As much as 1-2 inches as far south as Ventura County so far, 3-4 inches in the coastal mountains of central Cal as of just now (4 AM AST). Rolling 24 h Cal State archive here. LA area rain here; keep an eye on Opids Camp and Crystal Lake FC. Totals in NW LA County just now going over an inch. Following this drought bustin’ sequence, while just a” two shot wonder”, will be like watching….I don’t know..something really exciting, a weather kind of Olympics, where the favored team “drought” is taken down unexpectedly by some upstart storm. Yes, I will play the Olympics card.
And remember, this is just the lightweight division today; up next, beginning Friday in southern Cal: “Sumo wrestling”, as a 400-lb storm moves in next to push aside “Team Drought” at least for the moment. (Is Sumo wrestling an Olympic sport?) Still expecting some jumbo rain totals in the mountains of southern Cal, such as more than 10 inches at places like Opids Camp in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Speaking of jumbo totals, a friend and expert weather forecaster (and big atmos sci faculty member at Colorado State who now lives part time in Catalina), sent a stunning e-mail to me yesterday expressing his opinion that Catalina will get “1.5 to 2 inches of rain” from the second “Sumo” storm, the one that eases into Arizona late Friday and arrives here by dawn on Saturday, and then continues for around 24 h. Cloud maven here can’t go that high in his guess, doesn’t have the “testicularis” you might say, to go that high; 1 inch max is all I can come up with, but would be ecstatic if in error!
Still, this is going to be FANTASTIC! Saw some perennial wildflower blooms on the trails yesterday (see below), ones in need of a little pick-me-up–actually a big one, and this will be great for them. Fauna, too, will be happy! It may be too late for the annuals…not sure. Poppies are few, and awfully stunted this year, as many of you know.
Don’t forget, too, before our storm; those gorgeous skies! Have camera and pen ready to document and make notes about them in your weather diaries Those skies we’ll be fantastic, too, like yesterday, which was a great day to be on a horse, watching the sky.
Even when its raining the skies will be fantastic!
How many of us, even if we’re from Seattle, are STARVED for low gray, dank and dark daytime rainy skies, clouds chopping off the Catalinas a thousand feet above us, listening to rain pounding on our roofs, then running off roof making puddles, those richer shades of desert green after the rain ends, the glistening, water-covered rocks on the Catalinas in the morning sun after the storm? Its a real treasure when rain falls here.
Yesterday’s clouds
12:23 PM. You got yer Cis spis (Cirrus spissatus) topping a few Cu fractus and humilis, if I may. It was so great to see those Cumulus clouds, reminding us that July and huge clouds are only about 125 days away!12:23 PM. You got yer Cirrus uncinus. Note fine strands hanging down. Amazing they can be so perfect, not erratic (see arrow), when the wind up there is about 100 mph!
3:54 PM. A great line of a Ac lenticular advanced over Oro Valley. This shot was about the best I got and its not that great.
3:55 PM. Not all about clouds..wanted to show you that I have more than one dimension. Here, a wild onion bloom maybe, slightly out of focus. Prickly pear is in focus, though.3:55 PM. Very nice Altocumulus lenticularis formed later in the afternoon downwind from the Catalinas.6:25 PM. Another very nice sunset due to some Cirrus spissatus and a few lower Altocumulus clouds.
On the weather horizon
Mods still have unusually warm weather here in the storm after life, 8-12 days out (cold in the East continues, too). But, then some Catalina rains continue to show up after that hot spell when you think May is already here.
That thick (likely more than 3 km, or more than 10,000 feet) and steady gray sky diet of Altostratus opacus clouds didn’t provide a lot of visual highlights most of yesterday, in contrast to the many Altocumulus flocculations of the day before. An example of yesterday’s sky for most of the day:
3:50 PM. Altostratus opacus. Or is it? Not much going on here1.
Virga hung down here and there, and some radar echoes during the day suggested a sprinkle here and there reached the ground, but none here.
Later, as usually happens, the tops of the clouds lowered, as did the bases, and we had some pretty Altocumulus again, some with long trails of virga, indicating a deep moist layer below cloud bottoms. For a time, as dewpoints rose, it looked like Ms. Lemmon might be topped with Sc, but those lowest clouds did not get quite low enough.
5:14 PM. Two layers of Altocumulus are present, the lower one having spires (Ac castellanus). Nice lighting on mountains.
5:08 PM. Two layers of Altocumulus are present, the lower one having spires (Ac castellanus), to repeat.
6:23 PM. Heavy virga issues from an old Altocumulus cloud, its once higher, pyramidal or mounding top has collapsed as snow developed in it and in essence, hangs down in an upside down version of what it once was (though not as tall as the virga is long here).The Tucson balloon sounding (rawinsonde) for 5 PM AST (launched about 3:30 PM, and rise at about 1,000 feet a minute.) BTW, takes about an hour and a half to get the whole depth normally measured, to around 100, 000 feet. During that time, or even during the first hour, the atmo is changing, so when its at 40,000 feet, what is measured at 3,000 feet isn’t the same anymore. Introduces slight error into models into which these data get fed. Models think its an instantaneous view of the atmo over Tucson at 5 PM AST (00 Z time). I think you should know this. Note tops of that Ac with heavy virga were about -30 C (-22 F)! Notice, too, that some of those higher, colder Altocumulus flakes are not showing virga in the sunset photo above.
Weathering just ahead….
Rain One (“Little Bro”) is moving onto California coast as I write. Residents in towns like the very-expensive-to-live-in Monterrey rejoicing as drops patter on rooftops now! The negative news here is that the Canadian model has lessened the area of rain in Arizona as Rain 1 passes over us, confines the rain to central and northern AZ mountains now, still light, but not as widespread as before.
At the same time, the US WRF-GFS model has been adding rain in AZ from Rain 1; previously it had NONE. Now, these mods have now come together over us2 to quote a song title from the last century, both showing about the same thing, so that’s probably what will happen. Just rain to the north of us. So, a little less of a close call to Catalina tomorrow as Rain 1 goes by. Just middle and high clouds for us, and probably some virga, nice sunrises and sunsets.
Rain 2, “Big Bro” moves into southern Cal tomorrow night, and still looks like a real and necessary pounder for southern Cal before moving on and drenching little Catalina. Will report on those SC amounts to see how big they get, too.
Rain should be falling here in Catalina by Saturday dawn and continue all day. Range of amounts, still a not-so-great quarter inch on the bottom (if things don’t go well), but top (if things go really well) still an inch! How great would that be? So, best guess about 0.60 inches here in Catalina, from averaging those two “extrema.” Later today, our U of AZ Beowulf Cluster model computations will start to have some quantitative amounts from actual calculations, not just a SOP guess from yours truly. Check here at the U of AZ later in the day for accumulated totals based on this morning’s 5 AM AST data.
Way out there
While our drencher on the weekend seems to be a one-shot wonder for at least a week after it passes, the longest view from our WRF-GFS, valid way out on March 13 at 5 PM AST, 360 h from last night’s model run, has another major storm moving into the SW, but this time it doesn’t come from the west, but from the NW. This is a climatological norm; storms tend to move from NW to SE during the spring months in the western US, and so there’s SOME climatology to hang your hat on that the rain forecast below for us may be a real event, not a fantasy storm, as so often happens that far into the future in our models. See the map below, from IPS MeteoStar’s rendering of the WRF-GFS to brighten your day that bit more, knowing one good rain is coming, and maybe, just MAYBE, the pattern is shifting to a normal one with an occasional rain here in Catalina beginning after mid-March.
Valid at 5 PM, March 13. Green areas denote those regions where the model thinks it has rained during the prior 12 h.
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1
3:50 PM. Actual Altostratus opacus. I’ve been talkin’ clouds here for quite awhile, and in a clever kind of a test, wanted to see if you could tell the difference between the side of my gray car and an Altostratus cloud. Its pretty important to me that you get this right.
Very happy to post this breaking future news here on February 24th. Close rain call on the 27th, too, as the first of two significant troughs with their low pressure centers march into California, bringing a drought break there of some consequence. Likely an inch or two in the coastal areas south of SFO (“Frisco”; rhymes with Crisco), and maybe even LA area as well with the first storm. That first one continues across Arizona bringing widespread, though light rains the central and northern mountains on Thursday the 27th.
Valid at 5 PM Thursday, the 27th. Upper left panel shows “little brother” trough over Arizona, and most of State covered by a little precip (lower right panel). Big brother on the move offshore of Cal, flow reaching deep into sub-tropics.
Then “Big Brother” hits Cal beginning on the evening of the 28th, gets here late on the first or early on March 2nd. The LA Basin rains in the second one look like they’ll amount to 2-4 inches, and maybe something from a quarter to half an inch here in Catalinaland when it arrives.
Model?
Canadian GEM (General Environmental Model). Sometimes, like their hockey team, it defeats the US models in weather forecasting, and I am riding the fence that it will this time. In the interest of disclosure, the US WRF-GFS model has virtually NO RAIN in Arizona on the 27th (!), whilst the Canadian one has widespread rains (both using global data from 5 PM AST yesterday). So, I reject the US model, one that takes the first storm too far north to affect AZ much. (This has sometimes been a problem for our US models.)
Second storm?
Both models have rain on the 1st-2nd, but the Canadian, much larger amounts in southern California where I grew up and, while having poor grades after puberty and the realization of girls (!) hit, nevertheless had some success playing baseball. Could be nearly a month’s worth of rain in one storm in the LA area, which averages about 3 inches in Feb and March, both, IF the Canadian model verifies. Those kind of amounts upstream would also mean more rain potential for us here, too. But, the fact that they BOTH have rain, is really great to see. One would think that some rain is pretty much in the bag. I hope they put rain barrels out in Cal!
After the storm…
Oh, me, look at this “Lorenz” (the chaos guy) plot:
Valid March 8th, 5 PM AST. Its awful as a graphic to begin with, but when interpreted its even more awful in the kind of weather it implicates for us as we march farther into March: in one word, Hot and Dry! Easterners won’t like it, either, as the severe winter continues back there, Lake Superior might remain frozen over until April! Jet stream is flowing along the red and turquoise lines, so cold air brought southward where lines aim toward the southeast, as over the eastern US.
A pattern like the one above is hard to maintain in March since the climatology of March-May leads to a trough in the western US. So hoping the awful pattern above will give way by mid-March or soon thereafter, as do easterners I would bet. Below, likely fantasy, since its WAY out on the forecast horizon, but this historic forecast (would produce historically cold weather in the East if it did verify, chances probably less than 30% as a wild guess. I just now saw it and it was AMAZING!
Valid March 11th, 5 PM AST. LOOK at that high pressure area and cold air slamming down east of the Rockies and strong low over New England. Good grief! Would be headlines if it happens.
Yesterday’s clouds
9:22 AM. Great example of Altocumulus perlucidus.1:47 PM. Later became blobby with heavy virga; Altocumulus opacus virgae if you really want to know.6:22 PM. Skipping ahead, these formations led to another in a long series of nice sunset shots. Hope you got one.
A few top climate scientists have banded together and commented in prestigious Science magazine concerning the recent attribution of this winter’s weather extremes to global warming1 from places on high. In fact, such attributions can’t be done with any reliability. Reading between the lines, and knowing how hard it is to criticize a former student’s work, much less a presidential adviser whom they helped elect (:}), I would have to conclude that they were pretty upset and felt a strong need to get the word out.
Will a few incautious scientists and politicos continue to make those kinds of as yet, ill-founded claims as addressed by Wallace et al? Is there cactus in Arizona?
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Cold and precip suggested here at the beginning of March two weeks from now. Some climatology supports something real happening then since early March is also the the time that the highest chance of rain (over the past 130 years or so) in southern California occurs. Rain there usually means rain here in a day.
So, maybe, MAYBE, this storm will be real and not fantasy as so many are in model predictions two weeks away.
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In memoriam, Zuma: 2000-Feb 15, 2014
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1In recent years, in a subtle sleight of hand, the oft heard phrase of earlier years,”global warming” is now being replaced by the phrase, “climate change” because it stopped warming so many years ago, 15 or so, whilst CO2 concentrations continued to climb. Scientists and the media became increasingly uncomfortable, it appears, talking about warming when it isn’t.
However, “climate change” is something we can ALL agree on since the earth’s climate is always changing, such as hereabouts in the SW US, oscillating from dry and wet periods, sometimes very long ones in duration. Ask any tree ring.
What’s next for earth?
No one really knows for sure, but you would likely tilt if you had to make a guess toward a resumption of warming with an El Nino on deck for later in the year. The planet warms when El Ninos happen. And if CO2 is having its way, the warming likely will not subside afterwards. Interesting times ahead!
Only a couple of drops here overnight. Measured around Reddington Pass and in the other Catalina Foothills, the well-to-do one, but that’s not good enough for a post. Hell, the Altocumulus/Altostratus clouds weren’t even that interesting yesterday, but if you do want to see them again, go here.
Nothing in the way of rain in sight now for another two weeks. Ugh.
Also, I am against “geoengineering” where you mess with low clouds like Stratocumulus via aerosols to make them brighter on the top, thus, darker on the bottom, to reflect more of the sun’s light back into space. Thought you would like to know that. Lotta money about to head into crackpot (IMO) preliminary study schemes like that now days. Haven’t we made a big enough mess without making more of a mess with some ludicrous attempt to change clouds over vast regions of the earth, as would be necessary to have the “desired” effect of cooling it?
7:46 AM. Stratocumulus lenticularis castellanus (has spires), an oxymoronic cloud. You would call this Stratocumulus because its low enough to top Ms. Mt. Lemmon. While some turrets can be seen, others are causing shadows. Have never really seen something quite like this and I look a LOT.10:35 AM. Stratocumulus lenticularis on the Catalinas. The moist air is resisting like mad being lifted over the Catalinas. Oddly, once condensation occurs a bit of heat is released and on the left you see that it was enough heat to allow a Cumulus turret to rise out of the smooth cloud. This is pretty darn rare site, seeing such smoothness AND Cumulus rising out of the same deck.3:46 PM. Cumulus humilis, no ice, except in those Cirrus clouds on the right.5:28 PM. Sun dog, or mock sun, also “parhelia” in natural Cirrus and in a contrail. The parhelia is likely brighter in the contrail since the simple hexagonal (six-sided) plate-like ice crystals that cause parhelias are smaller and more numerous in the early stages of a contrail.
6:09 PM. Cirrus spissatus.
Today’s clouds
Much like two days ago. Higher based Stratocumulus/Altocumulus with patches of heavy virga and sprinkles around.
Back edge of the cloud mass times in around 2-4 PM. Might be a little early for a great sunset, but just in case, have camera ready.
Looking farther ahead….
Still mainly dry through the next two weeks, though close call on the 7th, a situation that appears much like today, That close rain call NOW appears in both the Canadian and US WRF-GFS models (yesterday they were vastly different). So, with that, a chance of a few hundredths here after nightfall on the 6th into the morning of the 7th.
Spaghetti, in a dismal series of plots, also shows little hope for rain here through the 20th. So, even with mistakes in the initial analyses, deliberate ones to see how different the forecast maps turn out, we still can’t exit our drought! Oh, me. Poor wildflowers.
The End (did you see the giant mammatus/testicularis to the north this morning? If not, here it is:
Warm in the West, COLD in the East. Hasn’t locked in like this over the US since way back in the winters of ’62-63, ’76-77 when old man, “Polar Vortex”, the circulating hub of cold air in Northern Hemisphere winters, lost his way from near the North Pole and drifted down to around Hudson Bay, Canada, a few times, as it is doing at times this winter.
You can read about those January’s, ’63 and ’77 below for those of you who like to reminiscence about severe winters in the East.
You may recall, too, that it snowed in Miami in January 1977, the only time it’s happened. They got pretty excited about it down there, too, as you can see.
That snow in Miami, BTW, occurred pretty much at the height of the global cooling hysteria (hahaha–I like to tease those who think there wasn’t any. But…..we REMEMBER!) Furthermore, one of the great climatologists of the day, Hubert Lamb, from East Anglia University, was even predicting a new ice age dead ahead in the 1970s. Oh, well. I’ve made some pretty bad weather predictions myself.
Fortunately, our current pattern, replicating those old ones, goes to HELL by the end of January, and our chances of rain go way up. Below is the totality of the evidence I am going on for this weather assertion:
Valid at 5 PM, January 28, 2014.
As you can see above, or maybe not, the entire central and eastern Pacific are in complete disarray, and the standing pattern we have now “will not stand” much after this.
Let us compare what we have now, and will have for the next ten days or so, below:
Valid at 5 PM AST, January 23, 2014. Temperature refugees race into Arizona as wave after wave of brutally cold air blasts the eastern half of US leading to an exceptionally moneyful tourist season!
In the first example, very few red and blue contour lines follow the predicted yellow brick road lines. Those red and blue lines are, in general, no where near the actual “control” yellow lines representing an actual prediction for those contours.
In the second example, way out to ten days, the red and blue lines follow the “yellow brick road” ones, meaning the forecast, even that far out, is very robust. So, for another ten days we’ll have our peaceful weather, but watch out toward the end of January. “Change gonna come.”
The End. Might check back when it starts raining….
This is the first mod crunch I have seen in more than a week that had ANYTHING in the way of rain, even out to 15 days, in southern AZ. While forecasts of precip here this far out are like water on a desert highway in summer, will bet overall pattern of cold in the Midwest and East will be changing into one of cold in the West, beginning in the Pac NW a few days into January.
Valid January 9th, at 5 PM AST. Green areas are where mod thinks its rained/snowed during the prior 12 h. Blue is extra heavy precip. This from yesterday’s global data at 5 PM AST.
Why even bother mentioning this when its so far away in model terms?
Below, an arrow has been placed where a very cold upper trough will be starting to make its debut in the Pacific NW, and subsequently extrude southward along the West Coast and or Great Basin area, affecting Arizona by the 8th-10th. Because its ONLY 216 h out, and the wiggly lines are fairly clustered in the central Pac to the western US, seems like this trough will surely be there in the Pac NW, at least to start out with.
Sure hope this works out for us. Desert greening up nicely, but need more to keep up prospects of a great wildflower bloom later.
NOAA ensembles of spaghetti, valid on January 5th.
Thought the overall clearing that occurred at around 8 PM yesterday afternoon was going to be much earlier. So kind of disappointed there, as all of us weatherfolk are when things don’t go right. I thought I was going to see some nice small to moderate Cu amid big sunbreaks during the afternoon. Instead, that incoming Altocu-Stratocu deck from a mostly wasted Pac NW storm had more in it than it looked like on the sat images. That’s what passed over and occluded the forecast. Still, there was quite an afternoon clearing at one point, if a brief one….. So, I guess I was partly right after all.
3:15 PM. Giant clearing passes over Oro Valley and Catalina as clouds begin to breakup. (Photo not zoomed or cropped at all in a cheap attempt to exaggerate a clearing?) ((By putting a question mark, I am not actually lying right out.))
On the other hand, I do get to report a trace of rain in the past 24 h today, which is always good. Hope you saw it, too, to put a bright spot on an otherwise dismal day.
That incoming deck that piled on top of the residual Stratocu here that was topping Samaniego Ridge, was cold enough to produce virga, and some it fell into the clouds below which allowed it to reach the ground rather than dry up.
Also, some of those lower clouds built upward into that higher deck and developed ice, one produced quite a shaft briefly on the Catalinas. That was the surprise of the day, since it appeared to be too stable for that kind of development.
Mods had no rain around here, too, so they’re a little red-faced, as well.
Here are a few other shots from your cloud day:
8:51 AM. This is a common cloud scene that we have here when moist air is being lifted up as it approaches the Catalinas and moves upward in the slot between those mountains and the Tortolitas. The back edge, shown here, is moving toward you, but either never gets here, or takes a lot longer than it should. The reason is that cloud is forming on the back edge. Sometimes when this happens and you see a big clearing that you think will get to you and it doesn’t, its called a “sucker hole.”
10:57 AM. Here, with Big Blue, I was thinking that the clouds were breaking up, and it was going to be nice, scattered Cumulus, day, and the forecast I made early yesterday morning would turn out to be one of the great ones of our time. Middle level clouds rolled over the top of the lower Cumulus and put the kabosh on that! In a way, it was like that big meltdown in the last two minutes by the Washington State Cougars in their bowl game against the Colorado State Rams yesterday when the “Cougs” were leading by 15 points at that time and thought they had a bowl win with so little time left. But no. Like yesterday’s cloud forecast, the win went into the spin cycle at the drain and then down the tube. The writer worked in the Washington Huskies Weather Department, the Cougs in-state rival, but during bowl season the proper rooting etiquette for fhose teams in your league, the Pac 12.1:31 PM. Surprise of the day. A real shaft on the Catalinas! This was the last thing I expected to see yesterday, you, too. I’m sure. Such a shaft indicates that the top of this cloud got higher (likely just a few thousand feet) than any other tops yesterday, mounding above the tops of the higher layer of Stratocumulus clouds.
2:43 PM. A prototypical shot for pretty much the whole day, one in a Seattle motif; scattered to broken coverage in lower Cumulus and Stratocumulus, with another layer of Stratocumulus on top of the lower clouds.
Sun was able to sun behind the backedge of that Sc cloud deck and produced some spectacular lighting on Sam Ridge.
5:08 PM.5:21 PM. “Cow and sunset”; $1200.
The weather WAY ahead, that is, after the long dry spell now starting…
Still looking at storms passing through here as December winds down and during the first week of January, likely with cold, possibly exceptional cold, in the West. “Stay tuned”, of course.
“Cards” in title referring to computer models, not some kind of goofy fortune telling thing, though, in fact, the models can be kind of goofy, too.
Also by talking about the exciting weather ahead here in Catalina (how many inches will it pile up?), I wanted to deflect attention from error. No rain here in Catland yesterday, as thought likely a couple of days ago (thanks to Enviro Can’s GEM model), though a couple of light showers and even a thunderstorm were close by. There was even a lightning strike from the cell shown below according to the National Lightning Detection Network, one that’s off limits for the tax payers who paid for it. (Must go through private weather providers or work at a university to see the NLDN directly, quite an outrage, as was the case in the early years of Doppler radar data.)
4 PM AST. Radar and satellite IR image from IPS MeteoStar. Arrow points to Cumulonimbus cloud that briefly erupted to the SE of us.
First of all, the long foretold and then bailed on Altocumulus castellanus (and floccus) showed up yesterday morning:
11:09 AM. Altocumulus floccus and castellanus. Floccus has a ragged base; cas a flat base, not that it matters that much. From the taken- while-not-driving collection though it looks like it. Professional course, do not attempt.
2:59 PM. Later in the afternoon, scattered Cumulus clouds were aplenty under some remaining Altocumulus, but did not attain the ice-forming level, with a couple of exceptions, which of course, I will have to show.
3:44 PM. Small and moderate Cumulus (humilis and mediocris) over the Catalinas. Can you find the remnant puff of ice from the highest turret formerly in this grouping? That ice puff up there tells you that one of these rained on someone earlier. Hope you logged it in your clouds and weather diary…
Same photo as above except with annotation and s… like that. I don’t cuss but it sounded funny to write that, detracting just that bit from erudition; stepping out of character for humor. I laughed anyway. Maybe this blog is just for me anyway. That’s what my brother says.
4:40 PM. Dramatic scenes like this on the Catalinas closed out our dry day.
5:19 PM. Fading clouds and drier air move in from the southwest. All threat of rain is gone, but not of a great sunset.
What’s that about white stuff?
Here’s the latest 500 millybar map (flow around 18,000 feet above sea level):
Valid at 5 AM AST, Friday, December 20th, rendered by IPS MeteoStar. Those bowl games in the SW are going to be SO COLD! Poor guys.
Big U-turn in jet stream shown over AZ and all the way to Canada! On the east side of the U-turn are clouds and precipitation and sh… like that. (hahahaha, to continue an out of character theme for a second for humorous purposes…) In the middle of the U-turn are the lowest freezing levels, on this map, low enough in AZ for snow here has either already occurred, or is on the doorstep or already here. On the backside of the U-turn, where the wind is blowing out of the north, the air is mostly subsiding, drying out, clearing off, allowing huge amounts of infrared heat to escape from the earth’s surface into space.
Here’s something else… See how much stronger the wind at this level is over CA, OR, and WA than in the eastern part of the U-turn? That means the U-turn itself is going to push farther S as time goes on, a mechanical thing. This would be a VERY cold episode for us, hard freeze variety, when the clouds and precip clear off.
While the amount of precip here has varied as the exact configuration and placement of the jet has varied in model run to model run, the OVERALL pattern of very cold air getting here has remained in place. Be ready!
Note, too, in the map above that the strongest winds at this level are WELL south of us, and so its already preciped here. Now I will look and see when the precip starts with this gargantuan trough and record cold (in part of the West) pattern first takes hold: OK, looks like the night of the 19th-20th, starting out as rain, changing to snow as storm ends, IMO.
Terribly cold weather will impact the whole West, and punish the northern Rockies and Plains States again. You’ll be reading/hearing about this one during the through the runup to Christmas, so similar to the blast of cold air that broke so many low temperature records last week. Will be tough on travelers. Not so happy about that prospect.
BTW, just to make a point about those crazy NOAA spaghetti factory plots: they have been pointing confidently, as readers of this blog will know, for more than ten days or so, to another pretty extreme weather event here and throughout the West, and that’s where they come in as an important tool for weather forecasters, when a strong signal shows up. Normally, weather forecasts go pretty bad after five days to a week. But “Lorenz”-spaghetti plots can help us see through the fog of middle range forecasting sometimes. That’s why you look at them everyday to see what’s up beyond the first five days or so.
BTW#2, all of this crashing down of the jet stream suddenly into the West after our nice spell of weather, is due to that jumbo storm that erupts in the western Pacific, builds a high pressure ridge ahead of it, and then that causes the mild-mannered jet crossing the coast in British Columbia to go into a southward, buckling rage, dragging record cold air behind it as it does so from northern Canada. That key gigantic eruption in the western Pacific has also been predicted with confidence day after day.
Really going overboard today, got up too early I can see that…. Below, the first the “la-dee-dah” spaghetti plot valid just two days from now:
See how the illustrative contours are piling into BC and northern Washington State? Over us and the WHOLE West, is a big fat ridge. No problems. Toasty weather, here too, for December. Note also, how small the errors are that are deliberately introduced at the beginning of the model test (or “ensemble” runs)! They hardly make any difference in a 48 h forecast (the lines run on top of each other). The giant low in the western Pac has not yet erupted, so there’s not much amplitude to the jet stream, its just pretty much west to east flow, la dee dah.
But look below at the waviness (amplitude) of the flow in the Pacific AFTER the giant low erupts, forming a big ridge downstream!
Valid at 5 PM AST, Thursday, December 18th; pattern caving in. Wrote all over this, got too excited about what’s ahead.
Whew! Quitting here, got a little over worked today about the weather way ahead. Too long to proof, too…. But HELL, its the internet; don’t have to be a great writer to be on the internet2!
The End, except for historical culture footnote below.
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1Part of the “British invasion”. If you’re a kid, have your parents explain to you that it was not a military thing to reclaim America except in terms of music. Pop music here wasn’t good enough (Beatles were better than the Beach Boys I guess) in the mid-1960s, and so they came, and they came and they came from that little island nation with their weird hair styles and great hooks and dominated the air waves. Pretty soon, everybody had weird hair styles.
