All I can say is, “wow”

Partly its because I can’t think of anything else, brain pretty empty, but check this out:

Ann-2 spag_f360_nhbg
Valid for May 9th. Shows the kind of “split flow” we expected from the Big Niño, storms dividing in the central Pac or so, parts going northeast, often just grazing the Pac NW, so that area ends up drier than normal, whilst a southern branch from the CenPac carries storms to lower latitudes of the West Coast, drenching southern Cal and the Great American Southwest that we live in. Was that too long for one sentence? Well, moving ahead, you can see this pattern in how the non-political red lines diverge in the eastern Pacific from the non-political blue ones to the north, which there is quite a bit of in politics today as well. Well, anyway, it was kind of interesting of me to point this classic “Niño” pattern out to you, even though it is seen in a computer output form that is largely incomprehensible to most. What does it mean for AZ and Sutherland Heights? The red lines down thisaway on most of these maps to this point mean that there will be chances for rain, AND lower than normal temperatures for the first 10 days of May. Nice! The resultant headline is below:

 

Measurable rain to fall in the Sutherland Heights, Catalina, in May 2016!

OK, got that “scoop” out….  Here’s the link to NOAA from whence the above map came.

BTW, here’s what a split flow storm looks like as it comes into southern Cal.  Man, if it was January or Feb, this would be a real gully washer,  a “get the sandbags out” kind of storm.  I love this map so much!

Valid just ahead, really, for May 4th 11 PM AST.
Valid just ahead, really, for May 4th 11 PM AST.  This is the best example output lately and its from yesterday, but who cares.  We should see something resembling  this come out of the lower latitudes of the Pac.  From IPS MeteoStar.

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Now a little more on these kinds of crazy ensemble maps (“Lorenz”, as named here, or more known more generally as  “spaghetti” plots)

This kind of map was telling us we had rain threats at this time in April and at the end of the month some 10-15 days in advance, so far in advance that media weather folk would likely consider it unprofessional to make such a prediction so far in advance.  Since we’re not worried about being unprofessional here, we have leapt into the void!  Just go ahead and say things!  Get the story out now!

Today  a strong upper level trough with precip in the mountains of central and northern AZ will indeed be occurring today and tomorrow as was indicated by those crazy maps so long ago.  The hoped for rain here will not occur.

However,  the storm near the end of the month, also indicated way back then,  looks even stronger than the present one, and it will reach farther south than today’s, and so will not only bring some rain and very cool air to the central and northern AZ mountains, but likely around us, too!

I think you are going to like May!

The End

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.