Happy Halloween!

I thought I'd do something a little different tonight on Newswatch...seeing as how it's the Halloween weekend and all. Instead of a "9-2-5 Forecast" I thought I'd breakdown Halloween night and what you can expect on Sunday. Above is my "Trick-Or-Treat" forecast to let you know just what to expect while your escorting the kids around town Sunday night. The conditions look pretty nice (partly cloudy) but it will be on the cool side so be sure to put a jacket under their costume. Oh...and I recieved more Halloween pet pics by the way so here's one more...

The pic above comes from Melissa showing off her Sheltie named Douglas. Doglas is dressed as Captain "Doug" Sparrow from the Pirates movies. The ladies may disagree but I think "Captain Doug" gives Johnny Depp a run for his money. Happy Halloween!

As Promised...

I made a promise this week to show off a few of your Halloween pictures on CHEX TV and on the blog. Every holiday I ask for fun pictures and the ones I get always seem to have one thing in common...pets in costumes! It never fails, but that's okay. I'm an animal lover to! So, as promised, here are a few Halloween pet pictures that have made their way into my inbox...you may even see a few of these on CHEX.

This first pic comes from Chimo and no that's not just any ordinary skunk! It's the scary "Skunk Shih Tzu" that patrols his property every Halloween.

This next picture showcases a few "Halloween Pugs" courtesy of Kerri, one of our loyal CHEX viewers.

Here's a pic from Kim MacMillan of her cat Jeffery ready to celebrate Halloween. Hmmm...I wonder if he plays Quidditch? Please keep sending your pictures to me at jscotland@chextv.com and I'll show as many of them as I can on TV or here on the blog. I also have a special Halloween forecast for you tomorrow (both online and on Newswatch) that will breakdown what kind of weather you can expect while you're out with the kiddies on Halloween night. Think of it as a "9-2-5" forecast for the 6pm-9pm hours for Sunday night. Check back here tomorrow for your special Halloween forecast!

"Weather Bomb"

Are you ready for the weather bomb? That's a term you've likely heard a lot today as a very powerful storm approaches. So...what the heck is a "weather bomb?" A weather bomb is the meteorological term that describes a rapid drop in pressure over a 24 hour period. Meteorologists measure pressure in millibars and for a storm to be considered a weather bomb a region would need to experience a 24mb drop in pressure over 24 hours (or 1mb/hr). So is this storm a "weather bomb?"

To determine in advance if our region will experience such a rapid drop in pressure we need to look at both the leading edge of the storm and the "central pressure" (or the area of lowest pressure). Since these storms generally move from west to east we'll look at the eastern edge of the storm compared to the center. (I grabbed the image above from a forecast model so this is not an actual observation...but it's pretty close to reality). Just ahead of the cold front the the pressure is around 1000mb compared to a central pressure of 956mb. That's a 44mb drop! While I'm not expecting to see a 44mb drop in pressure in 24 hours, considering just how low the central pressure of this storm is, a 24mb over 24 hours is very likely. So what does this all mean for Peterborough and the Kawarthas? The faster the pressure drops the faster the winds will be. This is a called a pressure gradient. When you go from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure over very short distance you have what is called a "steep pressure gradient." The steeper the gradient...the faster the wind. Tonight we'll see a very steep gradient leading to sustained winds in excess of 40km/h and gusts in excess of 60 to 80 km/h. High winds with heavy rain and possible thundershowers can be expected this evening all thanks to what is know as a "weather bomb." While we're not talking about a hurricane here...tonight will still be very windy with the potential to be fairly active.

Go fly a kite!

Please ignore the title of this blog. That was my lame attempt at humour...tomorrow will not be a very good day for kite flying. High winds will likely lead to the kite "flying you" and, with a good chance of some late day thunderstorm activity, electrocution is another possibility. So just how windy is it going to be? Looking at the latest forecast models (see above), sustained winds ahead of that system will likely be in the range of 20-30km/h and if that's not enough for you...

Just wait! As the day progresses (and the "low"approaches) the wind will continue to pick up speed and switch from a a southeasterly to a more southerly direction. This southerly push of wind, just ahead of a cold front, could see gusts in excess of 60 to 70km/h. Some localized wind gusts, depending on topography, may even be in excess of that. As you can see in the image above (from our CHEX TV ADONIS forecast model) by 8pm we can expect very blustery conditions and rain. Later in the evening, as the cold front passes, a thunderstorm is possible before the wind changes to a westerly direction and begins to "die down" through the overnight hours. So what does this mean for our region? After a somewhat sunny start to the day I expect the clouds to build and the wind to pick up during the afternoon. I then expect a wet and windy evening with possible thundershowers. A few Power outages are possible and a big clean-up is ahead for our local political candidates. Today is election day but if the municipal candidates procrastinate in collecting their election signs...well that wind will leave quite a mess to clean up on Wednesday morning.