Interesting phenomena

When is the coldest time of night? The answer: just after sunrise. This is often surprising to people. It makes sense when you actually think about it though. The sun has been out of sight for the entire night. Any heat stored on the surface is at a minimum at this point. If the sky is cloudy, the heat will have remained far longer than if the sky clears. When the sun rises, there is a period of time when there is not enough heat yet to warm the atmosphere and ground. As the sun rises higher, the heat is absorbed and the temperatures start to rise. 

As the temperature rises, winds may increase as things warm. Here, where I am in Wyoming, that time is around 10 AM.

Thunderstorms may form in the afternoon due to instability. The surface warms, air mixes and clouds form. 

The warmest part of the day is late afternoon, when the sun has been out for the longest length of time. The surface warms, air mixes, then clouds form, followed by thunderstorms if the humidity is high enough.

This is a sign in the Snowy Mountains of Wyoming. Afternoon thunderstorms are very common, as I can attest to due to many afternoon outings in the Snowy Mountains. Hiking was not part of these outings, of course.

Medicanes

Medicanes are cyclonic storms that occur one or twice a year in the Mediterranean ocean. They are not true hurricanes as their wind speeds are not sufficient. Winds are in the range of 70 to 95 mph, though the winds can and do go higher (In 1969, 1995, 1996 and 2017 there were storms that made hurricane strength, resulting in deaths and thousands left homeless). Medicanes have a cold core and they travel west to east, the opposite of hurricanes. Like hurricanes, they can produce heavy rains and flooding.

September through January is the most common time of the year for these storms to form. Meteorologists say there are about 2 per year.

Storms that are similar to Medicanes form over Labrador Sea and south of Greenland.

In 11/20/2017, twenty people were killed and a thousand homes damaged by a Medicane.

In 1969, a Medicane struck Algeria and Tunisia, killing 600 and leaving 250,000 homeless. Then in 1996, another Medicane did damage to the Aeolian Islands. 

Medicanes were not a phenomena I was familiar with until I started researching hurricanes.