First, before de-briefing yesterday’s disappointment, this happy map for early September.
Some background in support of the map above:
Presently, we have the two Niños going (the newly written up in Nature, “Cal Niño”, and the regular “New Niño” down there in ocean region 3.4). This fall, that combination of two Niños gives us a huge leg up on having a significant rain from a tropical storm because both Niños, with their massive areas of above normal sea surface water temperatures, will help dying hurricanes get closer to old Arizony before falling apart. The warmer the water, the longer they last.
The forecast map above is no less than the THIRD model-of-some-kind’s prediction in the just past two weeks that a tropical remnant/center will go into Arizona. The first two weren’t even close, Julio, was it, that the Canadians said would go over Yuma a couple of weeks ago. And then the big one that is forming now was supposed to do come into AZy in one WRF-GFS model run about a week ago. Now the Big One, will die way out in the Pacific without even getting close.
What’s more, as the one person who reads this blog, you will know that we examine spaghetti to see if there is ANY credibility to such a long range forecast, most of which should be put in trash immediately. Here’s what made the above happy map even that bit happier, below, from the NOAA spaghetti factory. Its been annotated for your enjoyment
- Valid on Thursday, September 5th at 5 PM AST. This map suggests, with moderate confidence, that a trough will exist along the West Coast, something that if in that location, will steer storms into Mexico or the SW US as they drift up the coast of Baja. The blue circles along the Baja coast clusters the position of the hurricane/tropical storm whose remnant may be steered thisaway. That yellow contour (5760 m) is the actual prediction that was made by the model of the “contour of interest”), and it shows that there was a little too much amplitude in it compared with what might actually happen (blue lines are generally not to far to the south. Please ignore the slight time offset (1 day) in the two maps. Its seems to be all that’s available…
So lots to be happy about this morning after a disappointing trace of rain yesterday here in The Heights of Sutherland.
Yesterday’s clouds
Boring, for the most part, though that clear slot to the west near sunset provided some nice lighting around. To wit:
Yesterday’s non-storm:
Dropped a lot of rain down in SE Cal and western Arizona; I guess we should be happy for them. Imperial, CA, at -49 feet elevation, got 1.46 inches! And areas around Yuma, nearly an inch.
But that trough flubbed up moving NE during the night. Below, the scene from 5 PM AST last evening when “little troughy” looked potent. From tSan Francisco State U/Haight-Asbury District/, this nice map:
Going back to the possibility of a hurricane remnant hitting Arizona, something I seem to be stuck on, “If the left one don’t get you, then the right one will1” We’re talkin’ hurricanes here, not about fists and number nine coal. The many hurricanes and tropical storms that are forming this year, about one every five minutes it seems, including Lowell of late, and the monster that is forming now, will be moving too far to the “left” of Arizona, out into nowhere in the eastern Pacific to die with their life sustaining rains. But ….our day will come this year I think! remember our logo: “Right or wrong, you heard it here first!”
In the mid-60s this morning. Can it feel any more that fall is upon us this morning?
The End.
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1Sixteen tons of number nine coal, paraphrased, Tennessee Ernie Ford.