Cloud-maven – Page 23 – About real clouds, weather, cloud seeding and science autobio life stories by WMO consolation prize-winning meteorologist, Art Rangno

Last coupla days of March 2016 to feature strong rain threat in Catalina!

Imagine, rain! Yep, that’s right. You heard it first here, right or wrong, as we like to say, over and over again because we can’t think of anything else.

After a couple of minutes of intense scrutiny, cloud maven person has decided to wake up and go blogulent that the computer prog showing a huge upper trough over the SW in 13-15 days, March 29-32nd is accurate. Will be cold, too. Little crybaby snow birds might be heading back to Wisconsin or Michigan when this cold spell hits. Just kidding, flat landers! (Actually, they’ll be leaving us due to being little crybabies when the temperature hits the 90s-100s every day, temperatures we true Arizonans laugh at.)

Adding to the pile of “credibility” here is that this March came in like a “lamb” I think. Has to go out as a “lion.” Or so the saying goes. Science and folk lore, that’s what you get here.

Here’s the actual computer forecast of the trough from last evening’s global data as rendered by IPS MeteoStar:

Valid at 5 PM AST, March 29th. Potent trough takes over the whole of the western US. Note the critical wind jet at this height (500 millibars) is over and south of Tucson, a nearly mandatory requirement for cool season rain here. (Unpublished study, Rangno, 1974; covered the whole US, that study, too.

Pretty exciting isn’t it, jet stream way to the south like that?

And this after our too-long-dry-spell pretty much since the first week in January, the dry spell associated with the strong “El-None-yo”, to be sarcastic after ALL the high expectations for copious rains, the incredible wildflower bloom that would be our pleasure to experience this spring following the pounding rains due to the Big Niño meteorologists and media got so excited about.

Poppy hills, down Bowman Road here in Catalina. Yes, we have some poppies, but they’re stunted looking, as are the other wildflowers around, struggling to survive in all the dry air since the fall and early winter rains.

But, no. Moving ahead after draining some emotion…. Thanks for listening.

So’s why CMP going out of what seems to be a long, thin limb here, that other forecasters are afraid of doing, that is forecasting with confidence something so far in advance?

Well, of course its because we got us a pretty darn strong signal again in the NOAA “Lorenz” or spaghetti or “ensemble” plots, where errors¹ are deliberately put in the data to see how wildly the outcomes vary. If the outputs don’t vary a lot, then confidence can be high about a forecast. “Varying” is seen in how wildly the lines (contours) on these plots are. Below, an example where there’s not a lot of confidence….

Valid 5 PM, Saturday, March 26th. Really can't have too much confidence here. Arizona is in there somewhere. This came out a few days ago. — Valid 5 PM, Saturday, March 26th. Really can’t have too much confidence here. Arizona is in there somewhere. This came out a few days ago. Quite a knee-slapper.

(Below we discuss, in contrast, the one from last evening and how we used one of these crazy plots before):

Rememeber, first, how to spell “remember”, and then that’s how we knew for sure a big trough would be over us even 10-two weeks ahead back whenever it was when we got a little rain and it was damn cold for a few days this March.

Valid at 5 PM AST March 29th. Relative bunching of red contours of the 500 millibar height contours indicates forecast confidence can be high for a trough in Arizona and the West in the last couple of days of March. So, I'm going for it. — Valid at 5 PM AST March 29th. Relative bunching of red contours of the 500 millibar height contours indicates forecast confidence can be high for a trough in Arizona and the West in the last couple of days of March. So, I’m going for it.

Since this forecast of a good chance of rain late in the month is likely to be quite accurate, there’ll be no need to update you after today.

The MAIN thing to remember, in a teaching moment, is to not be afraid when a model run comes out with something vastly different than what I just wrote about 5 minutes after I posted this, to wit, this VASTLY different model output based on data just 6 h after the model outputs above. I laughed at it, since spaghetti rules, not a single model output. That’s the teachable moment, I think.

Valid at 11 PM AST March 29th, almost the same time as the model output showing the giant trough in the West. Not here though. From a spaghetti frame of mind, a real laugher, this one. (I think.) — Valid at 11 PM AST March 29th, almost the same time as the model output showing the giant trough in the West. Not here though.
From a spaghetti frame of mind, a real laugher, this one. (I think.)

The End
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¹ Hahah, as though we don’t make enough of them when we vote and stuff; remember that saying about why there’s an eraser on the top of a pencil? Very profound. And, “hey” look at the state of this planet? We need an awfully big “eraser” these days.

“Storm” total climbs to 0.10 inches with latest 0.02 inches!

People were wearing jackets as temperatures got locked down below 80° F the past few days, the wind blew once in a while, sometime lifting baseball caps off “gray hairs”, and gray skies hovered over Sutherland Heights for TWO and a half days!

A surprise, few-minute gusher in the early afternoon yesterday was enough to tip the old Davis tipping bucket rain gauge once¹, too, to add another 0.02 inches to the 0.08 inches we were drenched with the night before.

What’s ahead. I dunno.

Really thought THIS storm was gonna be a doozie here, not in Mexico as it is now, for Pete’s Sake. Some weeks ago it was read by my reader (s?) here that we had only a 10% chance of LESS than 0.20 inches. In fact, we had a 100% chance of 0.10 inches.

I did not see that coming. But at least March 2016 has recorded SOME rain. Some insects benefited I’m sure.

Climate folks (Climate Prediction Center) are still predicting a wet March-May for us, at least as of mid-Feb. Unfortunately, its only a little more than two inches that makes that three month period wetter than normal here in Catalinaland as we begin to dry out, and heat up.

Ann three month MAM forecast

Time for another, “I love this map so much”, so fully packed with portent:

"Valid" (what a joke) in two weeks, March 24th, 5 PM AST. Giant low moves SEWD toward the southern Cal coast. Strongest winds on the back side tells you its shifting southeastward. Look how big it is! — “Valid” (what a joke) in two weeks, March 24th, 5 PM AST. Giant low moves SEWD toward the Cal coast. Strongest winds on the back side tells you its shifting southeastward. Look how big it is!

Frankly, now as the jet stream in the northern hemisphere goes to HELL in the spring, the “Lorenz plots” or “spaghetti” are pretty clueless. As an example of “clueless” look at the spaghetti plot that goes with the map above:

For March 23 at 5 PM AST. No real clustering of lines anywhere so forecasts will be wild for this far in advance. That low could really be anywhere. There's not quite so much chaos in the heart of winter when the jet is strongest and geographic jet stream anchors are strongest, like Asia. — For March 23 at 5 PM AST. No real clustering of lines anywhere so forecasts will be wild for this far in advance. That low could really be anywhere. There’s not quite so much chaos in the heart of winter when the jet is strongest and geographic jet stream anchors are strongest, like Asia.

Bottom line: NO rain days ahead, maybe a close call over the next TWO friggin’ weeks. Expect to see 90s on a day or two, as well. “Dang”, as we say in the Great Southwest.

Some clouds of yore, including yesterday.

As a cloud maven junior person, you should compare the shots below and try to chronologically unscramble them using your photos. Also, I would like you to name these clouds. Please keep your answers to yourself. hahaha (ACtually I am being lazy and just threw these in “willy-nilly” (huh, what’s that from? Will have to look it up some day.)

Am working on a true science story-book talk, something I wanted to write up before “tipping the bucket” as we meteorologists say about death. Its kindle-sized, maybe would take 3 h to present if it was an actual talk, having more than 250 ppt slide-pages! I won’t be at the TUS book fair, however, this year….

The End.

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¹FYI, when a meteorologist dies, we meteorologists say that he has “tipped the bucket”, NOT “kicked the bucket.” Its an especially reverent phrase for us.

Measurable rain to fall in March 2016

…in case you were wondering at this point.

Looks like it will be on March 7th. Pretty sure thing at this point, maybe 75%-99% chance of rain here in Catalina, combining “spaghetti¹” with other forms of forecasting.

7 AM AST Addendum: Hell, why not go for some amounts due to extra confidence:

Min in The Heights: 0.20 inches (10% chance of less); max, 1.00 inches (10% chance of more). The average of these “mental ensemble²” extrema, 0.60 inches, which is usually closer to the actual value.

This best guess estimate for the total between midnight March 7th and the evening of the 8th, or over about a 42 h period. Weather gaming is fun.

What’s your prediction?

—————-T. I. P.————————————

Remember, too, as a “truth in packaging” disclosure statement, that this forecast is being made by the SAME person who forecast about 12 days ago or so, rain here in the last week of February which didn’t happen, along with large Cal and AZ blasting storms in early March.

In fact, here and in southern Cal, we had “anti-rain” in the last week of February! This in the form of high temperatures, dry air, and that combination resulting in unusually high evapotranspiration rates with those high temperatures (anti-rain, since whatever surface water, soil moisture, plant moisture is disappearing into the air). In other words, that forecast could hardly have been more incorrect.

Hell, to cuss some more, almost as bad as those forecasts for a drier than normal winter (DJF) for the Pac NW by big forecasting authorities like the Oregon State Climatologist among many others.

In fact, when they were making those forecasts, they were staring at record wetness in the Pac NW! Incredible! Both SEA and PDX have set DJF records for the amount of rain this winter! Wow. It doesn’t get much worse than that, except maybe here sometimes.

People are mad, too, in southern Cal where they were advised to buy sandbags due to the excessive flooding and rains foretold for their winter. Well, we’ll see if March can bring back some of the lost credibility, though, frankly, its hard to do.

Think of all those global warming forecasts of a steady rise in global temps made back in the early part of this century which didn’t happen. Wow. Lost some credibility there, and those forecasters had to move to a new expression, “climate change” to cover up the bad forecast.

Temps on the rise now, so watch out! “Global warming” rising from the ashes more and more now, too.

Changing the subject quickly, the Washington Huskies softball team had a pretty great weekend at the Mary Nutter Classic Tournament in Cathedral City, CA, where it was real hot (90 F), too. The University of Washington was the writer’s former employer.

Whistling here: where are you Niño? Com’ere! Hmmmph, nice name for a dog I think, which is what it has been so far for the Southwest.

The End

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¹ Formally, called “Lorenz plots” by yours truly, and should be by others.

Valid on March 7th. All the red lines are WAY down there in Baja California central. Means a pretty sure thing the jet stream will be south of us when this incoming trough goes by and as you know well by now, when the jet at THIS level is south of us, you almost always get rain. Some 95% of the rain that falls in Tucson falls with the jet at this circumscribing us. — Valid at 5 PM AST on March 7th. All the red lines are WAY down there in Baja California central. Means a pretty sure thing that the jet stream will be south of us when this incoming trough goes by and as you know well by now, when the jet at THIS level is south of us, you almost always get rain. Some 95% of the Nov-Apr rain that falls in Tucson falls with the jet at this level to the south of us.

²No way is this from some big computer somewhere!

The Niño we’ve been waiting for is back at last, thank God!

…in the models, that is, its not HERE yet.

I dropped everything I was working on, a kindle-sized science piece, after I saw what is being presented to us today. Wanted to generate some happiness out there; its just who I am, except maybe when I am talking about cloud seeding. Then I get mad about all the shenanigans that have happened in that field, and I want you to be mad, too. (Kidding, sort of).

Check this out in the annotated spaghetti if you don’t believe me:

Valid in 14 days! Which means, February 28th, 5 PM AST. — Valid in 14 days, 5 PM AST, February 28th I can’t wait! Its finally happening, that wet Niño period we’ve been waiting for all year, and have only seen sputtering in starts and stops.

Next, look at this behemoth, Mothra-sized jet street, oozing into the southern portion of the West Coast, the kind of thing we’ve been waiting for with the Godzilla-sized Niño, to allude to more monster movies, ones you probably went to, as a matter of fact. From IPS MeteoStar, these delicious progs valid in about two weeks:

from 2-1506_2016021506_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_348 — Valid Monday, February 29th, 11 AM.

Ann 2016021506_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_360 — Valid Monday February 29th 11 PM AST.

down low 2016021506_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_372 — Valid at 11 AM AST, Tuesday, March 1st.

Baja flooding 2016021506_WST_GFS_500_HGT_WINDS_384 — Valid 11 PM AST, Tuesday, March 1st. Oh, my, this is incredible how far south this powerful jet is, scooping loads of moisture toward Baja, southern Cal and Arizona. This would be something if it materializes….

Now let us recalll that the models had almost exactly these kinds of forecasts back in early January, as Catalinans enjoyed some beneficial rains associated with storms looking like those expected with Niño winters.

Recall, too, that in an overzealous blog, your cloud maven person announced the destruction of California in a couple of weeks due to those incredible progs; “FEMA get ready!” Homes to fall in ocean, couple feet to foot and a half of rain in the last two weeks or so alone. Well, there was only a little less than two feet of rain in that predicted time, and it was WAY up in the northern fringes of Cal. Homes, are falling into the ocean, though, due to the big surf that’s been occurring with big storms, too far off to make it rain much in Cal south of Frisco, though. Still going on, too.

Now about what’s ahead, way ahead.

Once again I announce the destruction of portions of California due to exceptional storms now on the horizon in the models. And, its not too late for those kinds of storms–remember what happened at the tail of February into the first few days in March 1938 in southern California and Arizona.

Why possibly make the SAME mistake again?

Because we got us such a BIG Niño, and….I can’t remember what else. Oh, yeah, I think it can’t be held off forever as far as generous SW rains go and I have been looking for this to happen.

Besides, let us, too, remember the 97-98 giant Niño. Remember how it appeared that not so much was happening into JANUARY except north of ‘Frisco in Cal, then the colossus hit all of the State and AZ in late January through February ’98?

Well, we’ve seen the northern portion of Cal get slammed, along with the Pac NW so far.

What if the transition to the blasters farther down the coast is a month late, in late February into March instead of late January into February as in ’98? Could be.

That’s what I am thinking/kind of hoping for, too.

These “outlier” model predictions from the 06Z (11 PM AST global data) that just came in a couple of hours ago–there’s been NOTHING like them in ALL of the prior model runs, so that’s why they’re outliers at this point I think–represent the “REAL DEAL.” This is it.

The Cal calamity expected in January begins with these model runs, that is, occurs at the end of February into March. And who knows how long after that? Remember, the best of the Niños is in late winter and SPRING!

Disclaimer. Cloud Maven Person is overly worked up here, and credibility naturally goes downward if being worked up is going up.

This lowered credibility is due to subjective internal influences such as looking for a return of those astounding progs that came out in early January ever since.

But, I am SURE this time (like a compulsive gambler would say), the above progs have got it right now. That Niño storms we have been looking for all this time will start to arrive before much longer.

The End.

Now “trending” in spaghetti: an El Niño-style onset of rain during the last week in February (2016)

“Yep, rain’s on the way; yay”, to burst out with a little poetry there. But, it will be awhile before it gets here. See caption below.

20160222000spag_f360_nhbg — Valid at 5 PM AST, February 21st. Pretty clear that undercutting flow from the lower latitudes will slip into Arizona bringing much needed rain to Catalina beginning around this time.

12:55 PM. Wavy Cirrus showing waves in the atmosphere. Kind of reminds you of driving down the old Tangerine Road before they wrecked it by filling in all the dips and rises that made it a fun drive at 50-60 mph! — 12:55 PM. Wavy Cirrus showing waves in the atmosphere. Kind of reminds you of driving down the old Tangerine Road before they ruined it by filling in all the dips and rises that made it a fun drive at 50-60 mph, if you could drive that fast on it! I remind the reader that the speed limit is 45 mph on Tangerine Road. So, this is only a fantasy description of how much fun it would have been if you COULD drive that fast.

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Non-meteorological entry:

Gas now down to 21 cents a gallon in 1967 dollars (that’s what that $1.53 a gal here in Catalina now converts to in ’67 dollars). Here’s a history of gas prices, FYI.

As of February 6, 2016. This seems a little crazy.

The End.

MJO and El Niño Grande battling it out in the Pacific

You’re probably wondering, as are Californian’s who live a little south of ‘Frisco,

“Where’s the wet winter in central and southern California?”

and for us,

“What happened to the Great Niño of 15-16 and all the drought-relieving rains that were expected in the Southwest?”

I think you need to read this: MJO update

Remember when it rained so much in early January here? We were so excited, Big Niño being underway! And all the washes were running then?

Here what this MJO update rehashes about early January and the MJO, in case you’re too lazy to read it:

“During early January, a strong westerly wind burst near the Date Line was related to constructive interference with the ongoing El Niño.”

I didn’t want you to miss the important words. “Constructive interference.” To help you grasp this phrase, this would be when TWO or THREE lineman, instead of one, create a “crease” for a running back who then runs a long ways, to get into the current sports ambience ahead of Superbowl Sunday, just ahead. That would be an example of, “constructive interference”; for the team and its running back on offense in a football game¹.

That was early January, and now its early February (the 6th), in case you were wondering how old this post is…. Lets see what the MJO experts say later in this same briefing:

“The intraseasonal signal weakened by late January as it destructively interfered

with the El Niño. Suppressed convection became less widespread across the Maritime Continent and shifted eastward to the SPCZ.”

You never want to read that your treasured El Niño (aka, Big Niño here) is being “interfered” with. Dammitall!²

We were counting on the current Big Niño to make droughty things right again all over the Great Southwest!

But no, now its struggling against the Dark Forces of the MJO wind regime out there, doing its thing and is now messing around in “Phase Space 4”, this latter location is also is, historically associated with poor rains in the Southwest.³

So, WHERE the eastward meandering MJO is right now, and the wind anomalies associated with it, are likely taking some steam out of the action the Big Niño, by itself, would have normally produced in the SW.

And it doesn’t seem any Nino like storms are in our immediate future, but rather what’s in our immediate future is a reprise of last year’s “Warm in the West, Cold in the East⁴” pattern where storms are generally shunted far to the north of us.

At least, this is now what I think is happening and why we have had such disappointingly dry weather for the past few weeks after reading this MJO updated briefing.

By the way, don’t forget to use that acronym, “MJO” in casual conversations about weather. It will be great to toss that out if you with neighbors or at a party, and someone sarcastically says, to no one in particular, “What happened to the big, wet winter we were supposed to have?” That’s when you jump in with “MJO” and what’ going on and how its messing with Niño, is YOUR take on things. I think this would be a great moment for you⁵!

The weather ahead

No real rain in site over the next two weeks, only passing weak troughs, maybe some marginal rain with one maybe, as a ridge of high pressure aloft, something resembling last year’s pattern, recurs along the West Coast over the next two weeks. Boohoo.

The End

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¹Offense is when you have the ball and you are trying to move it forward toward the “goal line.” Men like football in particular, though it may be a subconscious thing, because there is a clear metaphor³ to a football crossing a goal line and fertilization of female ovaries. This, of course, explains in this context, the exaggerated celebratory mode of the specific player who has carried the ball over “the goal line.” Nothing knew here, well known in Freudian circles.

²Sometimes you have to cuss to get the emotions out, an author in this month’s Atlantic Magazine wrote. Caution, this piece contains cuss words. Personally, I don’t cuss myself. So get the HELL off this blog if you want a lot of cussing.

³You will see this if you go to the last page of the MJO link in this post.

⁴Of course, “cold in the East” can always help the Arizona economy by getting more folks to bail on the awful winter climate they have there for AZ. That would be good.

⁵While I normally don’t recommend cussing, it could be that using the phrase, “….that f……g MJO is f……..g with our Big Niño” might deliver more impact and release more of your negative emotions about it. Scorsese would approve (see Atlantic link above)

Hurricane force winds strike the Sutherland Heights!

If you don’t believe me, and slept through it during the power outages when it was COMPLETELY dark last night, here is a MEASUREMENT of the event from a private weather station, The arrow points to the event, 58 knots, which is about 67 mph. This is the greatest wind measured by the PWA in seven years, here and a few down there on Wilds. The measured (here, the max one-minute speed) wind is, of course, LESS than the actual greatest 1s or 2s puff, likely well over 67 mph. Unless you have a fancy ultrasonic anemometer, too much inertia in the cheaper ones to get those instantaneous puffs.

NEW: Got to 100 mph on Mt. Sara Lemmon before tower on which an ultrasonic anemometer was installed blew away.

Hope your trees are intact:

WInd measurement from Davis Vantage Pro Personal Weather Station located right here somewhere in Sutherland Heights. — WInd measurement over the past 24 h from a Davis Vantage Pro Personal Weather Station located somewhere in Sutherland Heights. (Remember in Israel, that popular top 40 radio station that said, “Braodcasting from SOMEWHERE in the Medeterranean” and every one knew it was that ship located a half mile or so offshore of Tel Aviv. Played Springstein, that kind of thing for all to hear.

Only 0.17 inches tipped by the Davis Vantage Pro, but with wind blowing as it was, you KNOW that’s going to be substantially low. We really can’t measure rain that accurately in any thing but perfectly calm conditions. The more accurate measurements are made if your gauge is sheltered by vegetation that is about the height of the gauge top right near the gauge, but then increases like the inside of a bowl as you gradually move away from it in all directions. No trees, please, too close! Preferably your gauge is on the ground not up somewhere, too, which would exaggerate the losses from wind.

Now, I will go outside and measure the rain in two ground mounted gauges, one a NWS-style 8-inch gauge, and the little toy 4-inch gauge from CoCoRahs, that national group that wants your measurements! Sign up now. Here are the other totals:

NWS gauge, 0.22 inches

CoCoRahs gauge, blew over, no total! Dammitall! Wasn’t as protected in the weeds as I thought. That total “likely” was around 0.24 or 0.25 inches. CMP had privately predicted, 0.28 inches for this storm, whilst a major forecast professor from CSU who lives in Catalina predicted an INCH¹!

Brutal out there, too. Temp only 43° F, still windy.

The weather way ahead

Sorry to say no rain for Catalinaland in our latest computer forecasts through the middle of February as the Big Niño hyped so much here and elsewhere is turning out to be big poop so far.

Cal rains only great in the far north of the State during January, and in the northern Sierras.

Sucked in by the Big Niño thoughts here, CMP was predicting quite the mayhem in Cal during the last 15-16 days of January, and 25-30 inches at some locations during that time here is a table for that period from CoCoRahs. Note Shelter Cove, near the King Range, has the most. Totals are sorted in descending order, Jan 13-31.

No doubt your curiosity was piqued and peaked by seeing how much rain could fall on you if you lived in Shelter Cove, on the Lost Coast of California. Well, here’s what its like there. Has an AP, too!

A view of Shelter Cove, showing airport and control tower. Yep, you can fly right in!

Another view of Shelter Cove. King Range is in the distance. NO DOUBT, rainfall up there WAS more than 25 inches if about 22 fell at Shelter Cove!

May try to get some more of that Cal precip since Jan 13, finding a modicum o direct verification of that huge amount of rain prediction.

No Mavericks surf competition yet, though larger waves have been battering the Cal coast over the past two-three weeks. Below, surf for today.

4:04 PM. Nice lenticular, devolving into flocculated Altocumulus downwind. The cells the form downwind from the smooth upwind edge are likely due to the latent heat released when condensation occurs, causing weak up and downdrafts to develop father downwind.

5:58 PM. Dusty sunset, and once again I point out that this would be a great name for a western singer. No worrisome dark spotting on sun. — 5:58 PM. Dusty sunset. No worrisome dark spotting on sun.

The End

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¹Maybe the “Ivory Tower” has not only protected him from the hiccups of the “real world” due to tenure and that kind of thing, but also from discerning what real weather will be like. hahaha. Just kidding. Sort of. Recall CMP was NOT tenured, but just a “staff” meteorologist with a “light” at the end of the funding grant tunnel, year after year for about 30 years. So, I am pretty mad about “tenure”. Hahahaha, just kidding maybe.

“Tenure” was a recent subject of a Science Mag editorial (“Wither (wither) Tenure“), too; costs everybody, especially students, a LOT of money, it was said.

Too, often young bright researchers are blocked by senior professors having tenure and making large amounts of money that hang on well past their productive years.

Cloud Maven Person: Resigned from the U of WA Cloud and Aerosol Research Group due to feeling he wasn’t earning his high “Research Scientist III” pay anymore, brain dimming, though there was a pile of money that he could have continued on with. Title of resignation letter: “Time to Go”. This free-ed up monies for staff folks that remained in our group, too.

Com’on decrepit tenured faculty, give up! Resign now!

PS: My friend tenured fac is STILL active, gives talks/presentations around the world still, even though he’s quite a geezer now, as is CMP.

MJO to move into Phase Space 3, strengthen!

I think you should read this.

Thanks.

“Phase Space 3”, no, its not an expression from Star Trek, though it would sound pretty good if it was. Rather, its the location of an oscillation in tropical winds that goes around the world in 40 days as a rule, not 80, from west to east. Right now the MJO is in kind of a muddle, not much to it, dawdling around Indonesia. But it is forecast to strengthen next week, looping back around and heading into Phase Space 3!

Some folks have connected weather patterns elsewhere to the various “phase spaces” the MJO is in, people like Zhou et al (2011), as you will find at the end of the above MJO discussion.

What kind of patterns that are relevant here?

Well, they have found a degree of correlation, not great, that when the “MJO” (has a nice ring to it; could be a coffee brand I think), moves into phase space #3, it tends to be wet in the western US.

So, if the MJO is not bamboozling the Big Niño we have in some way, this could be quite the one-two punch.

However, they may NOT be additive as in a 1-2, to destroy any solid information in today’s blog.

Zhou et al, did not look at the combined effect of a Big Niño AND the MJO in Space #3.

So, we’ll just have to see what happens next week as January closes out. Storms, cold ones, still in mods for Catalina and AZ overall as that happens.

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In the meantime, let’s look at some precip data, gathered by NOAA here. This will be good for you to look at, too.

Cal rain update

Honeydew, CA, up there near the King Range, now up to 26 inches for the month of January, though the “Sacramenta” Valley not filling up with water as practically foretold here a coupla weeks ago. Heck, that’s only happened once anyway, way back in 1862 (California flood–read about Stanford here), so maybe CMP was overcome with forecasting adrenalin.

Fire hose jet into CA with stupendous rains hasn’t materialized, but the darn thing keeps showing up now and then. What’s up with that? Not sure. Thought due to persistence in the mods, something stupendous would happen….eventually, and before January closed out.

Oh, well.

The End.

Boringly nice here; lets see what happening in our neighbor state, California as a diversion

Below are rain totals for just the past FIVE days in Cal! Nice. This episode is taking a chomp out of Cal drought, at least in the northern half of the State.

120 H table 20160118

Honeydew up there in that table, with 10.07 inches is in the lee of the King Range, that place where I told you to go to storm chase. The KR is to the SW of Honeydew. While Honeydew is wet, likely a coupla inches or more on the SW facing slopes of the KR.

Below, what it looks like right near the King Range:

Home on the Range...the King Range peaks fill up the background. I thought you should see what its like up there, before moving there just because I recommended it due to needing rainfall measurements closer to the peaks. — Home on the Range…the King Range, that is. KR peaks fill up the background in this shot. I thought you should see what its like up there, before moving there just because I recommended it so that we could get needed rainfall measurements in that area, closer to the peaks than is Honeydew. Rainfall average likely more than 100 inches at that house down there. Nice summers, though.

Let’s see what Cal waves are doing….going big!

As of this morning. Some big boys are pounding the coast. Maybe they'll slip in the Mavericks surf competition one of these days. — As of this morning; some big boys are pounding the coast. Maybe they’ll slip in the Mavericks surf competition one of these days.

More Cal drenchers and big waves on the way in rapid succession, and grand total just for the last half of January are very likely to be within, or even exceed, 25-30 inches at one of the wettest points.

The weather WAY ahead.

Looks more and more like something significant in precip here near the end of January, as a colossus storm smashes Cal and the coast, then rolls radidly SEward into AZ. Another snow episode toward the tail end of that storm here in the Heights seems a strong possibility, too. We’ll be shivering, no matter what, during it and after it passes.

The End.

(Missed some real doozie sunsets of late, too. Dang.)

Beginning to pile up in Cal

Criterion for verification of a California flooding, calamity blogged about here, oh, I dunno, maybe a week ago already, based on progs and spaghetti, mostly:

25-30 inches of rain at one or more stations between yesterday and the end of January. First day of accumulation is here.

In comparison, in the Cal climo data for the Big Niño of 1998, January and February each had one or more stations that recorded more than 30 inches, BUT, it took the whole month! In other words, it was like someone hitting 70 home runs in a baseball season of 200 games, whilst Babe Ruth hit 60 in only 154 games. Or someone breaking college fubball records in 15 games, whereas as Barry Sanders only played in 12. Well, you get the idea without all the details.

24 h graphic representation of totals, ending January 13, 2016, at the start of the onslaught. Need 27 more inches..... — 24 h graphic representation of totals, ending January 13, 2016, at the start of the predicted onslaught. Need about 27 more inches….. But, still think its highly “doable.”

We’ve talked about this place before, but if you storm chase, you want to be in the King Range, located where the “101” highway sign is on this map. No gauges available there, and they will likely have the greatest total during this calamitous spell of Cal rains. Will be posting these maps or tables every so often. Will also be checking to see how many reservoirs get filled up in the northern part of the State.

Here we’ll be pretty much bored out of our minds by great weather until late in the month I’m afraid.

The End.

Here’s something about waves on the Cal coast.