Monday, February 22, 2010
9:10 P.M.
It's completely my fault that I haven't made an update lately. The weather has just been too gosh darn boring. I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that I hate El Nino winters. Well I do have some good news for those who are with me on that. El Nino has peaked and is now declining. Models show a steady decline until it levels out in a neutral phase sometime this summer. I predict we will not see a La Nina, as the majority of the models keep the SSTs (Sea Surface Temperatures) a little above normal (but not enough to qualify as a El Nino year). We saw beautiful weather last weekend as a result of a huge ridge of high pressure over the state. The stronger sun angle we see now (the sun now is as strong as it was back in October) heated up many locations into the upper 50s and lower 60s. Clear skies and light winds allowed for excellent radiational cooling to take place, and many places saw frost. The range in temperature from day to night was over 20 degrees and even over 30 places in a few isolated places, which is very unusual for February.
The rain will be coming in Tuesday and will be widespread by the evening. It will be quite light. Heavier rain will come in Friday. Unfortunately, snow levels will likely stay above pass levels the whole period except in the post frontal showers after Tuesday's front.
The weekend coming up looks like it will be "nice." Not as "nice" as the past one but highs will be in the mid 50s with partly cloudy skies. There is some hope in the models as they have been hinting at a return to a cooler, more showery regime two weeks from now. But that is a long way out. Keep those fingers crossed, skiers and snowboarders!
Charlie
Monday, February 22, 2010
More on the Misconceptions of Global Warming
Friday, February 5, 2010
10:53 P.M.
There's really not much to talk about as far as weather goes. More of the same boring stuff. There is only ONE reason I like El Nino. That reason is that it often results in good tuna fishing off of our coast because upwelling is reduced and the warmer water comes closer, resulting in less time running through ocean swells and more time on the water. By the way, tuna fishing is really really really fun. Other than that, I hate it. January was a textbook example of why I hated it. Be honest with yourself. Could the weather have been any more boring? I certainly don't think so. The main thing is that I've only been up to the mountains twice this year because snow conditions have sucked. It's been bad. I think next year will be better though. There was a huge El Nino in 1997-1998, but the following year a La Nina occurred. In 1998-1999, Mt. Baker got 1,140 inches of snow (95 feet). That is the most amount of snow ever recorded at a specific location. And although I'm sure there are high coastal mountains that have received more in a specific year (the Fairweather Range in Alaska is estimated to receive 3,000 inches of snow on average a year at higher elevations with the 450 inches of precipitation it receives fallin as rain at the lower ones), that is very impressive. The above photo is the snowbank at Mount Baker in May 1999, after about 10 feet had already melted.
The good news is that I think we might return to a bit more snowy pattern next week. More on that in my next post, but I'd expect a storm arriving sometime Thursday.
Now to the thesis of my post: misconceptions about global warming. Cliff Mass often talks about this and I have talked about it in the past. I've said this before; I don't like to take stuff from his blog; not particularly because I'm concerned with honesty/integrity (I'm not plagiarizing him/why would I want to "cheat" on this type of thing) but just because people can read his blog and don't need to read my blog saying what he's already said. But there was an article that was too good of an example of hype that was on his website that I just couldn't pass up. It can be found at http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/What-is-Global-Warming/Global-Warming-is-Causing-Extreme-Weather/~/media/PDFs/Global%20Warming/Reports/NWF_WinterWeather_Optimized.ashx. You couldn't have written a better example for inflation of global warming. They show these events and say that the reason they occurred is global warming. You and I both know that that is not true. Why? Climate and weather are two different things. Show me something like "arctic ice has declined by 50% over the past 50 years." Then we can start talking. But when people blame a certain event (like Hurricane Katrina) on global warming, it just drives me crazy. Hurricane Katrina occurred because there was little wind shear in the atmosphere and a lot of warm water in the Gulf of Mexico. Global warming doesn't have anything to do with that. The problem is it seems like everybody believes otherwise, and it's not necessarily their fault since organiations like the National Wildlife Federation give this misinformation so blatantly.
Peace,
Charlie
Friday, February 5, 2010
10:53 P.M.
There's really not much to talk about as far as weather goes. More of the same boring stuff. There is only ONE reason I like El Nino. That reason is that it often results in good tuna fishing off of our coast because upwelling is reduced and the warmer water comes closer, resulting in less time running through ocean swells and more time on the water. By the way, tuna fishing is really really really fun. Other than that, I hate it. January was a textbook example of why I hated it. Be honest with yourself. Could the weather have been any more boring? I certainly don't think so. The main thing is that I've only been up to the mountains twice this year because snow conditions have sucked. It's been bad. I think next year will be better though. There was a huge El Nino in 1997-1998, but the following year a La Nina occurred. In 1998-1999, Mt. Baker got 1,140 inches of snow (95 feet). That is the most amount of snow ever recorded at a specific location. And although I'm sure there are high coastal mountains that have received more in a specific year (the Fairweather Range in Alaska is estimated to receive 3,000 inches of snow on average a year at higher elevations with the 450 inches of precipitation it receives fallin as rain at the lower ones), that is very impressive. The above photo is the snowbank at Mount Baker in May 1999, after about 10 feet had already melted.
The good news is that I think we might return to a bit more snowy pattern next week. More on that in my next post, but I'd expect a storm arriving sometime Thursday.
Now to the thesis of my post: misconceptions about global warming. Cliff Mass often talks about this and I have talked about it in the past. I've said this before; I don't like to take stuff from his blog; not particularly because I'm concerned with honesty/integrity (I'm not plagiarizing him/why would I want to "cheat" on this type of thing) but just because people can read his blog and don't need to read my blog saying what he's already said. But there was an article that was too good of an example of hype that was on his website that I just couldn't pass up. It can be found at http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/What-is-Global-Warming/Global-Warming-is-Causing-Extreme-Weather/~/media/PDFs/Global%20Warming/Reports/NWF_WinterWeather_Optimized.ashx. You couldn't have written a better example for inflation of global warming. They show these events and say that the reason they occurred is global warming. You and I both know that that is not true. Why? Climate and weather are two different things. Show me something like "arctic ice has declined by 50% over the past 50 years." Then we can start talking. But when people blame a certain event (like Hurricane Katrina) on global warming, it just drives me crazy. Hurricane Katrina occurred because there was little wind shear in the atmosphere and a lot of warm water in the Gulf of Mexico. Global warming doesn't have anything to do with that. The problem is it seems like everybody believes otherwise, and it's not necessarily their fault since organiations like the National Wildlife Federation give this misinformation so blatantly.
Peace,
Charlie
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
11:58 A.M.
Wow. It has been a long time since I last posted something. I've been very busy with finals and studying. Now though, I hope I'll have a bit more free time.
Right now we are stuck in a pattern of storms coming to our south and us getting the fringe effects of them. While central California will get a lot of rain, we will not get much, and we will continue to remain a couple degrees above average. This Janu,ary will be the warmest on record, with an average temperature of 47 degrees (combined high and low). The average temperature for the month is usually around 40 degrees, so we were wayyy above normal for the month. Of course, some people are rejoicing, but I'm pretty frustrated cause there is hardly any snow in the mountains and models do not show any in the future. Thankfully, they don't show any huge pineapple express events either.
There are no notable weather events shown in the models for a longgg time. I'll let you know when something shows up.
Charlie
11:58 A.M.
Wow. It has been a long time since I last posted something. I've been very busy with finals and studying. Now though, I hope I'll have a bit more free time.
Right now we are stuck in a pattern of storms coming to our south and us getting the fringe effects of them. While central California will get a lot of rain, we will not get much, and we will continue to remain a couple degrees above average. This Janu,ary will be the warmest on record, with an average temperature of 47 degrees (combined high and low). The average temperature for the month is usually around 40 degrees, so we were wayyy above normal for the month. Of course, some people are rejoicing, but I'm pretty frustrated cause there is hardly any snow in the mountains and models do not show any in the future. Thankfully, they don't show any huge pineapple express events either.
There are no notable weather events shown in the models for a longgg time. I'll let you know when something shows up.
Charlie
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
More severe weather down south, calm up north
January 19, 2010
5:51 P.M.
Hey guys. So as I'm sure you noticed, we were very warm today. The high at Komo's downtown TV station was 60 today, and the low was a balmy 52. Even though the jet stream has gone to our south, we are still under the influence of a warm, moist air mass originating from further south. The weather in Southern California has been extremely severe. Los Angeles had a tornado warning and flooding over Long Beach, while the coast saw winds up to 80 miles per hour. I'm actually not surprised one bit that they did get a tornado; events like these are actually fairly common in the storms that hit Southern California. They have much more of a tropical element to them and they can be much more intense than a lot of our Pacific Northwest storms (at least in my opinion). They don't exist as often as ours do though, and usually they only occur on El Nino years. But they can be very powerful.
I'm sorry I really have to and study for my three huge tests tomorrow (and NONE of them are finals! That's next week.). Once the semester is over I'll have more free time to update the blog.
5:51 P.M.
Hey guys. So as I'm sure you noticed, we were very warm today. The high at Komo's downtown TV station was 60 today, and the low was a balmy 52. Even though the jet stream has gone to our south, we are still under the influence of a warm, moist air mass originating from further south. The weather in Southern California has been extremely severe. Los Angeles had a tornado warning and flooding over Long Beach, while the coast saw winds up to 80 miles per hour. I'm actually not surprised one bit that they did get a tornado; events like these are actually fairly common in the storms that hit Southern California. They have much more of a tropical element to them and they can be much more intense than a lot of our Pacific Northwest storms (at least in my opinion). They don't exist as often as ours do though, and usually they only occur on El Nino years. But they can be very powerful.
I'm sorry I really have to and study for my three huge tests tomorrow (and NONE of them are finals! That's next week.). Once the semester is over I'll have more free time to update the blog.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Wet and Warm
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
3:37 P.M.
Hey everybody. Just a brief update now... I have to catch the bus soon... but we saw some pretty heavy rain amounts here as a Pineapple Express was stalled over the area. Amounts of an inch, higher south, were common in the Puget Sound area, while places in the Olympics received 5 inches and I wouldn't be surprised if some mountainous locales on the southwestern slopes got over a foot of rain. Of course, with high freezing levels (around 6000 feet), it is pretty much all falling as rain in the mountains, and this is sending many rivers over their banks. The Skokomish River has a Flood Warning on it for minor flooding until early Wednesday morning.
What does our extended look like? Unfortunately for skiers, continued warm. It won't be as wet, however. Thursday will be nice, and rain will return Friday and for the weekend, though it won't be as heavy, and I don't think the air temperatures will be quite as warm.
Charlie
3:37 P.M.
Hey everybody. Just a brief update now... I have to catch the bus soon... but we saw some pretty heavy rain amounts here as a Pineapple Express was stalled over the area. Amounts of an inch, higher south, were common in the Puget Sound area, while places in the Olympics received 5 inches and I wouldn't be surprised if some mountainous locales on the southwestern slopes got over a foot of rain. Of course, with high freezing levels (around 6000 feet), it is pretty much all falling as rain in the mountains, and this is sending many rivers over their banks. The Skokomish River has a Flood Warning on it for minor flooding until early Wednesday morning.
What does our extended look like? Unfortunately for skiers, continued warm. It won't be as wet, however. Thursday will be nice, and rain will return Friday and for the weekend, though it won't be as heavy, and I don't think the air temperatures will be quite as warm.
Charlie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)