Sent to ME just yesterday from an El Niño expert in Monterrey with the NOAA SW Fisheries Center, this update:
“(An El Nino is coming)….faster than you might think: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/clim/sst.shtml Looks to me that we’ll have what I’d consider a ‘full-blown’ El Niño in the tropics by the end of the month, maybe even sooner. And it looks like it’ll be on the big bad side …”
I felt like a recipient of insider trading info! But what do I do with this info? Guess I’ll just pass it along verbatim to you. Maybe you’ll be as happy as I am, hearing this news. El Niños generally lead to wetter conditions throughout the SW, so maybe we’ll get some substantial water next winter, but then if it floods like in Jan ’93 like it did with that El Niño, I am sure we’ll be complaining (almost 17 inches of rain that month at the old Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery/Oak Creek Canyon area). Thirty-eight inches (!) of rain that Jan ’93 month at one southern Cal mountain location, Lytle Creek Ranger Station, I think it was.
—————————Currently————————–
Upper trough trudging across area today, tomorrow and into Sunday, a mostly dry one. However, some Cumulus should form later today, maybe with a couple of Cirrus/Altocumulus/CIrrocumulus at times, too. The air aloft should be cold enough by late today, but especially tomorrow, to spawn large enough Cumulus clouds with tops cold enough to contain ice, viz., small Cumulonimbus clouds of the kind we had a couple of weeks ago with virga and dust eruptions. So there is a chance of a sprinkle or a hundredth or two tomorrow afternoon here. Check here for the great U of AZ model output from 11 PM AST last night–not finished yet at at 4:37 AM. But it will likely have some precip around the Catalina area tomorrow afternoon when the calcs finish.
The End.
