chad myers is the expert on this. here's here to tell us about these clouds and how dangerous they can be for pilots. >> and they were far to the left and far to the right of this plane's path. there's the plane's path coming out of surabaya. i know plane is much larger than it truly is all the way to the left and the right. the plane would have had to deviate left or right to miss these thunderstorms. a large mass of thunderstorms. now, not a hurricane or typhoon or cyclone but certainly that area that they can form very warm water at the surface, the water wants to rise in a big qume low nimbus thunderstorm develops. you have updrafts downdrafts eddies circulation. it's just like flying through the midwest. you would never want to fly through that 50,000 foot top over oklahoma. that will be a violent right so these pilots has to deviate around this. they either went left or right or it appears they maybe even went up trying to get around this storm or series of storms in a big long line. it's the same type of line t

cnn meteorologist chad myers is joining us from atlanta. we have david soucie, aviation expert and author of "why planes crash." chad, what was the weather precisely and can you explain what that might mean for a plane to stall and how that might have happened here? >> you know, as drivers, we think of stalls when the engine actually stops but that's not what the word means in aviation. stall means that the wings stop lifting the airplane because there's not enough air going over that wing and so the plane doesn't have any more lift. and we know what happens when that happens. there's significant thunderstorms. 55,000 feet. 53,000 feet. 50,000 feet right in the plane's path and not just one but a line of weather called the itcz, the intertropical convergence zone. it's an area that goes all the way around the globe close to the equator where air comes together. and when air comes together, it can't go down because the ground is in the air. it has to go up. and that rising air, just like a cold front or mountain range, will create severe thun

this is very difficult right now. >> chad myers, thanks so much. the tools searching for flight 8501 are the same used searching for missing malaysian airlines flight. the ja is ais only 100 feet deep compared to the indian ocean where flight 370 is believed to have crashed, the depth is about 13,000 feet in certain areas, deeper than the height of the tallest building of the world in dubai, the empire state building and the eiffel tower. specialist tim taylor is also the president of tiburon subsea recertain, a company that specializes in rovs and auvs and underwater imagery. welcome back. i'm glad you're here. let's talk about the weather and how that's affecting the search. >> weather is always going to hamper it and with the 50 knot winds it's near impossible to work out there. but that being said if i was running this operation, if i was leading this i would seriously look since they're out of the visual hunting stage, not out of it but it's narrowed down where they can start putting sonar or acoustic listeners in the water. i would consider n

chad myers, thank you so much.to bring in now our team of experts here in "the situation room." we have cnn law enforcement analyst tom fuentes. former ntsb managing director peter goals. david suzi, and david gal low, who helped discover the wreckage of air france flight 447 in the atlantic ocean. david suzi to you first. how important is a pilot's reaction when it comes to rough weather? >> well, it's not the reaction as in i feel something and i'm responding to it. it's the reaction to the perception of what's going on in front of them. so that's where the first initial reaction comes in. that can be changed. a lot based on how much they rely on their equipment. so if you overrely on what you see on the screen it may not give you the best picture of what's in front of you. so it's the perception of what is ahead of them that is so critical for the pilots. they have a lot of choices that they can make. turn around continue through, climb or descend or try to go around it. but that's the -- when most errors are ma

. >> rene marsh, chad myers, thank yous to both of you. "@this hour with berman and michaela" starts now. >> hello, everyone, i'm john berman. >> i'm michaela pereira. we have breaking news. >> this is breaking news out of london. this will affect thousands and thousands of travelers and snarl air travel for hours airspace over london right now is restricted? >> we understand a technical problem is to blame. we want to turn straight now to jim boulden in london. give us an idea of what you're hearing there on what caused this failure. >> right now they're telling us a technical problem here at the main air traffic control system which controls the entire southeast of the uk. we're talking about london heathrow, gatwick, luten, major airports. we're talking about flights coming in from the u.s. many dozens able to come from american airlines, united and delta all being hugely disrupted. originally we were told the airspace was closed because of a computer failure. now they're saying a technical problem or power failure and they're saying th

i'll be back here tomorrow. >>> chad myers, thanks. oil prices have been plunging.t means gas prices have been plunging. all right. what's the catch? we'll get an early start on your money next. ♪ oachdicare eligibil you may think you can put off checking out your medicare options until you're sixty-five, but now is a good time to get the ball rolling. keep in mind, medicare only covers about eighty percent of part b medical costs. the rest is up to you. that's where aarp medicare supplement insurance plans insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company come in. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, they could help pay some of what medicare doesn't, saving you in out-of-pocket medical costs. you've learned that taking informed steps along the way really makes a difference later. that's what it means to go long™. call now and request this free [decision guide]. it's full of information on medicare and the range of aarp medicare supplement plans to choose from based on your needs and budget. all plans like these let you choose any doctor or hospita

joining me to explain the difficulties are sea operations specialist tim taylor and meteorologist chad myersnt to start with you because we know weather was such a factor we believe it was a factor in this plane coming down. we know that it's a major factor in that area. at this time of year, what are we talking about weather wise? >> it's kind of ironic. i can show you this graphically, but the weather gets bad in the morning at sunrise and it gets better at sunset exactly opposite of what you'd like. typically in america we think of the weather getting bad at 4:00 5:00, that's when the storms build. let me take you back 24 hours and show you the storms again, just like yesterday, built last night. they got bad again in a big long line across the same area that the plane was lost. in the same area that they're looking if:. all these guys and women are out there looking for the plane. so 11:00 at night in the dark there's very little rain fall. in the morning hours things pop up and there you go. storms in the middle of the search area. tomorrow night, clear. the next morning, stormy. it's j

chad myers joins us from the cnn weathercenter and, chad, what are the conditions right now in this part of the world? >> ironically, the conditions are amazing. they're great. the storms are gone, the clouds are gone it's not raining. but it's dark. so -- and this is this morning when they had to call off everything because storms were everywhere now the storms are gone. by morning, guess what? the storms will be back. there's our search area right there. not even a rain shower in the box and then later on tonight into tomorrow morning, another batch of rain comes in right when they would be wanting to launch more ships, more planes. that's kind of the key here. it's been great in the dark and terrible during the day. it's going to be that way for the next three days. here's friday day, here's friday morning 5:00 a.m. they should be launching ships from the coast and there will be storms everywhere and winds 40 or 50 miles per hour. so even if you could get a ship out there, you don't want in the the wave which is could be 20 feet high. every night it calms down every morning it pops up

cnn meteorologist chad myers is tracking it all, good morning, chad. >> good morning, carol. that storm for san francisco could make hurricane force winds as it comes down in the next couple days. let's talk about the nor'easter, the coastal storm from yesterday, jfk picked up three inches of rain on a normal month for january, december, whatever, you have about three and a half inches of rain total with, whether you meltdown the snow or not. killington, vermont, will take the snow, 14 inches. the snow is with us. the rain's pretty much gone away. the snow is still here, the air is getting colder and the snow through syracuse, buffalo toward the catskills and the adirondacks. move our attention to the west. this is where it's going to get tricky. rain for seattle and portland. some of these coastal areas could pick up a foot of rain, and that could run off and make a bunch of flooding. there's a benefit to this if this rain, and we expect it, gets down into california. california has been in this amazing drought. they didn't even have crops in many areas because they couldn't

i'm joined again by chad myers, cnn meteorologist, david gallo, cnn aviation analyst and director of ecial projects at the woods hall oceanographiic institute. chad, let me start with you, walk us through what equipment investigators have to find the black boxes and how that works? >> we call them black boxes. they're orange but they're boxes. two of them, one for data, one for voice and other sounds in the cockpit. the data is very important to know what was the angle of the rutter, what was the angle, what was the depth, what was the altitude? all of those pieces of data inside this box. and it says do not open. there are data ports, one here and on the other side, you don't need to open this up. if it's damaged and they need to try to repair it or massage the data, that's going to happen. but this is 30 pounds. people joke, why not make the whole plane out of the black box? it would never fly. this is a reinforced box to keep that data secure. how do you find it? this thing, we call it pings, it sends out a signal and we're going to drive a signal locater over the top, drag it behi

high they go and with the heavy rain even ice at these altitudes, i want to bring in meteorologist chad myers to explain more about this. just how bad was the weather for flight 8501 chad >> certainly when the pilot took off, did not expect to get to what he saw when he got there 45 minutes or so later. this was a violent line of weather, ana, and it developed all at once. another line is actually developing right now very close to where the search area is slightly south but i'll show that. some of these storms were occasionally 53,000 feet tall up and down motion back and forth motion, a lot of violent shaking in the thunderstorm itself. the pilot wants to fly around those storms because a plane flies because of one principle. area and distance it takes to go over the wing is greater than the distance to go under the wing. it's not about tilting the plane, it's the pell that the top of the wing has a longer distance that makes the plane go up. thoofs the weather right there that big red area lining up thunderstorms. pilots will be thinking better go going left or right tonight after this eve

chad myers joining us now from the cnn weather center. this is very important, this search. you have both on ships searching. you have planes searching. the aerial search was suspended today because of the bad weather. what are the conditions going to be like in the hours and days ahead? >> rain clouds and wind of 30. i know that sounds bad. but the model run that just expired and we got a new one said rain, clouds, wind to 50. so somehow we're going in the right direction but still a wave at 15 20 feet high doesn't help find pieces of an airplane in the water. it gets too mixed up. we're actually in pretty good shape. the problem is, it's dark. so not many crews out there. you don't have aerial searches in the dark. and even though this is the best weather we've had all day. by morning, we have more weather moving back in. that's the kind of diurnal pattern we have here. in the morning, cloudy and stormy. by late afternoon, it goes away. by night, it's great. that's the problem with this search and we talked to a couple of researchers earlier that said if this is the case f

chad myers is here to tell us what the weather conditions are now. hi chad. >> hi carol. when you get out in the deep ocean it's called a roller the ocean kind of does this. when you get into shallow water the ocean does this more of a chop. it's a steeper wave and that's what they saw yesterday, they call it the two to three meters which is almost ten feet in some spots. i'll back you up 24 hours here the skies are fairly good. i know it looks like there's a lot of cloud cover but these are high clouds not getting in any way of the surface or of the search at all. then all of a sudden last night about 6:00 a.m. their time about the same time 48 hours before that that the plane had its trouble, more storms popped up right here. now the last known position is right there at that dot where the plane is but where they found the debris is back in here in this yellow box. we know that to be the case because the debris field has moved a little bit at least because of current and because of wind. this is the current. there is the debris field. there's where it was last spotted o

let's head to the weathercenter and chad myers. he's going to describe the part of the sea where the plane went down. take it away chad. >> very shallow, carol, which is good for recovery because you don't have to get down there with an rov at 15,000 feet like we think mh-370 is in at this point in time. but the debris is to now what we call the east-southeast of where the last spotted plane was on the radar. people are asking why did that happen. well, the wind has been blowing in that direction for a long time. even at 35 miles per hour at times but also the current is moving that way as well. here's what happened. i'll back you up 24 hours. this is when they found the debris. pretty clear skies. i know it looks cloudy here but this is not thick cloud cover, the orange and the red, that's the thick cloud cover. now i'm going to push you ahead to just about the exact same time 48 hours later, that the plane was lost. storms popped up and that exact same time they do this every single morning over this warm water, over this area her

let's bring in chad myers at the cnn weathercenter. chad, what do things look like right now and tomorrow at first light? what will they see then? >> i was very encouraged by the pictures that we just saw from paula how things have really calmed down. the winds have calmed down they have been rough, the seas have been rough, this is a shallow part. in you've ever thought about lake erie where lake miami is deep and there's rollers, lake erie all those waves are very sharp because the waves bounce off the bottom and you get a sharper steeper wave action tomorrow will be a much better day for ships. remember, there's still those pingers throughout they'll be looking for as well. we learned about those on mh-370. this plane had a very rough trip. i'm sure the pilot just said "keep your seat belts on the entire time." flying through significant thunderstorms 50,000 feet tall at times, trying to fly around them. there's a radar on the plane. the pilots can see where the turbulence would be, where the thunderstorm shafts would be trying to ge

chad myers, thanks so much. >>> more fallout for bill cosby. a woman who says he drugged and raped her in the 1970s is trying a new strategy to hold the comedian responsible. we'll explain. >> it's an interesting theory. you'll be surprised by it. >>> did you hear about this guy -- 12 days lost at sea. getting word that the search for him was over. what did he do to survive in and listen to this, not only is he found, but word of the ordeal winds up creating a reunion for him, you will not believe. ♪ turn around ♪ every now and then i get a little bit hungry ♪ ♪ and there's nothing good around ♪ ♪ turn around, barry ♪ i finally found the right snack ♪ [ female announcer ] fiber one. wouldn't it be great if hiring plumbers, shopping online is as teasy as it gets. carpenters and even piano tuners were just as simple? thanks to angie's list, now it is. start shopping online from a list of top-rated providers. visit angieslist.com today. >>> a new lawsuit has been filed against bill cosby by one of his accusers. tamara green says she was drugged an

chad myers here now to walk us through it. what all are they facing chad? >> very big storms, brianna, that pick up right in the middle of the morning hours, when you want it to calm down when all the assets get there and the daylight is there, it just gets windy. and the wind creates whitecaps. you're looking for parts of a white plane with whitecaps everywhere, doesn't go very well. going to be a difficult process. every time one of these big red blobs, a clustered thunderstorm runs over the debris field, winds pick up lightning picks up as well. and all of a sudden you're scattering that debris even more. now, eventually we're going to get the pinger locater on top of the pinger itself and we'll find it. but i'm on board with david here with this larger debris field because for so many days we've had wibdnd. and any little piece of debris that's been sticking up out of the water at all will have windage, like a sailboat. and it will float down much faster than something slightly below the surface but not sticking up very much. so you're starting with a w

>> chad myers, thank you for that. >>> well, one side, bill cosby. on the other side, a growing group of women who say that cosby drugged them, groped them, overpowered them, undressed them and in some cases, raped them. at least 23 accusers now, including this woman right here. you may recognize her. bev v beverly johnson, the groundbreaking super model. she is now talking about a secret she kept for 32 years. she spoke earlier to cnn not only on the day that she's convinced that bill cosby drugged her but why she kept so quiet about it for so long. >> well, i got a call from my agent that the cosby show and mr. cosby wanted me to come down for an audition for the bill cosby show. he asked me to come to another taping and he said bring my daughter, which was a big deal for my daughter, who was very young at the time. and then he said that we could do a rehearsal at his brownstone that weekend. and i said, well, you know, i have my daughters on the weekend and i wouldn't be able to do that. and he said to bring my daughter along. and i thought, oh, t

i want to head over to the weathercenter and chad myers because he has more on that angle of the storyave many other airports around the region that can accept these airplanes so i think we won't have planes running out of fuel, no emergency, no one is squawking 7,700 which means emergency. they're still landing planes at gatwick and there are still other airplanes and other air landing strips around the area. 23 you get diverted, it's like when they close atlanta because of a thunderstorm, you have to land in chattanooga or savannah. i've done it before. you sit there on their tarmac and wait for the airspace to reopen and you get to where you want to go. certainly that ripple effect you're talking about now, the main flying time, i understand it's 11:00 in the morning here but think about the time zones and how they change and how many other airplanes are in the air to london, to heathrow at this point. they will be diverted to paris and sit there and wait until this airspace opens up. the good news is at least with the planes that were very close don't have to go very far to manches

let's get to meteorologist chad myers with the latest. chad, what have you go the?tters, new york rain coming down, almost three inches on the ground, street flooding in some spots. to the west, poconos, adirondacks where the snow will be. you'll only get rain in new york city, why there are flood watches and warnings. there will be coastal warnings and coastal flooding along long island sound as the wind blows that water in, a lot like sandy did, not to the extent of sandy. there will be a three-foot surge, not a 12-foot surge. if you're in the low lying area you want to watch out. one to three inches of rainfall, three inches on the ground in some spots. about a foot of snow in the higher elevations. it's the wind today that will wreck the airports. we're seeing wind gusts of 40 miles per hour. new york city two to three-hour delays right now and maybe higher. we already saw about 45 flights canceled out of new york. that's the view from our camera in new york city. something else going on for the next seven days, a major event for california and the northwest, th

so joining me to talk about this is cnn meteorologist chad myers, also director of special projects atstart with you with this latest information we are getting, reportedly a screen grab from air traffic control which show this flight 8501 rising in altitude perhaps rising too slowly at that altitude why would that be a concern? >> let's break this down for you. i'm going to take you where you are at 36,000 feet and give you a division number for how much air is up there. you go to the top of the mountain there is not much oxygen up there. there is 25% of the air at the surface. if that plane was going 353 knots, multiply that by 25%. they expect that airplane to fly at 100 miles per hour at the surface. an a-320 doesn't fly at 100 miles per hour. even at full flaps. it's the air the speed, you have to keep those constant. this plane was going too slowly for that altitude. we have all been if airplane in airplanes when it starts to get bumpy. he bleeds off speed to make that ride better. if this was either pile error, computer error, you get into that vertical instability up and down m

let's get to meteorologist chad myers, keeping track of the entire world. let's just start country, chad, happy monday. >> let's start with you, it is cold outside. happy monday to you, it will get windier tomorrow. this is just the beginning. wind chill right now 15. nothing on your radar, great flying getting if and out of fork today. >> that may not be the same story tomorrow. the blue area, that is a winter storm watch, the green area, those are flood watches for tomorrow, a nor'easter runs up the coast. this is another nor'easter that isn't cold enough to make a big snowstorm for the city. that's great t. pocono the andirondacks, the katd skills, you will get snow the coastal areas get an awful lot of rain. the story will be wind driven rain. there may be some wind gusts tomorrow afternoon that may be 50 miles per hour to the city. if you get those wind gusts in philadelphia, if d.c., in new york city, in boston, the airplanes will be slow. expect slow weather. expect cancellations tomorrow at the airport if you are flying. today is a better day to get

let's get to meteorologist chad myers, what's going on, chad? >> i know you think i hate you by sending you that big nor'easter. it was a brutal storm in the northeast. >> we agree. >> a powerful nor'easter packing heavy snow and torrential rain slammed the northeast overnight. the storm reportedly to blame for at least two deaths. one in new york, the other in maine. as it bears down on the eastern seaboard. upstate new york and vermont seeing upwards of 12 inches of snow in the past 24 hours. and may get ten more before this week is over. further south -- officials issuing flood warnings from boston to new york. record-setting rain in new york city nearing three inches. the most rain ever on tuesday's date december 9th. >> we're stuck at home until this dies down. >> a bad day for air travel, over 1,000 flights canceled on tuesday and more than 2500 delays. near boston, massachusetts -- freezing rain creating treacherous black ice on roads. >> it was terrifying, actually. i was out of control for ten seconds. >> causing multiple rollovers and

meteorologist chad myers joins us. we know this is kind of an intense weather area to begin with. especially this time of year. >> take a look at the map behind me. take a look at the red areas, these are tops of thunderstorms, 45,000 to 55,000 feet tall. the search area is right here. this is the map of about 6:00 a.m. local time. when they wanted to do the search. here's the problem with this area the weather is bad in the morning when you want to send the crews out and it gets good at night when the sun goes down. you can see gary it didn't look like the wind was blowing. for a while today the wind was blowing 35-40. there's not even any rain showers in the search area tomorrow morning, bam, we're back here where we were yesterday. we have showers and thunderstorms everywhere tomorrow night, the showers are gone. the next morning, friday morning, they're back again right over the search area intense and then by the afternoon -- they're gone. so as soon as you lose the light in the area then you lose the bad weather and that's not what you want. you want it to go the other way w

chad myers was telling us it's pretty standard for this part of the world. >> yes, hurricane katrina,hey're born. this is where they start. >> you know the person at home is going to say it's not safe to fly through that. that terrifies me as a flier. am i wrong? >> it's vulnerable to the area but changes so quickly if you take off and see that it's clear, there's a lot of ways to know what's happening and in fact, it's indicative of this because of the search zone of where they found the aircraft was behind where it had already been where the airplane had already been. that could tell us is one it stalled and fell out of the sky this direction and at that point it's a little uncontrollable so you don't know if it could have come back this way. the other alternative the pilot decided it was too risky to continue flying through some of the clouds. you see how difficult that is and you see the peaks, so he has to try to figure out how to get through the clouds and make the best decision he can, one of which might have been turning around going back the other way. >> give know confidence

let's get to meteorologist chad myers, keeping track the forecast for us. >> good weather for you. today it's going to be 55 degrees in new york city. can't argue with that in december, you don't get that very often. it's raining in boston, snowing in maine and i get that part. you get to the north, farther into the interior, it's going to be not as warm, only 39 in buffalo, 40 in syracuse. 47 in boston in that rain. the next big story is the rain across the deep south it comes in for tomorrow into friday. there was a potential for this storm to turn left and make a snow event for the northeast. i don't think that happens. i think it stays to the south and makes all rain. there could be a winter mix in the poconos and such. but for the most part this going to be rain-maker and rain in l.a. and phoenix this morning. so if you're traveling out there, expect significant delays through l.a.x., maybe still into san francisco. but raining in the valley of the sun in the middle of the night. guys, back to you. >> poetic. thank you. >> he's a poet. >>> let's talk about one of our top stori

let's bring in chad myers, what are you looking at with the storm, is getting better or worse? >> getting better for san francisco, getting worse for l.a., the snow still coming down. dan said a quarter million people without power, 300,000 people already restored. petrified forest had over a foot of rain. lake sonoma, 7.5 inches. look when you go up in elevation, white mountain had a wind gust of 139 miles per hour. mount lincoln, 135. even toward mammoth, over 100 miles per hour up on top of that mountain. more snow to come, more rain for l.a. cold in the northeast, cold this afternoon, sunny skies, good flying though unless you're going through the west or your plane is coming from the west, you should be in good shape. highs with a windy -- some wind coming down the hudson. little hudson hawk today, 36 for the high in new york city. guys, back to you. >> chad, thanks so much for that update. >>> well congress takes the budget battle down to the wire. as usual. the house passed the budget, but the senate still has to weigh in we'll tell you why house democrats challenged the

chad thank you. >>> philadelphia police sources tell "action news" that a fight over a girl put a drexel student in the hospital early this morning, saying the man was stabbed in the back outside of myerswas treated and released fairly quickly and two drexel students have been charged with assault. >> two people were charged in the kensington section hope you can help them fine a casual criminal. this is video from north fifth street on november 29th, you can see a woman standing in front of the house and then looks around and take a seat on the steps, she reaches in the doorway and grabs a package and puts it beside her, if you recognize the alleged thief call police. >>> a burlington county father will not be allowed to sue another child that broke his son's arm during a lacrosse game. the player was knocked over by a player from marlton, the family wants the other child held liable for the damage, they upheld a trial judge's decision, saying that an 11-year-old lacrosse novice should not have to pay for his actions on the field. it would be unfair to hold them to the same standards as adults athletes. >>> well, the crumbling trenton high school is slated for demolition but some loca