“Jumbotrons” again appear in model output

More possibly illusory water on a hot Arizona desert highway in the 12-14 day range.    Massive events are predicted, really;  thought you like to see these mid to late April blows, even though they’re likely as phony as a two dollar bill1.

1. Major April rainstorm exits Cal, brings generous rains to AZ.  From IPS MeteoStar, these:

2015040800_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_336
Valid (or invalid, probably) for 5 PM AST, April 21st.

2.  Second in sequence, shown off Orygon, moves in position for a followup Cal blast.

2015040800_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_360
For April 22nd, 5 PM AST.

3. “Jumbotron 2” marches toward the Cal coast.  For mid-April, southern California and Arizona folks would be wondering about “climate change” should this happen, which it probably won’t, but we can dream.  Truly, a map like this is really exceptional for the 20th of April due to how strong and deep that low is off ‘Frisco, and the strength of the jet stream at the latitude of Baja below.

2015040800_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_384
For April 23rd, at 5 PM AST. A storm in this configuration, being out of the main jet stream, would take a long time to go by. Might rain for two or three days, so it COULD be a real drought denter. In any event, spaghetti is strongly suggesting “troughiness” in our area over the next couple of weeks, and that will lead to some real rain chances. However, April marks the real beginning of our dry season, averaging only about half an inch here in Catalinaland, compared with over an inch and three quarters in March.

Below, some morning spaghetti for you:

For April 20th, 5 PM AST. Looks very promising for storms then, as you would know. BTW, we still have some of the Dry Fittm Tees of "I Heart Spaghetti" available for $12 plus $62 shipping.
For April 20th, 5 PM AST. Looks very promising for storms during the second decade and beyond in April, as you would know, of course.   BTW, we still have some of the Dry Fittm Tees of “I Heart Spaghetti” available for $12 plus $62 shipping.

To help you further understand a perspective on the “gigantism” of the predicted late April storms  that came out in yesterday’s 5 PM AST global data crunch, as they are seen in the eyes of meteorologists, let us compare dinosaurs of the Mesozoic as a metaphor:

Valid 250 million years ago.
Valid 65 to 250 million years ago.  Humans back then had to be especially careful; death by trampling was quite common.

Speaking of the Mesozoic,  I think you would like to hear some birdsongs of the Mesozoic.  Its quite good.

About clouds

Been having some fairly nice ones lately.  Miscellaneous array from yesterday below:DSC_5337 DSC_5377 DSC_5369 DSC_5352 DSC_5277

The End

 

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1Recall spaghetti has been keeping a trough, i.e., a dip in the winds to lower latitudes, here and in the eastern Pacific for some time; these maps are likely an exaggeration of the REAL troughs that happen in ten days to two weeks, since in these eyes, this series of two storms shown above would likely break April rainfall records in some southern California locations before reaching Arizona with generous rains.  So, the more extreme the weather prediction in the 10-15 day period, the more reason to treat it as a knee-slapper.  Still, it COULD happen….

 

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.