Pretty upset this early AM to find that the US’s Weather Forecasting and Research-Global Forecast System (WRF-GFS) model run, a model costing millions of dollars BTW, ingested last night’s 5 PM AST global data, BUT then threw up an identical twin that matched the Canadian Enviro Can model output that came out 24 h earlier! It was unbelievable to see this, humiliating really, something akin to a reverse nose job.
Recall that the USA! model had rain here and a big cold trough right over Catalina on the evening of December 9th into Monday morning the 10th. The Canadian model had that SAME trough over Cornhusky Stadium, Lincoln, Nebraska!
The Canadian model was right.
Here’s are the two forecast maps made within 24 h and each for for the SAME DAY AND TIME by our own WRF-GOOFUS model: on the left, the rainful run from the previous day that made me so happy (until I had some “spaghetti” and saw it was likely a bogus output). The panel on the right is the sickening output from last night, both rendered by IPS.
Valid for Monday, December 10th at 5 AM AST. Sweet! From last night, also valid at 5 AM AST, Monday, December 10th. Horrible, unbelievable amount of change between the two. Makes you feel sad for weathermen and weatherwomen that have to deal with these things.
I really wanted Enviro Can to eat some crow with their forecast of MY trough over Nebraska. But no! “Bow down to Canada”, as heard here if you substitute in your mind the word, “Canada” for “Washington.” Hey, its got the lyrics at this site and so it should be pretty easy for you to sing along with it.
BTW, the Canadians (Enviro Can) don’t feel they have to show “spaghetti” plots to reveal how bad their numerical forecasts might be because they are always so right (in the 144 h time frame available from Enviro Can). “Don’t need no spaghetti.”
Can we say the same?
Doesn’t seem like it. We need “spaghetti” so we can see how bad our model forecasts might be. Calling Obama now…. not “happy with crappy”, to quote some overseas manufacturer’s creed, here. OK, our models aren’t exactly “crappy” but they aren’t as good as they should be.
Too, I have to deal with Canadian relatives that will be gloating today, I am sure. Maybe this spectacular example of “model divergence”, as we would call it, Canadian vs. US, is the talk of Canada today, and that’s what makes today’s wrf-goofus output sting so much.
I really want to call President Obama on this and tell him about it; I know he would add it to his list of things that need to be fixed in our country. Even if you have only a tinge of jingoism, you HAVE to be upset that the Canadians in their big little country, have a better weather forecasting model than we do! I think I am going to have to lie down for awhile…calm down.
So, what is ahead in our weather?
Of course, we have to look at the Canadian model first to get the most reliable one to see if they have anything for us… (hahahahah, sort of). I always do look at that one first, but I don’t brag about it. The summary of last night’s Enviro Can run, out to 144 h: they got nothin’ for us, just some cooler air over time. Cirrus clouds will be floating by from time to time as they do on most days. Did you know that Cirrus is a precipitating cloud? Yep, little ice crystals are always settling out leaving those pretty trails. Mt. Everest would know this…
Hope you had some good log entries describing the varieties and species of Cirrus… If you did, you’ll be getting closer to getting that Cloud Maven Junior Tee.
7:01 AM. Sunrise Cirrus.5:32 PM. Sunset Cirrus, maybe with a contrail in there, dammitall.
A day of pretty Cirrus and a nice sunset yesterday:
5:35 PM.
Now for some more of that Catalina climo, featuring December
(Most of these data below are due to the folks at Our Garden right here in Catalinaland just off Columbus._
First, the rainfall frequency chart for December. Not much going on. Chances of rain on any day about the same as any other, no trend up or down during the month, except for that one peak. Below this chart, in the monthly averages for the October through September “water year”, you’ll see that the average rainfall has jumped up considerably in December from November. Yay!
But will it rain at all in December 2012?
Let’s check…and also look, just for the HECK of it, whether any trough/storm is headed here in the 11th-13th rain frequency peak shown in the first plot…to see whether the atmosphere “likes” to have a little rain in Catalina in that time frame this year.
Below, the USA WRF-GFS model output, again rendered by IPS MeteoStar, from the global data taken at 5 PM AST valid for Monday, December 10th at 5 AM (close enough):
Astounding! A strong trough with rain IS predicted in about that time frame where the chance of rain in our 35 year record peaks, though a bit early. If this map verified, rain would be ending at about the time of this map, 5 AM AST on the 10th, it would be very, very cold, probably in the upper 30s in that rain. Amazing.
But let’s check with the superior Enviro Can model from the Canadians, our friends to the north, because-its-built-on-the-Euro-model-where-they-have-more money-for-big-computers-and-better-models-than-we-do.
Not even close to the prediction by the USA model!
Unbelievable difference, in fact. In the USA model, the apex of the trough is over us in Catalina and in the superior (or will it be?) Canadian model, its over the “‘Braska” Cornhuskers, Lincoln, NE, maybe ONE THOUSAND miles farther east!
Unbelievable2. This is a phenomenon, BTW, which does happen from time to time, that is called, “model divergence”, to put it mildly.
The NOAA spaghetti factory, which I have annotated for you below:
Outstanding forecast reliability is indicated in the Pacific, off Asia, but who cares?
Sadly, only mediocre reliability indicated here in the Great SW USA, as shown in the wanderings of the blue lines.
But will a trough be close to us?
Pretty much count on that because so many blue lines feint to the south in interior of the western US. I think we’ll surpass the Canadians this time…
There’s still a chance of rain on the 9-10th, but its pretty slim. Having cold air invade us, to varying degrees is pretty much guaranteed even if sans rain because that nearby trough will drag cooler air this way as it goes by.
Its the AMPLITUDE that matters here, and in our USA model, that is not so well known. In fact, the blue lines, with so many of them north of us are telling us that the actual forecast map from last night’s global data is an outlier model run; can’t count on it. It will likely come and go on the future model runs.
This is the best I could do, in examining the several model outputs over the past 24 h. Below is the very wettest forecast panel that popped out for southern Arizona during the past 24 h. The panel below is from yesterday’s 18 Z (11 AM AST) global data and is for the evening of December 15th, about two weeks. Nothing like what is shown in this panel showed up in model outputs afterward, dang. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, but its not a good sign. Still, I thought you should see it.
The 18 Z (11 AM AST) model run doesn’t ingest as much global data as ones at 12 Z and 00 Z, 5 AM AST and 5 PM AST, respectively. That means that the 18 Z run is not as reliable as those other two, is more susceptible to having goofy outputs (outliers) than the other ones. “Less data, more filling”, of rain gauges anyway.
We ARE on the brink of a major change in the flow pattern, that is, where the troughs/jet stream will be positioned. We have been well to the south of the jet stream and all the storms carried with it. That will change in about a week. We will have recurring troughs here in the Southwest after that, meaning less warm days, along with occasional chances of rain. The signal for this to happen is pretty strong in the spaghetti plots.
The question is now how strong will those the persistent troughs be as they sporadically drop by in the weeks ahead. The strong ones for now, like the one shown below that causes rain here, are outliers for the time being. Stay tuned. Gut feeling here is that we’re headed for a wet regime, finally. Its due.
Valid 11 PM AST December 15th. Greens are lighter rains, blues over half an inch. These are rains foretold to fall sometime during the 12 h ending at map time.The 500 mb pattern (about 18,000 feet above sea level) associated with all that rain in the first panel. As you can see by the yellowish and brown colored regions for wind velocity at this level, the strongest winds at this level are well to the south of AZ-Catalina, pretty much a requirement for rain here in the wintertime. This pattern is similar to the many lows that cut off last fall and winter, ones that gave us those good early rains. So, if nothing else, this map is a prototype of what we need for some good rains here in Catalina.
The model outputs from last evening do have a little rain here on the 10th, and NOTHING on the 15th as shown above, so I am not going to show those disappointing outputs. You’ll have to go to IPS MeteoStar to see those renderings.
Today’s clouds
Cirrus moving in today, the remnants of one of those monster rainy fronts that bashed northern and central Cal for the past week or so. Should be a great sunrise display; get camera ready.
From the U of A Wildcats Weather Department, this loop of those approaching Cirrus clouds.
How much rain in the past seven days in northern Cal?
They needed it. The arrow shows where the author would like to have been during those seven days, filing daily reports of stupefying amounts of rain.
I mention these rains because this episode of heavy rains was pretty well indicated in the NOAA spaghetti factory plots back in mid-November. This flooding event is a great example of those occasional situations where a forecast two weeks out can be inferred to be pretty reliable by examining those spaghetti plots. Those likely heavy norcal rains were expeculated on here based on spaghetti in a November 14th blog. I really think that you could’ve done this, too, by now!
Here’s how many rainy computer mirages the 5 PM AST global data from yesterday came up with for mid-December, as rendered nicely by IPS Meteostar. There are so many panels with rain here or close by in that model run, will post them as superthumbnails, a compressional graphics bit of razzle dazzle. Besides, you might be titillated more by something interesting that you can’t quite make out unless you click on it, “go the extra mile”, as it were.
5 PM AST, December 9th, a close call.5 PM AST December 11th. Starts raining this day.5 AM AST, December 12th, ex-wife’s birthday. Still raining.5 PM AST, December 12, still raining.
5 AM AST, December 13th. Still raining. Remember these rainy images were produced by a computer(s) costing millions of dollars.
5 PM AST, December 13th. STILL raining around here!5 PM AST, December 17th. Rain moves in again.
Well, this is the kind of weather change I am counting on now. Have been seeing rain for us now in every model run, though timing varies some, as would be expected out a week or more.
Spaghetti, too, now strengthening in the reliability of these predictions of a major change in the flow pattern ahead, a change that will FINALLY produce some rain here. Yay! That strengthening in spaghetti suggests something is being missed out there, perhaps something in a data silent zone…or there are some errors bigger out there than the itty-biity ones they deliberately put in to “perturb the models” because earlier they weren’t showing much support for a big change until last night. Speculating here….expeculating forecasted RAIN here is real this time!
This one at left for December 11th 5 PM AST as our storm period begins. Note all the blue lines (jet stream core ones) sagging into the SW now. Big change from prior ones.
The End, except for some exceptional 24 h northern California rain totals as of 6 AM PST this morning:
OK, there are a lot of graphics and discussion today, much of it unnecessary as usual, but there it is. We’ll begin with yesterday….not today.
Yesterday morning’s WRF-GOOFUS run once again had rain in Arizona/Catalina area. Was heartened since the prior 24 h’s predicted rain had disappeared in the three runs after that. Here’s what came out YESTERDAY morning for Wednesday the 12th. Cool, eh? Below this map is the corresponding upper level map.
Valid for Wednesday December 12th at 5 AM. Green areas denote where precipitation fell in the prior 12 h.Also valid for Wednesday, December 12th. Note how the jet stream at this level pours down from the Pacific NW into California and then across northern Mexico.
Then the same thing happened as the day before, that Catland rain disappeared again in the model runs up to last night’s. Not good.
But, I am happy to report that the rain is BACK, and why I am at this keyboard this morning. The very latest run, one that was conducted using the data from last evening at 11 PM AST is shown below with AZ rain again, this one valid for 11 PM AST on the 11th.
Now you might wonder why I would go through all these machinations to show you likely model illusions of rain here in the distant future, providing you only those ones that have rain here in them.
That’s because this is not about being objective, but rather SUBJECTIVE, really caring about rain here.
There is no way I am going to show you model outputs for our region that have no rain in them! I only show those ones that have what I want to have happen here, rain, and that’s why I show them. Its a very biased sample that you get. But its quite altruistic of me since any rain ahead MIGHT yet help the spring blooms that we ALL enjoy. So, by being subjective, I bring hope where maybe there wouldn’t be any. You can see I am really thinking of others in being so biased.
“What does the spaghetti say?”, you ask, as a person having a tremendous amount of weather perspicuity. “These outputs any good?”, you continue in a burst of meteorological eloquence.
Grudgingly, I am providing the NOAA “ensembles of spaghetti” map for the same time, December 12th. I’ve added an arrow in case you don’t know where you are.
Ensemble members valid for December 12th, affectiionately known as a spaghetti plot. Remember this crazy lines are due to deliberately putting little errors in the initial analysis to see how much difference they make from the real forecast that came out using the actual data. The wilder the lines, the less reliable the longer term forecast.
Now, the blue lines indicate more or less where the heart of the jet stream will be, the red lines, the periphery, or it when they are separate from the blue lines, a separate branch of the jet stream bordering the sub-tropics.
As you see here, the bulge toward the equator in the RED lines over our area strongly indicates that a trough WILL be here in the southern branch of the jet stream on December 12th. Often however, those troughs in that southern branch often only bring high or middle clouds; no rain. Need a bunch of blue lines down thisaway to get rain, and as you can see, MOST of the blue lines (“members”) are well north of us.
What to conclude from this?
That distant rain on the 12th shown repeatedly by a biased Mr. Cloud Maven person, would still have to be considered an outlier model run. But having said that, these spaghetti plots have been getting more supportive of a rain. Instead of a 5% chance, now maybe its up to 20%, based on the map above because some of the blue lines are beginning to be extruded toward Arizona.
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Weather coming up elsewhere in the US
BTW, in these model runs, one of the things that is a real eye-opener from the lastes run from last night is a gigantic mass of cold air that comes down into the Rockies after December 12th and affects most of the US. Awful for Christmas travel. Here’s a predicted surface weather map for December 15th, annotated to help you figure it out.
That mass of cold air is shown to move very rapidly into the US from the Arctic, and so the air will not be modified much by its southward movement–the configuration below is probably good for -40 F or even lower in Montana and some other high valleys in the northern Rockies. Hope you’re not traveling then…
Looks, too, like that icy air will be traveling over ice and snow until it reaches the US border according to this snow-ice coverage map from NOAA below. No wonder Canadians mass on the US border! Its apparent from this map! That will also keep that air relatively unmodified (keeping it as cold as possible) until it hits mostly bare ground in the good ole USA.
Some 8 days ago a spaghetti plot indicated with confidence that a “warm in the West”, “cool in the East” pattern would develop. Well it has materialized. Thanks to Hamweather, this chart shows the records set with that pattern so far. They’re not so numerous, but the forecast of a strong trough off the West Coast pulling warmer air north into the West and a trough in the East dragging down cold air from Canada has verified. The point of this is that those strange looking “spaghetti” plots can have some power if you’re not overwhelmed by all the lines.
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BTW, after learning about this spaghetti verification, you might want to consider adding to your collection of cloud maven junior tee shirts this new attractive—well, stunning really — “I love spaghetti” black Tee offering with a truly gorgeous multi-colored example of the NOAA-NCEP “ensembles of spaghetti.”
Here’s last night’s example from NOAA-NCEP to get you excited about getting that tee:
I think you’d look great in it, and, of course, most sophisticated when it comes to being a cloud maven junior and advertising that you know about something like this. Most people have never heard of these plots, which puts you ahead of masses.
Remember the “You are here” Milky Way Galaxy tee showing where the earth was? Well this one would be as good for you to be seen in as that one! And this new cloud maven junior tee is only $29.95 plus shipping and handling, which brings the total to $75.42. (I’ve been studying how the online vendors do it….)
Think of all the people you might meet that would ask you about your tee by saying, “Huh?”
Then you would go on a long spiel, making new friends, by pointing out areas on your tee where the signal is strong and the forecast reliable, and where the forecast model is clueless. In the above example tee, that trough north of the Hawaiian Islands 15 days from now looks pretty solid while things are pretty clueless in central Europe, roughly diagonal from the trough north of Hawaii. You know where Hawaii is, don’t you?
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The weather ahead, way ahead…grasping for a switch to be turned on
A great pattern popped out yesterday. Hasn’t been seen since, but it was so exciting that I thought I would share it with you. We’ve been in a stagnant pattern for a LONG time now; storms racing across the Pacific into the northern half of the West Coast. As a weatherman, we’re always looking for the switch; patterns like that just don’t last ALL winter, but a tipping point happens, and boom, everything is suddenly different.
In this model run from yesterday, a tipping point happened and the storms began moving southward along the Alaskan coastline to off California in about 10 days. One of those is shown here near San Francisco. At this time in the run, December 15th, 5 AM AST, extensive rains are shown in Arizona!
While it might verify, there has not been support for this pattern since, and the ensembles of spaghetti, shown above, are not very encouraging, actually not at all, only suggesting a trough in the northern Plains States. A trough is suggested in the southern Rockies, and not a strong one at that since that trough is mainly confined to the red lines, those demarcating the periphery of the jet stream, or may even be a weak southern branch separate from the northern one. Usually doesn’t rain here with those.
But, this quasi bogus output looked so great, I had to post it anyway. I was so excited yesterday when it came out, because we know there WILL be a pattern change. There always is, even if its short-lived and isn’t a total drought buster. I guess this indicates a degree of desperation when you’re posting model outputs with little chance to verify.
With no rain in sight, and only modest temperature fluctuations ahead, some reading material is presented to you today with commentary today, a “soapbox day.”
Cloud photos from yesterday are at the bottom if you want to skip to that and avoid thinking about things because its too early in the morning to get riled up.
I will start with an opinion piece concerning climate change and climate science from Australia. It also mentions a recent event in the climo community concerning a Southern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction and the apparent rejection of what would have been an important paper by the peer-reviewed journal it was submitted to after crucial errors were found by an outsider/reviewer. The author of this opinion article also mentions “climategate” a chapter of science that had a profound effect on this writer. Now there are polemical aspects, not all of which this writer would agree with, still, its worth reading:
The link to this article was circulated to our Atmos Sci Dept by one of my best friends, and really a science hero to me, Mark Albright, the former Washington State climatologist. Mark was a mild-mannered researcher lurking in the background at the U of WA for many years until he got upset over what he (later joined by two allies there) was to show were vastly exaggerated journal-published and media accounts of snowpack losses due to GW in his own backyard, in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon. Mark felt science had been corrupted by dogma, perhaps the pursuit of funding; he has not been the same since. Believe me, I know what he has been through.
A retired distinguished professor at the U of WA Atmospheric Sciences Department circulated a counter articleto the one that Mark circulated, also worth reading for the “other side.” It appears below, along with that professor’s note about the article Mark circulated. I felt this note by the professor should be included, too:
In the headline of this second article, the word “denier” is used in its title as a pejorative, mass label for those who question some of the global warming publicity stunts (assigning particular storms like Sandy to GW) down to results published in peer-reviewed journals, such as reports of exaggerated snowpack losses. Not good, and that headline tells you where that article is headed: criticism is not to be tolerated. But it also shows that the majority of science being published on climate change supports the finding that a warmer earth is ahead. But there is a reason for that; its being pushed by the monumental amounts of money being poured into that climate research domain.
There are many of us out there that do believe that funding is pushing the research on global warming in one direction in this job-poor era we’re now in, just as it did, and still does, in the cloud seeding domain: no one ever got a job saying cloud seeding doesn’t work. In my own career–yes, Mr. Cloud Maven person had a professional research one, and one spiced with controversy1 over several decades–the opinion article from Australia rings true in many aspects about how science works and what influences a preponderance of “conclusions” that get published in journals.
In the climate funding domain, don’t look for more funds if you conclude a million dollar study by indicating that you didn’t find any sign of warming over the past 30 years, as is the actual case in the Pacific Northwest. NO ONE is going to touch that hot potato and serve a finding like that up to a climate journal. Its not gonna fly. It makes explaining global warming difficult. And as Homer Simpson advises, “If something’s hard to do, its not worth doing.”
But at the same time, a counter finding to global warming presents to those of us who try to be truly ideal, disinterested scientists, a fabulous opportunity to look into something that is not immediately explicable. As scientists, we should live for opportunities like this!
But will it happen, will some brave soul at the University of Washington or elsewhere delve into this counter trend and try to explain why its happened in a journal article? Its hoped so.
But those of us, still on the GW bandwagon, if grudgingly so due to the actions of some of our peers, know that regional effects of GW are dicey. Some areas will warm up more than others; cooling is possible if the jet stream ridges and troughs like to hang out in different positions than they do today. And of course, if we smog up the planet too much, all bets on warming up much are off since clouds act to cool the planet, and pollution makes clouds last longer, especially over the oceans where pollution can interfere with drizzle production, which helps dissolve shallow clouds, and pollution causes more sunlight to be reflected back into space. The cloud effects are being more carefully, precisely evaluated in our better computer models.
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It is ironic, too, that the second article, the one passed along by the professor, ends with the mention of plate tectonics “as the ruling paradigm of science” as it is.
But, some word about how that paradigm came about; it was a “long and winding road.”
Alfred Wegener, a meteorologist, first proposed the theory of continental drift/plate tectonics around the turn of the century. A nice account of this science chapter about origin of the theory of plate tectonics is found in the book, Betrayers of the Truth, by then NYT science writers, Nicholas Wade and William J. Broad.
Because Alfred Wegener was a meteorologist, however, and NOT a geographer, namely was an outsider to the official science community studying the continents and how they got that way, his ideas were laughed at, not taken seriously for more than 40 years! Only in the 1960s was the idea of plate tectonics accepted.
I mention this tectonic chapter of science because there is a similar chapter that reappears constantly now in the climate debates. Several of the strongest critics of GW results, critics that have delved deeply behind the scenes into published findings of climate change in a scientific manner, much as this writer did concerning cloud seeding experiments in the 1970s-1990s, are criticized for being “outside of the group”, just Alfred Wegner was in his day rather than those “in the group” considering and acting on whether the findings of outsiders are valid.
Fortunately, this is beginning to change because, guess what? Outsiders have found some pretty important stuff that HAD to be addressed in spite of the desires of some idealogues out there pretending to be objective, disinterested scientists. Science as a whole, still works.
A cloud note: Alfred Wegner is also known for proposing the idea that ice crystals in the presence of supercoooled water (a common event in the atmosphere) grow and fallout, leading to precipitation at the ground, known as the Wegner-Bergeron-Findeisen mechanism. Every 101 meteorology textbook points this out.
The last photo below is a demonstration of that effect; those sunset supercooled Altocumulus shedding a few ice crystals that grew within them.
Yesterday’s clouds
7:33 AM Cirrus fibratus radiatus. Sometimes perspective makes banding look like its converging or radiating. I estimated that this was not the case here.4:31 PM Parhelia-Sundog-Mock Sun in an ice cloud with hexagonal plate llike crystals, ones that fall face down and cause the light to be refracted and separated. Here’s is a link explaining this phenomenon.5:24 PM. A classic Arizona sunset due to the under lighting of Altocumulus perlucidus. Some very fine virga from these clouds can also be seen. When the virga is this fine, the concentrations, as you would imagine are very low and the crystals falling out are especially beautiful because they have not collided with other crystals and broken into pieces as happens in heavy virga shafts.
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1Some examples of the controversy the writer has been involved with:
“We don’t hate you but we don’t love you, either.”
This quote from a leading US cloud seeding scientist to the writer at an American Meteorological Society conference on cloud seeding and statistics after his cloud seeding experiments had been reanalyzed by the writer.
“I want you to leave my office and don’t come back. Just do your own thing.”
This quote from THE leading cloud seeding scientist of the day when I went to his country to see for myself the clouds he was describing in peer-reviewed journal articles, descriptions that I had doubts about. His descriptions were later shown to be far from reality.
And, from an outside observer, and well-known cloud researcher at the National Center for Atmos. Research in Boulder, a comment to the writer when he visited the University of Washington:
“I think the (cloud seeding) community sees you as a ‘gadfly’.”
From the Oxford Concise Dictionary, “gadfly”:
“A cattle-biting fly; an irritating, harassing person.”
November will finish out dry. And, with the extremely dry October we had followed by a rainless November (Correction here on November 25th! Egad. We had a nice rain here on November 9-10th in which we received 0.48 inches, about half of November’s average! Brain fading…. End of correction.)
….you can’t help but start to fret over March, and those great blooms that erupt so quickly in our deserts. From what I have experienced and have learned, fall and early winter rains are critical for bountiful spring blooms; January and February rains, not so much.
Rain is beginning to show up in the first week of December, but, that far in advance, its showing up beyond the model’s credibility horizon of about 6-7 days. Also, the panels below are from the 06 Z (11 PM AST) model run, one that is not plumped up with as much global data at the runs at 12 Z (5 AM AST) and 00 Z (5 PM AST), so even more likely to be faulty.
Still, its the best I can do for finding future rain in Arizona/Catalina. I am posting these maps at full size to make them look more important, have more visual impact, maybe put some pressure on the next model run to come up with something similar.
Will report back when these two rains show up again…or if some interesting clouds float by.
May insert some filler material blogs in the meantime…
The End.
Valid 11 AM AST, December 2nd. Green areas denote where rain has fallen over the prior 12 h (fell the night of the 1st-2nd)Valid 11 AM AST, December 8th.
7:09 AM. Altocumulus, trending toward perlucidus. Height? Aout 13,000 feet above the ground, from reading the TUS sounding. Temperature? -10 C (14 F). No ice trails visible.12:13 PM. Nice, high-based small Cumulus (or Altocumulus castellanus) with snow virga moved over the SE part of the sky in the early afternoon. Bases were around 11, 000 feet above the ground at -5 C (23 F). Sprinkles (very light rain showers-its not drizzle) reached the ground in a few isolated areas.2:02 PM. A somewhat rare example of Cirrocumulus and Altocumulus probably at the same level in proximation with one another. Cirrocumulus (Cc) is defined by a very fine granulation and no shading. The fine granulation gives the impression here that its much higher than it really is. Altocumulus clouds are defined as having much larger elements, shading allowed. Well, even if the Cc was at a slightly higher level, this is a good example of the difference between the two. Tell your friends.5:10 PM. Mind drifted toward road runners for some reason…. This is Cirrus uncinus with long trails of ice crystals streaming back from the little cloudlet that originally formed, like an hour or two prior to the photo. The trails survive because its a bit moist up there below where the cloudlet formed.
The weather ahead
A huge buckle in the jet stream is forecast to form right off the West Coast in about a week, and its a pretty spectacular interruption in the pattern of a jet stream whizzing by far to the north of us that we have had now for sometime. Below is an example of ‘now” in the jet stream winds, and below that, a forecast panel (from IPS Meteostar) showing this striking change a week from now. There’s a big (“high amplitude”) trough in the eastern Pacific, a high amplitude ridge (hump in the jet stream toward the Pole) in the West and another big trough in the East.
Patterns like this are usually associated with extremes in temperatures; warmth in the West; cold in the East. It is certain when this pattern materializes in about a week, some high temperature records will fall somewhere in the West and some low temperature records will fall in the East. In the West, warm air is drawn far northward, aided by low pressure centers spinning around in the eastern Pacific, while in the East, cold air zooms down with high pressure centers from northern Canada.
Why bother talking about a forecast a week in advance?
Because it has a lot of “credibility” in our ensemble (spaghetti) plots. Here is last night’s “ensembles of spaghetti” plot produced by NOAA for one week in advance. Look below at these “ensemble members” the different blue lines, ones that are loaded with slight errors at the beginning of the model run, to see how strong the forecast a week ahead is.
Those bunched blue lines in the eastern Pacific (see arrow) inspired this whole spiel about the coming change because its a nice example of when the plots show something reliable in the way of a longer term forecast, and in this case, a forecast that also shows a big change in the weather patterns over thousands and thousands of miles, from eastern Pacific to the western Atlantic.
If you’re looking around this whole plot, you’ll see the lines are also very bunched in the extreme western Pacific and westward across Asia. Those blue lines are always bunched over there because there is little variance in the flow in that region; its locked into a pattern by the geography, unlike in the central and eastern Pacific and into the US where the jet stream is MUCH more variable. A simile: imagine a fire hose turned on at the hydrant, the part of the hose at the hydrant stays in place while the end of the hose flops wildly around. Its something like that; western Pacific to eastern Pacific.
Our weather?
Well, after all that gibberish, not much change will occur here; its everywhere but here! Seems we’re doomed to another dry seven to 10 days ahead with occasional periods of high clouds and great sunsets as weak disturbances from the sub-tropics pass by, ones that can only produce Cirrus clouds.
Kind a bored looking at the same model runs for 10-15 days ahead now, ones that close out November with no rain even nearby for Catalina. Doesn’t seem to be even ANY HOPE for rain here, that is, some bizarre model outlier forecast with rain, as we saw a few days ago. But then, I had not had any coffee yet…
Thought I would drink some coffee to see if I’ve missed anything in these latest computer model images. I’d kind of forgotten what Consumer Reports Health Letter had warned about when you’re bored and trying to do stuff. Talked about the effects of caffeine on boredom. I reprise a portion of that CR note here, in case you, too, are looking at repetitious model outputs with no rain in them. Note the part in in this note below about “repetitious images” and “infrequent changes in patterns on a screen”; yep, that’s what we’re dealing with here in these model runs now.
OK, finished second cup, caffeinated coffee, BTW, now going back to look at those model forecast maps to see if I missed anything, subtle or otherwise…. You, too, can look at the 5 PM AST model loop here (from IPS Meteostar), but drink some coffee first.
Prepare to be “re-bored” as I have just been.
Not even the NOAA NCEP’s “ensembles of spaghetti” offer hope; no “outlier” model forecasts with Catalina rain in them anymore (for now, anyway). Bunched blue lines, demarcating jet stream, stay to the north.
But, paraphrasing Scarlet O’Hara, “6 h from now, there is another model run…”
Yesterday’s clouds
Had some great Cirrus spissatus and other varieties/species of Cirrus overspread the sky yesterday, eventually thickening into Altostratus translucidus (sun’s position still visible). Here are a couple of shots, including a sunsetter where you can see just that bit of virga hanging down.
1:19 PM. Cirrus clouds began overspreading sky from the southwest (direction that photo was taken toward).2:16 PM. Cirrus spissatus (the only Cirrus cloud that can have shading) encroaches from the southwest.4:29 PM. The Cirrus clouds have thickened in places, usually downward, to large patches of Altostratus translucidus (thin enough so that the sun’s position is still visible). Its also possible here that the Altostratus clouds were below a higher layer of Cirrostratus.5:26 PM. Under lit Altostratus clouds with likely a separate higher layer of Cirrostratus.
Today’s clouds?
Your call: ________________________________________________________________
