Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome back to Alabama's Morning News. This is John
Mount sitting in for JT. And All this week we've
been hearing a lot of speculation about what happened in
Texas in terms of the flooding, the severity. They said
it was a five hundred year rainstorm, They talked about
a thirty foot wall of water, things of almost biblical
proportion in terms of weather. And whenever something like this happens,
(00:21):
we have people who they start, you know, reading a
little bit too much into the Internet and they start thinking, well,
this must have been some sort of weather modification. This
could have been cloud seating, this could have been something
that was man cause that we did it. And I
wanted to get somebody as opposed to me just telling
you that's not the case. I want to get somebody
really know. So I went to our chief meteorologist. Really
(00:42):
he's WBrC six's meteorologists, but we borrow him sometimes. Wes Wyatt, Well, Wes,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hey, John, good morning, Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
So this situation that happened out in Texas, this was
definitely I think they called it a five hundred year flood,
but five hundred year floods can happen and do happened
naturally all the time, well every five hundred years, right.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And I was just thinking after this event, you remember
all the scenes from Asheville during last year's hurricane season
and some of the devastating flooding that happened across parts
of Tennessee. These floods often at times, most often we
see floods like this associated with tropical moisture, and we're
very familiar with that here in Alabama. Just this past
(01:26):
weekend was the anniversary of the nineteen ninety four tropical
Storm Alberto. Folks in southeast Alabama, down in the Wiregrass
region are very familiar with the devastating flooding that happened.
Their two lives lost in Alabama, thirty one in Georgia.
And often at times when we see these sort of situations,
it comes with these tropical systems or tropical moisture and
(01:49):
just so much rain. You take one inch of rainfall
over one acre, that is twenty seven thousand, one hundred
and fifty four gallons of water. And when you take
some of those areas out there that receive twenty plus
inches of rainfall in Texas, you do the math and
in a short amount of time, and I know the
(02:12):
Weather Service they issued the warnings, the Weather Prediction Center
that issues the precipitation outlooks, they had precipitation outlooks, and
you know, the warnings were issued. This this thing rolled
in after midnight, however, and it's a matter of you know,
so many times, Yeah, we can issue the warnings, but
it's receiving the warning that's the critical part. And I
(02:35):
think after this, you know, like lessons we have learned
here locally, John after Snowmageddon and April twenty seventh. I remember,
you know, April twenty seventh, we were talking about April
twenty seventh tornado disaster that the following day. I remember
JP saying that listen, people will do the right thing tomorrow,
(02:56):
and sadly, it's not going to be a good day.
And I think even though we had that sort of warning,
that sort of foresight in what type of day that
was going to be. I don't think anybody could turn
around and tell you, hey, tomorrow we're going to see
sixty two tornadoes. You know, sometimes these events, these catastrophic events,
they happen. More of these will happen and we'll say. Wow,
(03:18):
you know, I didn't expect this. But what we can
do is try to mitigate we can. I heard an
excellent idea recently about putting in like we have for tornadoes,
outdoor warning sirens, especially in these areas where we have
you know, kids and camps and just you know, different
(03:38):
protocols to help provide warning. Because quite honestly, if you
receive a warning on your weather radio, by that point,
you know, when you've got a thirty foot wall of
water moving your way. As you said, John, you don't
have much time. I mean, these things literally happen in
a flash.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And in the middle of the night too, which makes
it that much worse. And yeah, even if the camp
counselor in the main tent or the main building had
a weather radio to get from there to each one
of the cabinsy, all right, girls, let's go, it's very
difficult to get that done in the middle of the night.
And Wes, I also wanted to ask you about because
I've had a number of our listeners send me emails saying, well,
(04:18):
this was obviously, this was weather modification, this was cloud seating.
In fact, the Marjorie Taylor Green in the Atlanta area.
She wants to introduce legislation outlawing weather modification, outlawing cloud seating.
Can you explain from a meteorologic standpoint, what is cloud
seating and how does it work?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Cloud seating it's a form of weather modification that's been
attempted in the past. And basically for a rain drop
to form, you need a nucleus we call it condensation nuclei,
and all the dust particles that are in the atmosphere.
When moisture condenses, it condenses onto these dust particles, so
you have this condensation nucleus, especially when it comes to
(04:58):
cold season precipitation. And there have been in the past observations.
There was a I remember from intro to meteorology, a
paper mill that was in South Africa, and it was
observed that near that paper mill, research aircraft collected samples
of particulate matter that was emitted from that mill, and
(05:19):
it turned out the mill was emitting tiny salt crystals
which rose with the updrafts in the clouds, and that
attracted moisture and formed large cloud droplets which grow in
the rain drop. So that sort of started, you know,
some of this idea, some of this talk about, you know,
studying the theory of cloud seating, but listen to what
we're talking about here. Twenty seven thousand gallons of water
(05:40):
over just one acre. You know how much cloud seating
you would have to do. I mean, it's I hear
so many stories that it's kind of like some of
the theories out there, Well, why don't we just when
a hurricane happens? You know, just is there any way
we can disperse a hurricane? I mean, you are I mean,
these are just unimaginable scales. I mean, there is no
(06:02):
way the is as I said, you know going into this, John,
what caused this is the tropical moisture from berry slow
moving system. You have an area of prone to flooding,
it can't handle that level of runoff.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So that's what you end up with.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
And we just saw in New Mexico, you know, another
region where we ended up with some of that significant flooding.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And look, we've had.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Times around here where we just reach a capacity threshold,
we can't hold more water. And we've had situations where
there's a puddle of water on the road in Hoover
and you know, minutes later, cars are floating down the Street,
and you're like, I've never seen this before.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Ask anyone who lives in Vestavia near the Vestavia Bowl
how often they see that happen with Patton Creek.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Well, you see that and it's like one minute, we
have a flood warning. Some days and okay, everything's fine,
but we reach a threshold and that's why it's called
a flash flood warning, and then all of a sudden,
area is underwater.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
It just can't handle anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
But the cloud seating stuff, I get asked about that
a lot other you know, levels of you know, theories
about weather modification. But but but listen, you know, look
I read about this stuff and in intro to meteorology.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
This is not related to that.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I mean they're still studying how to use cloud seating
or if it evens effective, if it, if it works,
there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Going into that.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I mean, it would be uh, it would be nice
if we could find a way to disperse a Category
five hurricane before it strikes the US. But again, there
are greater powers out there, and when it comes to
that level of scale and that type of system, when
it comes to a tropical system, there's just no way.
(07:50):
And I mean we've seen just looking at just think
how long it takes to to remove snow when there's
a blizzard, how long it takes some of these areas.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I mean, you're just.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Looking at how much precipitation falls out of the atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
And you know that's what feeds everything. You know, it
feeds our river.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Systems, and you know, when it comes to precipitation in
the summer, especially this time of the year, we have
heavier rain, We have intense rainfall, more rain, it falls
in greater amounts and shorter ranges of time.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I mean some days, John, and you know what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I was on two eighty one night and I told
my wife, I said, man, my windshield wipers can't even
keep up.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The rain so heavy.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
That's the reason why we have things like the Fox
six weather app. I'm giving you a shameless plug there,
but that app. If you don't happen to have a
weather radio, I mean not saying that should be your
only way of knowing, but it is a great device.
And it's usually your voice that comes on and tells
me that there's a tornado warning for my area or whatever.
And it's very specific. It knows where I am. It's
not just like there's a tornado warning somewhere in Alabama.
(08:55):
It'll it'll tell me like in Hoover, you know that
there is one coming to your house. Take So it's
a great tool to have.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It's a great tool to have.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
And the lightning alerts, I mean, I love that all
thunderstorms have deadly cloud to ground lightning. I just can't
stress that enough. So even if it's a brief shower,
you hear that rumble, get inside. That's why we see
so many lightning strikes this time of the year. That's
why Florida leads the nation when it comes to lightning strikes.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So play it safe.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I tell people all the time, I'm most terrified of
lightning because I can't tell you or at least give
you some sort of idea about where that can happen.
I can track a hurricane, I can track a tornado,
But when it comes to lightning, just make sure you
take those alerts very seriously.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
WRC six is Wes Wyatt. Thank you so much, and
we look forward to seeing you. Hopefully not under those circumstances,
but it's great to know that when they're circumstances like
that will see you and you can be heard on
this radio station.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Thanks John,
And welcome back to Alabama's Morning News. This is John
Mount sitting in for JT. And All this week we've
been hearing a lot of speculation about what happened in
Texas in terms of the flooding, the severity. They said
it was a five hundred year rainstorm, They talked about
a thirty foot wall of water, things of almost biblical
proportion in terms of weather. And whenever something like this happens,
(00:21):
we have people who they start, you know, reading a
little bit too much into the Internet and they start thinking, well,
this must have been some sort of weather modification. This
could have been cloud seating, this could have been something
that was man cause that we did it. And I
wanted to get somebody as opposed to me just telling
you that's not the case. I want to get somebody
really know. So I went to our chief meteorologist. Really
(00:42):
he's WBrC six's meteorologists, but we borrow him sometimes. Wes Wyatt, Well, Wes,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hey, John, good morning, Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
So this situation that happened out in Texas, this was
definitely I think they called it a five hundred year flood,
but five hundred year floods can happen and do happened
naturally all the time, well every five hundred years, right.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And I was just thinking after this event, you remember
all the scenes from Asheville during last year's hurricane season
and some of the devastating flooding that happened across parts
of Tennessee. These floods often at times, most often we
see floods like this associated with tropical moisture, and we're
very familiar with that here in Alabama. Just this past
(01:26):
weekend was the anniversary of the nineteen ninety four tropical
Storm Alberto. Folks in southeast Alabama, down in the Wiregrass
region are very familiar with the devastating flooding that happened.
Their two lives lost in Alabama, thirty one in Georgia.
And often at times when we see these sort of situations,
it comes with these tropical systems or tropical moisture and
(01:49):
just so much rain. You take one inch of rainfall
over one acre, that is twenty seven thousand, one hundred
and fifty four gallons of water. And when you take
some of those areas out there that receive twenty plus
inches of rainfall in Texas, you do the math and
in a short amount of time, and I know the
(02:12):
Weather Service they issued the warnings, the Weather Prediction Center
that issues the precipitation outlooks, they had precipitation outlooks, and
you know, the warnings were issued. This this thing rolled
in after midnight, however, and it's a matter of you know,
so many times, Yeah, we can issue the warnings, but
it's receiving the warning that's the critical part. And I
(02:35):
think after this, you know, like lessons we have learned
here locally, John after Snowmageddon and April twenty seventh. I remember,
you know, April twenty seventh, we were talking about April
twenty seventh tornado disaster that the following day. I remember
JP saying that listen, people will do the right thing tomorrow,
(02:56):
and sadly, it's not going to be a good day.
And I think even though we had that sort of warning,
that sort of foresight in what type of day that
was going to be. I don't think anybody could turn
around and tell you, hey, tomorrow we're going to see
sixty two tornadoes. You know, sometimes these events, these catastrophic events,
they happen. More of these will happen and we'll say. Wow,
(03:18):
you know, I didn't expect this. But what we can
do is try to mitigate we can. I heard an
excellent idea recently about putting in like we have for tornadoes,
outdoor warning sirens, especially in these areas where we have
you know, kids and camps and just you know, different
(03:38):
protocols to help provide warning. Because quite honestly, if you
receive a warning on your weather radio, by that point,
you know, when you've got a thirty foot wall of
water moving your way. As you said, John, you don't
have much time. I mean, these things literally happen in
a flash.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And in the middle of the night too, which makes
it that much worse. And yeah, even if the camp
counselor in the main tent or the main building had
a weather radio to get from there to each one
of the cabinsy, all right, girls, let's go, it's very
difficult to get that done in the middle of the night.
And Wes, I also wanted to ask you about because
I've had a number of our listeners send me emails saying, well,
(04:18):
this was obviously, this was weather modification, this was cloud seating.
In fact, the Marjorie Taylor Green in the Atlanta area.
She wants to introduce legislation outlawing weather modification, outlawing cloud seating.
Can you explain from a meteorologic standpoint, what is cloud
seating and how does it work?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Cloud seating it's a form of weather modification that's been
attempted in the past. And basically for a rain drop
to form, you need a nucleus we call it condensation nuclei,
and all the dust particles that are in the atmosphere.
When moisture condenses, it condenses onto these dust particles, so
you have this condensation nucleus, especially when it comes to
(04:58):
cold season precipitation. And there have been in the past observations.
There was a I remember from intro to meteorology, a
paper mill that was in South Africa, and it was
observed that near that paper mill, research aircraft collected samples
of particulate matter that was emitted from that mill, and
(05:19):
it turned out the mill was emitting tiny salt crystals
which rose with the updrafts in the clouds, and that
attracted moisture and formed large cloud droplets which grow in
the rain drop. So that sort of started, you know,
some of this idea, some of this talk about, you know,
studying the theory of cloud seating, but listen to what
we're talking about here. Twenty seven thousand gallons of water
(05:40):
over just one acre. You know how much cloud seating
you would have to do. I mean, it's I hear
so many stories that it's kind of like some of
the theories out there, Well, why don't we just when
a hurricane happens? You know, just is there any way
we can disperse a hurricane? I mean, you are I mean,
these are just unimaginable scales. I mean, there is no
(06:02):
way the is as I said, you know going into this, John,
what caused this is the tropical moisture from berry slow
moving system. You have an area of prone to flooding,
it can't handle that level of runoff.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So that's what you end up with.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
And we just saw in New Mexico, you know, another
region where we ended up with some of that significant flooding.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And look, we've had.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Times around here where we just reach a capacity threshold,
we can't hold more water. And we've had situations where
there's a puddle of water on the road in Hoover
and you know, minutes later, cars are floating down the Street,
and you're like, I've never seen this before.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Ask anyone who lives in Vestavia near the Vestavia Bowl
how often they see that happen with Patton Creek.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Well, you see that and it's like one minute, we
have a flood warning. Some days and okay, everything's fine,
but we reach a threshold and that's why it's called
a flash flood warning, and then all of a sudden,
area is underwater.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
It just can't handle anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
But the cloud seating stuff, I get asked about that
a lot other you know, levels of you know, theories
about weather modification. But but but listen, you know, look
I read about this stuff and in intro to meteorology.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
This is not related to that.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I mean they're still studying how to use cloud seating
or if it evens effective, if it, if it works,
there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Going into that.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I mean, it would be uh, it would be nice
if we could find a way to disperse a Category
five hurricane before it strikes the US. But again, there
are greater powers out there, and when it comes to
that level of scale and that type of system, when
it comes to a tropical system, there's just no way.
(07:50):
And I mean we've seen just looking at just think
how long it takes to to remove snow when there's
a blizzard, how long it takes some of these areas.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I mean, you're just.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Looking at how much precipitation falls out of the atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
And you know that's what feeds everything. You know, it
feeds our river.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Systems, and you know, when it comes to precipitation in
the summer, especially this time of the year, we have
heavier rain, We have intense rainfall, more rain, it falls
in greater amounts and shorter ranges of time.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I mean some days, John, and you know what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I was on two eighty one night and I told
my wife, I said, man, my windshield wipers can't even
keep up.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The rain so heavy.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
That's the reason why we have things like the Fox
six weather app. I'm giving you a shameless plug there,
but that app. If you don't happen to have a
weather radio, I mean not saying that should be your
only way of knowing, but it is a great device.
And it's usually your voice that comes on and tells
me that there's a tornado warning for my area or whatever.
And it's very specific. It knows where I am. It's
not just like there's a tornado warning somewhere in Alabama.
(08:55):
It'll it'll tell me like in Hoover, you know that
there is one coming to your house. Take So it's
a great tool to have.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It's a great tool to have.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
And the lightning alerts, I mean, I love that all
thunderstorms have deadly cloud to ground lightning. I just can't
stress that enough. So even if it's a brief shower,
you hear that rumble, get inside. That's why we see
so many lightning strikes this time of the year. That's
why Florida leads the nation when it comes to lightning strikes.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So play it safe.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I tell people all the time, I'm most terrified of
lightning because I can't tell you or at least give
you some sort of idea about where that can happen.
I can track a hurricane, I can track a tornado,
But when it comes to lightning, just make sure you
take those alerts very seriously.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
WRC six is Wes Wyatt. Thank you so much, and
we look forward to seeing you. Hopefully not under those circumstances,
but it's great to know that when they're circumstances like
that will see you and you can be heard on
this radio station.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Thanks John,
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