Showing posts with label El Nino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label El Nino. Show all posts

Saturday, May 7, 2016

This El Nino was a bust!


Winter went out with a whimper, no bangs to be had here.


3/14 - 19 - like summer without the fog.
Sunday 3/20 things begin to change.......
It looks like it's all heading north of me, just brushing Nor. Cal. a wee bit.
By 11AM a few drops, enough to make the street wet.
3PM - light showers, very bright skies, not much of a cloud layer, not much of a 'storm'.
3/22
My open window is whistling at me - i used to live in an apt on the 4th floor of a marvelous apt. building in SF, 12th Ave, just north of GG Park, never modernized ( thankfully) i could open the kitchen ( west facing window) and the living room window ( east facing ) and almost fly a kite in the apt. It had the original phone, a bread board pull-out, an ironing board, and pull-out seats and kitchen table. Makes big use of small spaces.
This wind is almost as nice. It shakes the small palm plant in my window, i can feel it on my cheeks. I would love to be back in that apt., but SF real estate has gone *whacko* the last 15 years. I'll bet the apt i paid 550$ for is now worth close to 2K$.
March 22 - Conditions were ripe for rainbows:
Rainbows over San Francisco
Douglas Zimmerman Updated 10:44 am, Tuesday, March 22,
In the course of doing some rainbow research, i came across this:
Wowee-Zowie!!
April 9-10 Weekend
This might well be winter's last gasp.
Mucho rain, mostly at nite, i wake up at mid night Saturday for a quick trip to the bathroom, and outside my window? Cats, dogs, (and other small mammals) comin' down. The New Yorker magazine sells a nice umbrella, that is cats and dogs :-)

4/21
An interesting day for clouds:
We're 'sposed to get some rain tonite, tommorow, but nothing to get excited about, showers is about it, probably to move south of me by early PM. Thru the night, some nice rain. By 7 AM friday, it looks like it's over, but looks can be deceiving - By 8:30, skies have turned ugly, i get rained on, on the the way to work. But that's it - the skies are filled with huge beautifully puffy cumulus. There are long range forecasts for another round like this one, middle of next week.
4/25 - some serious wind, 'knock me over even though i walk with a cane' wind.
5/5 - In the last 10 days, a few systems have come ashore, but not much rain where i am, close to the coast.
The real action seems to be east of me, as the front passes over the Sierras - read latest entry in http://weatherwest.com.
Here's what the snow pack looks like:
-------------------------------
I wish i had seen more skies like this, this winter:
Guess not. Summer is right around the corner, and that means coastal fog... if el nino doesn't mess with that too.

-----------------------------
A few good links worth checking out/bookmarking:
Sierra Nevada Snow Won’t End California’s Thirst
By Henry Fountain - APRIL 11, 2016
And a story of how it came to be:
----------------------------
 
----------------------------
"Our foundation of Earth knowledge, largely derived from historically observed patterns, has been central to society’s progress......
But as Earth warms, our historical understanding will turn obsolete faster than we can replace it with new knowledge."

A good read, for sure. The New York Times will never let ya down :-)

It just might look like this 'til september:


I'll survive this, no problem ;-)

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

An unevenful month until...

2/17 
OK, it's back to winter, storm system movin' in brought interesting clouds thru the AM hours, by 3PM, gusty winds, and showers.







There's an interesting detail in this shot, it's on the left side:



I gotta title this one 'angry!'
 

I woke up at 4:45 AM on the 18th, to hear rain whacking my windows, bigtime. I almost never get rain or my north facing windows. A look outside, and the street lamp lights up furious rain, coming down about 30 degrees less than horizontal. I sat, smoked a cigarette, and listened to and watched the show. A movie w/ sound effects. Wowweezowee!!

After that? 10 days of summer, without the fog.

2/28
Another weak front moves thru. Grey skies w/ a few interesting patches of blue. Nothing to get excited about, no rain.

-------------------
National Drought Summary for March 1, 2016
--------------------
-------------------
Always check this link out:
-------------------
On Thursday 3/3 predictions are for a major event over the weekend - heavy rain, strong winds.
"Through noon on Saturday, showers are scattered in nature. From noon until 6 p.m. widespread downpours develop and winds strengthen to near 45 mph at times. Between 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., very heavy rain develops along with potentially damaging wind gusts of 50 mph. After 9 p.m. the winds begin to diminish and the rain lessens."

Of course this is rather general, it all depends on where you are - I am in San Rafael, just north of SF. Weather in the west is very dependent on elevation - precipitation is rain at the coast, in the valley - in the mountains it becomes snow.

At 7:30AM Sat., showers start. It's on and off for a while, later in the day it gets steadier and very windy.

Sun AM, i wake to clear blue skies thinking 'this ain't much of a storm!' but by 10 AM showers start, with periods of broken clouds and some sunshine.

Sun 3 PM - angry skies, but no fucking rain at all.

Sun 6 PM - OK, predictions come true, it's raining... but nothing bombastic, just a nice steady 'so glad i paid the rent and can hide inside' kinda rain.

Sun - Midnite - Heavy duty rain! With wind? 45° rain!

Monday - A few scattered showers in my neck of the woods... but dig this, not so quiet elsewhere:

Storm slams parts of Bay Area with nearly 7 inches of rain

--------------------------

The next few days (tuesday & wednesday) kinda quiet.

By late Wednesday 3/9, forecasts are a-changin' - more on the way, satellite says it all:



It's 'aka' as the 'pineapple express', 
low pressure systems suck up moisture from way out in the ocean, like Hawaii, and send it on NE.
--------------------------------------------

Here's the bookmarks i have, FWIW - if you're on the west coast:



http://www.weatherwest.com - as of 3/9 PM
A look (even further) ahead
"In the longer run, it seems likely that a fairly active weather pattern will continue across California for much of March. It’s hard to say at this point whether precipitation this month might approach the remarkable late-season levels of the “Miracle March” in 1991, but it does at least appear likely that California’s snowpack will recover toward or even above average levels in the coming weeks. It’s less clear whether Southern California will be able to make up the seasonal precipitation deficit that has accumulated this year despite the near record-strength El Nino event in the tropical Pacific. Still, it appears increasingly likely that March will at least be able to make a dent–even though it’s quite clear that California’s multi-year drought will persist through the summer."
Thursday, the rain kicked in again, starting mid afternoon. I have a 2 piece suit that keeps me dry from head to toe, wore the top part, didn't wear the pants, which i regretted on the way home from work. Rained all nite, friday AM, the pattern changed to on & off showers - sunny for 1/2 an hour, turning grey, then raining for 20 minutes, the stopping - the cycle repeated through the day, 'til mid afternoon.
------------------------
"Drenched by 'March Miracle,' Northern California reservoirs inch toward capacity"
BY JOSEPH SERNA
March 14, 2016, 4:25 p.m.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-86215247/

Nicasio reservoir, western Marin County - full.
------------------------
There are many effects of the drought, on ecosystems, and on plants and animals already stressed. 
A sad progression for sure: 'Probably drought hastens the decline of Joshua tree."
Los Angeles Times - Published 2:25 pm, Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 
Re-published in sfgate.com:

A sad sight.
These are proud plants, they should look like this:


But i guess nature ('mother earth') needs protection from humans.
What a chilling thought.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I get the 'New Yorker' newsletter, i have been a subscriber for many years, this one is a 'paid post' an ad for the book, but that's OK, Mr Wilson has most excellent credentials, well worth listening to.
"For the first time in history a conviction has developed among those who can actually think more than a decade ahead that we are playing a global endgame" - Edward O. Wilson
This includes a lengthy excerpt from the book - it's a long read, well worth it.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Finally! El Nino is here!!


December started out quietly enough, but things have really changed.

12/3
Winter weather startin' to kick in. A fast moving storm blows thru, doesn't leave much rain, but significant snow in the Sierras, that's what we need, that fills reservoirs when it melts. As usual, the best pix are on the back side of the front, after it moves thru.



These next three images were shot within a few minutes of each other, it was like a animation, changing from second to second.






Late night, 12/9, i wake up to a ferocious rain, and serious wind. By the time i go to work? it's passed by. I like the timing. It can rain cats, dogs, and other small mammals all night long, but by morning commute, it better be over. And it is.

By 12/19....... we finally started getting whacked.
I love it. When it rains down that's nice.


When it starts rainin' sideways, that's even better.


Of course i can take it in, lookin' out my apt. window, safe and sound.. and dry.

The forecast for the following week?


Now this is what i want to see!

12/21-22
Last night was the biggest whack we have gotten this year. It rained sideways, even more fiercely than before.
I can look out my apt window at a street lamp that clearly shows what is a-happenin'.
Egg-sellent!

1/02/16
Prediction is for a rainy week ahead. Sat PM, the forecast models have moved up the arrival of clouds, but it doesn't look very exciting. 
The predictions come true, however.

This is my choice for Nor Cal weather - the have some excellent doppler radar images and animations:

Check this one out on a regular basis:
It's pretty scientific, but remains understandable to the lay person.

I happened to come across this, somewhere: NOAA satellite Image late August, 2015 - Three hurricanes in the Pacific - quite unusual!


"In late August, three category 4 hurricanes, Kilo, Ignacio, and Jimena, formed in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. The Weather Channel reported it was the first time three such hurricanes were seen in the Pacific at one time. El Niño predictions forecast an above-normal hurricane season."

Here's a satellite image from recently, about a week ago:


Same thing going on, three low pressure systems parading across the ocean - California here we come!

In spite of all the above:
"Beyond all the hype over a possible drought-busting El Niño this winter is a much grimmer prospect for California: a dry La Niña come fall."


Next fall/winter is along way off, isn't it?