@ameliaurquhart
(she/her) 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈. Storm chaser and astrophotographer. Chase Archive team member. Cat mom. Oklahoma’s transgender menace. F 💞 ²⁰²⁴⁻¹⁰⁻⁰⁸.🌪️- 18 🌌 - 8 💻: https://github.com/a-urq 📸: https://amelia-urquhart.darkroom.com
While the Turkey, Texas supercell of March 5, 2026 never appeared to produce a tornado, it showed significant pre-tornadic behaviors. Most notable of these is the RFD clear slot wrapping around the mesocyclone. The rotation within the developing wall cloud also became much more rapid.
While the Turkey, Texas supercell of March 5, 2026 never appeared to produce a tornado, it showed significant pre-tornadic behaviors. Most notable of these is the RFD clear slot wrapping around the mesocyclone. The rotation within the developing wall cloud also became much more rapid.
The total lunar eclipse of March 3, 2026 during maximum eclipse at 5:33 AM CST. Imaged as a stack of 56 exposures to reduce noise. While not shown in the photo, this eclipse seemed a bit darker than last year's, and the umbral shadow had no blue rim this time.
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For my senior project, I've been making a model that forecasts the short-term probability of Convective Initiation. It's not available to the public yet, but I plan on open-sourcing it and making a real-time product using this model sometime in the near future.
When all you see is a stable green band, it can be hard to trust that the substorm is coming. Often, the long wait is just a charge-up that makes the show even more spectacular.
I’ll still be telling people about last night decades from now.
Ladies, gentlemen, and others, this is what it was all for. This is what every time we’ve spent on the side of a frigid dirt road with stubborn +25 Bz was for. This is what every single time we watched the CME impact at 7:00 AM was for.
Steam devils at sunrise, over Lake Thunderbird early this morning
It is wild how far a little bit of careful, intentional color grading can get you
It’s like driving a Lamborghini on the Information Superhighway.
I’m running on three hours of sleep and the wonder of nature baby
I work hard enough, I can give my code files silly names.
Hurricane Melissa's extreme Category 5 eyewall, rapid core disintegration over Jamaica, and subsequent rapid reintensification on approach to southeastern Cuba. Landfall is ongoing 20 mi/32 km west of Santiago de Cuba.
The clock has just about run out on Melissa’s restrengthening period as its eyewall approaches the Sierra Maestra mountains. Even though it’s still extremely dangerous, I’m happy to see it didn’t intensify as much as I feared it would.
(4/4) This inward motion may cause the surface low to fill in, and the cyclone would reach a new balance in the absence of other forces. However, if the pressure falls from ascent over the sfc low outpace pressure rises from sfc convergence, Melissa may restrengthen rapidly.
(3/4) Think of a figure skater, or a professor holding dumbbells standing on top of a spinning chair. As either one brings their arms in, they spin faster. We may observe a similar effect with Melissa.
(2/4) Right now, the pressure gradient force is trying to crush air inwards. Since the centrifugal force is weaker due to relatively slow winds, a net push inwards exists. This will encourage inwards motion and, through the conservation of angular momentum, strengthening of winds.
Melissa is quite far out of force balance after reemerging from Jamaica. The sea-level pressure gradient as measured by recon suggests a wind speed of 104 mph, but their dropsonde only measured 78 mph. This disequilibrium may encourage rapid restrengthening, see below. (1/4)
bsky.app/profile/amel...
I recommend anybody interested in donating uses the official website launched earlier today instead of the links I posted supportjamaica.gov.jm/donateq
American Red Cross: redcross.org/donate/donat...
American Friends of Jamaica: theafj.app.neoncrm.com/forms/afj-di...
World Central Kitchen: donate.wck.org/give/499865/...
International Medical Corps: internationalmedicalcorps.org?form=Melissa...
Category 5 Hurricane Melissa made landfall today near Black River, Jamaica with 185 mph winds and is currently re-emerging near Falmouth. If you have the means, I strongly encourage you to consider donating to a relief effort.
Direct Relief: donate.directrelief.org/give/647931#...
(more below)
Upper-level cutoff low, slightly chilly, 85 MUCAPE is my favorite weather outside of chasing
Comet A6 Lemmon has gotten everybody's attention lately, but did you know there's a second comet in the sky right now? On Friday night, C/2025 R2 (SWAN) was faint and has no discernible tail, but that only let its fuzzy green coma shine more clearly.
At the time of imaging, it was about magnitude 4.6. It has started to produce something of a dust tail, but it’s much less that C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan/ATLAS) last year and that’s keeping its brightness down. Through my 10x50 binoculars it looked like a faint colorless smudge.
Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) near peak brightness on October 17!
(see replies for visual binocular view)
I took this shot this morning, from 5-7 AM with the full moon bearing down on me the whole time. I wasn't able to pull the faint tail out this time. In a way, that emphasizes the vivid green coma, a gravitationally unbound cloud of glowing gas emitted from the cometary nucleus.
Full loop of the Fujiwhara effect between hurricanes Humberto and Imelda up to the present! I plan to update this with the rest of Imelda's lifespan as it drifts out of frame in 3-7 days.
