Storm

WJZ meteorologist Bernadette Woods is leaving the CBS-owned station to join a non-profit firm in New Jersey focused on climate change, she said Wednesday night. Woods, who has been with WJZ for seven years, said she will remain at the station helping with the transition for the next month. After that, she, her husband and their two children will be moving to Princeton, N.J., where she will join Climate Central as staff meteorologist. "I'm very excited about the opportunity in Princeton," she said.

Warm air has moved over the Baltimore region, expected to bring highs to around 80 degrees and possible showers or storms Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. Overnight lows were expected in the mid- to upper-60s. Cloud cover is expected for most of the day, with about a 30 percent chance of showers during the day and thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening. Some clearing is expected Friday, with partly cloudy skies and highs again around 80 degrees. Temperatures are forecast to be slightly cooler for the Preakness on Saturday, though precipitation that meteorologists were expecting is predicted to stay south of the area in Virginia.

Editor: I would like to publicly thank the Bel Air Barnes & Noble bookstore for their role in recovering from hurricane Irene. I am writing this message on my mobile device from inside their store Sunday afternoon. I am using their free Wi-Fi service and one of their electrical outlets. And, for over an hour there were six others near me doing the same thing. Nearly every outlet in the store had somebody plugged in with a notebook, tablet, or a phone. So, thank you Barnes & Noble for supporting the wireless users of Bel Air during the power outage.

Forecasters are watching for development of potentially severe thunderstorms across Maryland late Thursday, though the strongest chances for severe weather were expected in Southern Maryland. Warming temperatures are expected to fuel the atmospheric instability, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center. Temperatures reached 84 degrees at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in St. Mary's County by 1:30 p.m., while it was 77 degrees at BWI Marshall Airport. An area of Southern Maryland and the lower Eastern Shore, along with parts of Central Virginia, is expected to have a 15 percent chance of severe damaging wind gusts.

A bout 75 people were at Federal Hill Park on Saturday afternoon, either for sledding or a snowball fight that was organized via Facebook and Twitter on Friday. A handful of people brought coffee, cans of beer or bottles of cheap wine. Someone brought a boom box, wrapped in a garbage bag, that provided music. One man was buried in the snow as if he were being covered by sand at a beach. Snow-goers used snow tubes, saucers and tops of garbage cans to sled down the hill; three inventive types even used blow-up air mattresses in lieu of sleds.

When Katrina hit, President George W. Bush was excoriated for not violating Federal Emergency Management Agency mandates and asking Louisiana for permission to enter the disaster zone. When Louisiana's Democratic governor, senators and New Orleans mayor would not respond, President Bush went in anyway with the relief columns. He got nothing but lies, exaggerations and name-calling for his efforts and accusations he wasn't around. Now let us shift to 2012. President Barack Obama is mostly anywhere else but near the disaster area and not a word of criticism is leveled.

Surviving the storm Here are some tips for coping with the impact and aftermath of a snowstorm like the one that slammed Baltimore and the surrounding area this weekend. If you must travel •Let someone know your timetable and your routes. •Stay on main roads. Avoid back-road shortcuts. •Carry a winter storm survival kit, including mobile phone, blankets, flashlight with extra batteries, food, water and a shovel. •If you get stranded, don't leave your vehicle.

The full force of Sandy hasn't even hit Maryland yet, but regulators here are warning consumers against the scam artists who inevitably will pop up. The Maryland Attorney General said that once the storm leaves the area, homeowners with damaged houses and cars will likely be further hurt by repair scams. “Be careful with door-to-door salesmen using high pressure tactics to get your hard-earned money. That money may vanish while the repair goes undone,” says AG Doug Gansler.

The climate pattern that has sent two storms up the East Coast in the past month could re-emerge around Thanksgiving, making for a possibly wet holiday. Blocking over the Atlantic is expected next week, though where it settles and how it interacts with weather systems isn't clear yet. But one important indicator, the North Atlantic Oscillation, is showing stormy weather is likely, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Henry Margusity. The National Weather Service expects the highest rain potential for the coastal Carolinas and the Delmarva peninsula, according to the latest models . But it's not clear yet how closely the storm will track to the coast, forecasters say. AccuWeather's Elliot Abrams is leaning toward a mild and dry Thanksgiving, but a large storm is lurking off the coast in models, which could change as the time nears.

In his letter ridiculing the "Bible thumpers" who believe hurricanes and other natural disasters are punishments from God, Luther Starnes appears to promote a common but dangerous misconception when he writes that "attributing destruction and vengeance to an all-loving God could border on blasphemy" ("Angry deity or intense low-pressure system?" Sept. 4). Yes, God is love, and His grace and mercy are unfathomable.  But if you read the New Testament carefully, to say nothing of the Old Testament, it is abundantly clear that God's love is balanced by His justice, which leads at times to much "destruction and vengeance" on those who do evil.  In fact, God declares emphatically that His followers are not to take revenge on others but to "leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay' say the Lord.

A significant warm-up is forecast Wednesday in the Baltimore area, with highs in the mid- to upper-80s and possible storms late in the afternoon or evening, according to the National Weather Service. That is more than 20 degrees warmer than the past few days' highs, which have remained in the lower 60s. It is a swing of 50 degrees from Tuesday morning's low of 34 degrees at BWI Marshall Airport, which tied a record set in 1996. Lows Wednesday morning are forecast to be close to those high temperatures from recent days, bottoming out around 60 degrees in the city and in the 50s further out. Temperatures are forecast to rise quickly, to 70 degrees by mid-morning and 80 degrees by midday, according to the weather service.

A proposed buyout of Smith Island homeowners to help them escape future damage from tropical storms and rising waters has been dropped amid vocal resistance from residents of the low-lying community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. The Somerset County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday not to offer buyouts with any of the $8.6 million in federal aid the lower Eastern Shore county is in line to receive to help it recover from the ravages of...

A line of thunderstorms passed through Harford County Saturday afternoon, knocking down trees - including one at the Harford County Courthouse - and causing sporadic power outages. By 7:30 p.m., the BGE web site was reporting roughly 2,200 customers were without power in the immediate aftermath of the storm; more than 1,500 had power restored and more than crews were working to get 700 more back on line. Hardest hit were areas along Route 24 from Forest Hill to Joppa, and in the greater Havre de Grace area.

A trained weather spotter reported a funnel cloud sighting in Roland Park on Saturday afternoon, while severe wind damage occurred in Harford County as storms passed through the region, according to the National Weather Service. The funnel cloud sighting was reported at 4:24 p.m. along Lake Avenue near Roland Avenue. No tornado has been confirmed, and the weather service has not received any reports of damage that appeared to have been caused by a tornado, said Brian Lasorsa, a meteorologist in the weather service's Baltimore/Washington forecast office.

A somewhat muggy day is in the forecast for Baltimore on Friday, with high temperatures topping 80 degrees and a chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms, according to the National Weather Service. Overnight lows were expected around 60 degrees, with a chance for some early morning fog. Temperatures are expected to rise into the 70s by mid-morning, under partly cloudy skies. Storm clouds could begin moving through in the early afternoon, with storm chances lingering into the evening.

Storms are cropping up Wednesday afternoon as the core of a slow-moving low-pressure system passes through Virginia, and more are expected through the end of the week. A severe thunderstorm warning was briefly issued for parts of western Baltimore city and county about 3:40 p.m., affecting the Woodlawn, Pikesville and Roland Park areas. The storm brought lightning and heavy downpours, with hail ranging from small pellets to penny- and nickel-sized hunks. Radar images showed storms moving up from the south into the southwest Baltimore suburbs by about 3:30 p.m., with more storms to the south that could move up through the evening.

I'm not keen on anthropomorphizing nature, a tendency best left to nineteenth-century poets: Shelley, Wordsworth, that element.  So I grit my teeth and endure the National Weather Service's practice of naming tropical storms and hurricanes. It's a well-established tradition, and at least the weather service has started using male as well as female names, and the Associated Press Stylebook  has long since frowned on calling storms and ships "she. "* But the Weather Channel's whim to name winter storms, including the one buffeting the Northeast today, strikes me as a crass and inept attempt to gin up publicity for itself while whipping up public excitement over the weather.

A ferocious storm walloped Maryland on the last weekend before Christmas, shutting down shopping malls and airports, clogging roads and keeping most people hunkered in their homes to wait out the unusual pre-holiday snow. The weather system, which the National Weather Service said broke a record for a December storm in this area, dumped as much as 18 to 20 inches in some areas as Gov. Martin O'Malley declared a state of emergency and deployed the National Guard. It punished retailers and procrastinating holiday shoppers on one of the year's busiest shopping days, and for a time put the Ravens' afternoon contest today in doubt when the Chicago Bears' initial flight into BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport was delayed.

A baby fox rescued Tuesday night from a storm drain in Edgewood by a well-meaning group of Harford County firefighters was later euthanized so it could be tested for rabies — though the disease was not ultimately found. The decision — which was met with disappointment from the volunteer firefighters — was made out of fear that handling the abandoned pup during and after the rescue may have exposed the men to the deadly viral disease, even though none of them were bitten or scratched, the Harford County Health Department said.

If you've ever heard a baby fox screaming for its mother on a dark spring night - foxes can sound eerily human - you'll know why a team of volunteer firefighters in Harford County was alerted to the howls of a desperate pup trapped in a storm drain in Edgewood late Tuesday. But thanks to the yipping plea for help, the furry redhead ended up getting a ride in a fire truck and spending the night with a bunch of firefighters at the Joppa-Magnolia Volunteer Fire Station. The firefighters are "tasked with protecting lives, not just human," the station said in a news release.