This trough about to cruise over Catalinaland is going too fast for much precip, “hence”, to use an old word, the title. (A quote from a Marx Brothers movie of yore.) We have about 12 h of rain potential in the form of brief passing showers from this morning to this evening. So, we will be lucky to get a 0.25 inches or thereabouts from this one today. BTW, if you look up between 5 PM and 8 PM you will see this trough go by at 20,000 feet above us or so. Better, deeper clouds before this time, flattening clouds after this time. Here is the several day loop, as produced by the University of Washington’s Weather Department’s model from last night’s data, and the “panel of passage” from that below, showing the trough (curved belt of winds) right over us.
The purple blob is not a sports related thing because this is from the Husky (purple and gold) Weather Department, but rather shows another puddle of even colder air than today’s trough is predicted to be over southwest Washington, violently spinning as it wobbles on down into the Southwest and gets stuck there for a day or so.
If the map below looks familiar its because it is the modis operandi for this winter where isolated spinning cyclones roll down the West Coast toward Arizona, ending up cut out of the main flow. And here’s another one with cold, and maybe rainy portent, for Catalina in a couple of days. Pretty remarkable how this pattern has recurred this whole winter beginning in early November, and after the long “sunny malaise” of several weeks, has returned. Awesome.
But wait, there’s more! (I am screaming here as in proper advertising)
This pattern doesn’t end with this current greyhound of a trough, but rolls along with one COLD trough after another, some dry, some with precip over the foreseeable future (still screaming)! The West and Southwest are going to answer the Euro cold of the past two weeks with some of our own that may garner headlines! February 25th, still looks like it might be a snow day in Catalina, rain changing to snow on that day! Can you imagine? Hang on.
A quote from Mark Albright, U of Washington research meteorologist and former WA State Climatologist before he was fired for saying that the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon still get a lot of snow in spite of GW:
“Yeah, better prepare for snow on 25 Feb according to the new 14 Feb 00 UTC gfs run.”
So, there you have it.
Some cloud shots from yesterday’s gorgeous if cool day.
First Cumulus “pancake-us” (humilis), and second, the “supercooled” Altocumulus layer that announced the approach of today’s trough.
