A dollop of rain is on the doorstep, the 29th-30th, but what is intriguing to this cloud maven person is not the EASY forecast of a trough in a few days with some rain, but rather passing along the fun and excitement of “troughy” flow overhead of the SW US in the longer forecast range, between in 9-20 or so days from now, a period so FAR in advance that few dare to go there.
Of course, if the air is “troughy” aloft, our chances of rain are up, though not guaranteed.
What WOULD be guaranteed by troughy air over us is a lot of middle and or high clouds like Altocumulus, Altostratus, and Cirrus, kind of like we had yesterday during that upcoming 9-20 day or so period. And with those clouds, if that’s all we get is clouds, comes great sunrises and sunsets from time to time.
So, CMP is predicting at least some nice sunrises and/or sunsets in the period of 9-20 days from now1.
And of course, ANY credibility for such a profound forecast so FAR in advance with such specificity borders on the unprofessional and shouldn’t really be done, but 1) by examining the NOAA spaghetti factory output, say from last night we can get a tiny bit of credibility, and 2) we don’t worry about professionalism here. If you want really great professionalism, see Bob’s forecasts.
and here:
See red lines and how they bulge southward just off the southern regions of the West Coast and Baja.
I hope you’re happy now.
As you will also likely conclude from these plots, it looks very Niñoish due to the bunching of the red lines in the southern latitudes, those associated, in this case, with the southern branch of the “SJS” or, “sub-tropical jet stream. Remember how important “bunching” is on these plots! Bunching is a measure of confidence on these plots.
Recall, too, that Jacob “Jack” Bjerknes and Pyke (1960s) first hypothesized from the 1957-58 Niño event that it had caused a strengthening of the southern region of the jet stream; made storms stronger, farther south in the eastern Pac which is what happened that winter and spring. We expect some of that strengthening of the southern portions of the jet stream this year due to the HUGE Niño now in progress. I think I will make some toast now.
That strengthening is because the temperature gradient from Equatorial regions to mid-latitudes is greater during Niñoes, as you would guess. Extra warm air is rising up in the eastern Pac where lines and groups of deep Cumulonimbus clouds are forming, transporting heat and moisture upward in regions where they usually don’t exist without a big Niño with extra warm ocean water.
The End.
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1Remember our motto: “Right or wrong, you heard it here first!” Forecaster: “Alive and local”, too.
