MIKE MOSS SAYS:     Hannah,      Fortunately, really intense ice storms are rather rare across the Southern U.S. but they certainly do occur from time to time and one reason they can be so destructive on occasion is the proximity of the Gulf of Mexico to the south and the Gulf Stream off the southeast coast, both of which can be sources of relatively warm, moisture-laden air that, when combined with the right patterns involving shallow layers of cold, dry air flowing into the region from the north and lifting mechanisms such as surface lows, frontal boundaries and upper level troughs configured in a way to produce large amounts of precipitation. In these situations, there can be a swath in which the air aloft is warm enough to melt falling snowflakes into rain droplets that then become supercooled falling through colder air below, finally freezing on contact with surfaces that have a temperature below 32 degrees.

At more northerly latitudes,

MIKE MOSS SAYS:      Rob,     For hurricanes of the 1800s, tracks and other statistics are estimates of varying accuracy that depend on extensive sleuthing by researchers who look through ships' logs, newspaper reports and diaries, archives of island-based weather observations, insurance company records, and so on. The data gradually becomes more reliable through the years due to the advent of island telegraph lines, radio, and aircraft reconnaissance. Eventually, the availability of 24-hour satellite coverage resulted in reasonably high accuracy for locations and intensities of virtually every storm, but the scientists who reconstructed the archive of hurricane information back to the 1850s, known as "best track" data, readily acknowledge that uncertainties increase with distance in time, and also estimate that in the absence of satellite and aircraft observations, it is likely that up to six storms per year went completely undetected

MIKE MOSS SAYS:        Jason,    The principle mechanism for weather systems to gain moisture from the ocean is evaporation, in which water vapor is lost from the sea surface but the salt that was dissolved in the water is left behind. If you've ever left some salt water in a cup or dish until the water has evaporated, leaving a crusty deposit of salt crystals. In an idealized sense, the water is "distilled" and becomes nearly pure water vapor, at least until it cools and condenses onto some particle floating in the air and becomes a cloud droplet, at which point how pure it remains will depend on the particulars of the material that made up the condensation nucleus.

In the case of some very strong storms such as tropical cyclones and nor'easters, there may be some slightly salty rain that develops because of small droplets of ocean water that are mechanically scoured from the ocean's surface (spindrift off of wavetops,

MIKE MOSS SAYS:      Cambria,    This is a question that arises pretty frequently. Just type "moss college become meteorologist" into the search form at the top of the page and you will turn up several previous posts that address your questions. Good luck!

MIKE MOSS SAYS:       Jay,    The National Weather Service issues a few different kinds of flood warnings and advisories. The ones that apply to a generalized area, outlined in the warning or advisory statement, are called "areal," while there is also a warning type that applies to specific gage locations along a river - these are called "point" flood warnings.

The third type of flood warning, unique in the expected rapidity of its effects, is the flash flood warning, issued when very heavy rain or a dam or levee failure or a major stream blockage due to ice or debris are expected to cause a rapid and potentially life-threatening rise in water levels.