Have breathing problems? I would suggest limiting your time outside for the next couple of hours. There’s no Air Quality Alert in effect, but there’s something pretty interesting and unfortunate going on with the air quality around #Cincinnati now. By accident, I happen to look at a map of air quality indices (AQI) this morning, and I notice the air quality was categorized as “unhealthy for sensitive groups” for many communities in and around Cincinnati, especially near I-71 and I-75. These are government sensors, but citizen sensors – like those from Purple Air (I have one) – show the AQI is ..read more

The absolute measure of humidity – or how much moisture there is in the air – is the dewpoint. The highest the dewpoint goes, the more humid it is…and in 2022, it has been high more than it has been low. But how do you answer the question of “how humid has 2022 so far been?” The answer is: it depends how you measure it, but by most measures, it’s been abnormally humid. For this analysis, let’s look at the hourly dewpoint in Cincinnati from when the airport opened The average dewpoint based on hourly data at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport since June 1, 1948. We’ll use 8p ..read more

Where were you 10 years ago today? Unfortunately, for some, it was their last. March 2, 2012 was the single deadliest severe weather day in the Tri-State since official records began in 1950. There were 10 tornadoes in the Tri-State that day, and 11 people died in northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana, and southwestern Ohio as a result of the tornadoes that day. This day was also the biggest day of my weather career. This event was not a surprise; I was on television Monday morning talking about this severe weather outbreak that would occur on a Friday. By Tuesday, I was concerned that there ..read more

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing! The post Hello world! appeared first on Meteorologist Scott Dimmich ..read more

When I left broadcast meteorology on the last day of November in 2017, I was more than ready to go. I had been passed up for three promotions, yet I had the qualifications for all of them. I had an MBA secretly in my back pocket, and I took at job in the business world a few days after presenting a weather forecast in front of a chromakey. Today, I leave that job. When I joined, my focus was business intelligence – or a fancy way of saying “making business dashboards.” Over time, my position leaned into the decision scientist, data liaison, quality assurance, testing, database design, ETL, and ..read more

Think of the cloudiest place you know. Is it Seattle? Or Buffalo? Or Portland, Oregon? It may be your neighborhood. There are different ways to measure cloudiness, but looking at the really cloudy days gives an idea of often we are truly gloomy. In Cincinnati, we’ve had 41 days with an average daily cloud cover of 90% so far in 2021, 49 days with an average daily cloud cover of 100%, and 90 days with a 90%+ cloud cover : We’ll focus on these numbers here, but – as an aside – is this year cloudier than most? The daily average cloud cover so far in 2021 is 61%, but this is not as cloudy as 2017 ..read more

I was 11 years old. I was so young that I remember playing with Legos on the family room floor. At the time, I found it a point of pride to answer the phone in the house, but at 5:15pm that day a quarter-century ago, I didn’t know that the man on the other end of the phone would reply “Ummm…is your mother there?” and likely be a police officer or firefighter looking to deliver terrible news to my family. That evening was a blur, with friends and family coming to the house, and me being whisked away with the distraction of games and other fun activities. My father and I at Kings Island, around ..read more

If you’re thinking 2021 has been very cloudy, you’re right. Including today (which is likely to change with late day sun, but we’ll use data through 4pm today), today was the 10th completely cloudy day in Cincinnati: We’ve not only had 10 days with 100% cloud cover in February; we also had 15 days with no sunshine in January: This means we’ve had 25 days so far in 2021 with no sunshine: That also means 47% of all days so far this year have been cloudy, and 88% of all days so far this year have had more clouds than sun. Is this unusual? It is. Through this date in 2020, we only had 20 comple ..read more

Just before 6pm on Monday, February 15th, I posted these words on social media: “Trolls and haters…this is your time to shine, and bring your worst.” And they came. Nice modelcast. Must be nice being paid to report what garbage models say. Try forecasting Not reading models. Sunday this scenario became apparent with a layer above freezing at 850mb — Courtney (@werdonaldtrump) February 15, 2021 yep, total bust. but then again, it isn't my profession. biggest issue I see is the hype for marketing purposes. No one wants to say "we really only blend models and with these storms we really don ..read more

Does this month seem cloudier than usual to you…or does it just feel that way? Tuesday was the 13th day of January 2021 so far with 100% cloud cover between sunrise and sunset: In other words, half of all of the days this month have had no to extremely filtered sun. There have only been two days so far this month with more sun than clouds during the day. Is this unusual? The average of the average daily cloud cover for January 2021 so far is 78%. Compare that to 80% for all of January 2020 and 2019…and the 85% average daily cloud cover for all of 2017. This month has been cloudy, but three Ja ..read more