levine probably thought he was living in a dream.

No one knew it at the time, but the Imperial Japanese Navy had picked that day to formally attack the United States to take advantage of ideal weather conditions with mid-level clouds to mask their planes heading toward Hawaii. Levine, in the meanwhile, finished up his responsibilities but still had to stick around for another hour in case he needs to append additional information in case something happens during the hour. Another guy joined PFC Levine in the administration building and quickly added a new set of cloud observations at 30 minutes to the hour. Then… at 7:48 am, Hawaii time, Japanese bombers commenced the attack on the island of Oahu.

Levine noticed something in the distance and started to add remarks to the weather report: “obstructions to visibility at this…” but then he quickly scribbled the second part out and added a simple word: “terrified”. It would be the very last detail of his life. There was no more to this small piece of paper and the body of PFC Sherman Levine was later found torn into pieces in an open field with an assumption that Levine was trying to grab his helmet when a Japanese bomb went off right by him. He was buried by the sea in Hawaii for five plus years until the end of the Pacific War, when the United States finally have resources to transfer his body back to Chicago to have a formal military funeral in 1947 with his grieving parents present.

Weather played a huge role in decision-making of wars and the bombing of Pearl Harbor was not an exception to that. It was not an accident that the Japanese chose the date of December 7, 1941 to live down as “a date which will live in infamy".

13/11/2021

While this upcoming winter is likely to be mostly warm with limited opportunities of wintry weather events, I do have to say that late November is looking rather chilly around Thanksgiving... mainly because our long-range computer models are forecasting a major trough passage through North America. Better pack your favorite sweaters and flannels if you're traveling.

08/11/2021