31 hundredths and counting; December total for Catalina now 2.59 inches (normal, 1.72 inches), Seattle has only had 0.25 inches this month! We had more last night than Seattle has had all month! Planet, CPC, out of control!

Pretty excited there in that title, and haven’t had that much coffee yet.   Whenever strange weather occurs, I always like to kid friends who might ask, “What’s causing this strange weather?”,  and say that the best explanation is that the “planet is out of control.”  hahahah.   Oh, well, its the best I can do.  No one really can tell you why we have had so many (great) cut off lows this year in the Southwest.  Totally unforeseen.  I didn’t expect that it would still be raining this morning at 6 AM either.

Also, remember the CPC’s (Climate Prediction Center) prediction for November, December and January made back in late October?   Due to the La Nina regime in the east Pacific, Seattle and the whole Pac NW was supposed to get hammered with excess rain and snow, and the SW was supposed to experience “intensifying drought.”

Didn’t happen, and can’t happen, even if it dries out in January.  It just goes to show that these several monthly type predictions are dicey, probably more often right than wrong, but they can’t be counted on too solidly.  Also, we know that the La Nina regimes exert their greatest influence in later winter and spring, so we could still dry out a lot after December’s excesses.

Regional precip reports are here where you can see some places got 2/3rds of an inch out of the little (cut off) guy.  How fine is that?Also, what’s really great, too, is all the rain that has and will be falling in NM and TX, taking a bite out of drought thanks to this same storm.   Below, 24 h precip totals fro the US and AZ deduced from radar from those WSI Intellicast weather guys and gals below.   Note that the Tucson area and Cat Mountains got the most of anywhere in the state.

More detail on the AZ rain can be had at the U of A rainlog site here.   BTW, joining this org as a measurer-reporter would be a nice thing to do.  How about getting a rain gauge for Christmas and joining up with the rainlog gang?

Quitting here for awhile.

By Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.