Saturday Situation Report

Southern California is in line for some nasty weather today and tomorrow. The mountains resorts could get a foot of snow. Flash flood watches are posted throughout most of coastal SOCAL. The morning AFD from San Diego hints at another big storm in a week.

Meanwhile, down in Old Airy Zonie, the Mogollon Rim and White Mountains are in the crosshairs. The QPF progs them to get about 2.5 inches of water over the next five days. Since they're talking a snow level down to 5000 feet, that could mean over two feet of snow for the Arizona Rim Country and Apache Land. If they do get those kind of numbers, it will mean the water users will be singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." No more irrigation worries at least for another growing season.

Not much is progged for our area here in Idaho. We're coasting along in pretty good shape as far as the snowpack goes. If we get a few more stucco jobs, that wold be a real good thing. Way back before all the winter mayhem got rolling, I read a study that said the Upper Snake only needed to reach 90% to get Tater Nation through the Summer of 09. We definitely have 90 percent in the bag and everything above that is gravy.

Meanwhile, way out in the Far Eastern Pacific, it sure looks like there's some real nice water vapor blobs taking shape. Siberia continues to look good, too. There's a hint that the Southern water tap will get more active soon as well. The jet stream is getting kinky again. Be sure to take a look at it this morning.

All-in-all, it adds up to a a "sitting pretty" situation in early February. it sure beats having a gi-normous high pressure system sitting on top of us with sunny skies day after freaking day! If I had to guess, I'd reckon February will produce at least average precip. Average here is about .75 inch. If we're lucky, we'll go slightly higher and the uplands and mountains will pick up another foot of snow.

That's about it for Saturday morning. Don't forget to dress up real nice for SUnday School tomorrow! I'll have all yer number two pencils all sharpened and ready for class.

Climate Statistics

Have you ever wondered how to find climate data for your area? Wander no more, fearless Statistics Seeker! Click on the tiny graphic at left and you will see all of the various places where climate data is collected in Idaho.

Go to this internet address to see the real map. Then click on whatever location perks your interest. OK, here's where it gets just a tad bit complicated. Up in the address line of your web browser you will see this address:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/climsmid.html

Note the file name "climsmid.html" To find your state, change the last two letters of the file name to the postal code for your state. Insert "az" for Arizona, and so forth. A wealth of additional statistics can be found for any station by roaming the links in the left hand column for each station.

Ying & Yang

Hum...it's been awhile since we've seen as dramatic a nationwide disparity in temperatures. If the CPC's 6-10 Day forecast can be believed, we're talking well below normal temps in the west and well above normal temps in the east. Frankly, I'm going to have to see this one to believe it. Sometimes the CPC's computer models get all out of whack. I kinda wonder if that's what is happening in this forecast.

Looks promising

Click on the little graphic and you will see the weather wonks back in Camp Springs, Maryland, are predicting some pretty widespread moisture across the West during the next five days. This QPF graph has been on-again, off-again lately for California. It's on-again this morning. The Central Sierra is progged for over two inches of precip in the next five days. They sure need it!

The Pocatello NWS red eye shift had this to say in their 3 am Wednesday discussion:

.LONG TERM...SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY. SATURDAY AND SUNDAY TIME FRAME BOTH THE ECMWF AND GFS CLOSE OFF A LOW PRESSURE CIRCULATION IN THE SOUTHERN PORTION OF A WEST COAST LOW PRESSURE TROUGH. THIS CIRCULATION TRACKS THROUGH SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND FOUR CORNERS AREA WITH THE NORTHERN FRINGE OF MOISTURE FIELD EXTENDING INTO THE SOUTH CENTRAL HIGHLANDS. SCATTERED SHOWERS ALSO LINGER ACROSS NORTHERN IDAHO BOTH DAYS. OVER ALL IT APPEARS TO BE A LULL IN ACTIVITY FOR THE WEEKEND UNTIL LATE SUNDAY NIGHT AND MONDAY WHEN THE NEXT STRONG DISTURBANCE CARRIED BY THE NORTHERN BRANCH ARRIVES. GFS BRINGS THAT DISTURBANCE THROUGH WITH BETTER THAN AN HALF INCH OF LIQUID EQUIVALENT MOISTURE IN SOME MOUNTAIN AREAS WHILE THE ECMWF IS ABOUT ONE THIRD THAT VALUE. THE PATTERN CONTINUES TO BE UNSETTLED BUT IT IS DIFFICULT TO PICK A SINGLE 24 OR 36 HOUR PERIOD THAT WOULD REPRESENT A MAJOR STORM SYSTEM.

Meanwhile down in KREV (That's Reno NWS for you acronym-challenged readers)the storm looks a whole lot more productive:

A TOTAL OF 12 TO 18 INCHES OF SNOWFALL IS POSSIBLE ABOVE 10 KFT ALONG THE SIERRA CREST IN MONO COUNTY FROM LATE THURSDAY THROUGH 12Z SATURDAY. UP TO A FOOT OF SNOW IS POSSIBLE ABOVE 8000 FT IN THE CNTRL SIERRA.

As usual, it's going to be fun to watch it unfold!

Jetstream flotsam & jetsom

Anyone who knows me knows that the word "jetstream" is a fundamental part of my regular vocabulary. I don't use the word "jetstream" as often as "food" but it's close! The above jetstream composite forecast clearly shows some impending weirdness along the California Coast. This nicely done graphic can be found here.

Our "goto" image of the jetstream is linked from the graphic in the column at left. There's a pretty weird kink in the jet out there today. If it got any kinkier, it would probably just disappear. I clipped a visual snippet of it. You can click on the tiny graphic to see a larger screen shot.

In case you need a tutorial on the jetstream, Wikipedia, of course, has a most excellent discussion.

I highly advise anyone who's truly interested in our weather patterns to "become one" with the jetstream. Watch it. Learn it. Anticipate it. Enjoy it!

PS--The Good Ol' NWS runs a great online "weather school" appropriately dubbed "Jetstream." If you have ample spare time, I suspect you'd enjoy this school.

It's abundantly clear that the jetstream patterns you see in this blog post are going to very soon "deliver the goods." Click on the QPF link at left and check the 5-day graph.

"Are you ready for some SNOWFALL?"
(This phrase is to be shouted with the same cadence, volume and enthusiasm as the opening line to Monday Night Football.)

Lower 48 Surface Temps

Unisys to my "goto" website for SST's--Sea Surface Temperature anomalies. Well, today I decided to find a real nice overview of GROUND surface temperatures. And, guess what, Good Ol' Unisys has the best map--at least for me. Here's the link to check it whenever you want. After this post "ages" for awhile, I will convert this Unisys picture to a link in the left column. It's a pretty nice "find" as far as cool weather stuff goes.

I can tell you just by looking at this picture that the people in Rocky Point, Sonora, Mexico, are having a really awesome time on the beaches of the Northern Gulf of California. They are eating huge quantities of shrimp, drinking tanker loads of beer, and generally wrecking cultural havoc as they are wont to do. Party hearty!

Snow shuts down London

Washington Times--Tuesday, February 3, 2009

A winter storm born in the heart of Russia and sweeping in from continental Europe blanketed Britain in the heaviest snowfall in nearly two decades Monday, nearly paralyzing London and doing what the Nazi blitz of World War II could never manage - bring the capital's buses to a complete halt.

Across the country, about 800 flights were canceled, more than 2,800 schools were closed, courts were shut down, and motorists sat in traffic jams stretching 50 miles or more as snow fell.

Then came warnings of ice, which was expected to coat everything from beaches to mountains.

London's Heathrow Airport, one of the largest and busiest in the world, was forced to idle its runways until just before sunset, with the threat of further closures in the night's snowfall and ice. Passengers were told not to bother going to the airport.

In its opening volley, the storm swirled in on fierce, Arctic-like winds targeting London and the populous southeast area before dawn and into the morning rush hour Monday.

The Federation of Small Businesses estimated that 6.4 million people - about one-fifth of Britain's total work force - never made it to their jobs.

By late Monday afternoon, weather forecasters were predicting that the big freeze could last until the weekend, with ice and sleet moving in to add to the winter's treachery.

Not since February 1991 has London and southeast England been hit so severely. During that winter, the heart of the capital was caught in the chilly grip of a foot of snow.

By midafternoon Monday, the new snowfall was 8 inches deep in the city, and forecasters predicted several more inches.

At its Monday peak, the storm had forced the full or partial shutdown of 10 of London's 11 underground rail lines upon which the city's millions of workers depend to get to and from their offices and homes.

Deja Vu

PUNXSUTAWNEY — Brace yourself for six more weeks of winter, Pennsylvania’s most famous ground hog Punxsutawney Phil popped out his his burrow on Gobbler’s Knob here this morning and saw his shadow. Legend has it that means winter is here to stay for six weeks.

Phil's official forecast as read at Gobbler's Knob was:

"Hear Ye Hear Ye, On Gobbler's Knob this glorious Groundhog Day, Feb. 2, 2009, Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators ... proclaimed that his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were World Champions one more time, and a bright sky above me, showed my shadow beside me, so six more weeks of winter it will be."

Phil has seen his shadow 96 times in this town about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. He has seen his shadow for eight of the past nine years.

There were just 14 times, including 2007, when he didn’t see it, there by predicting an early spring. There are no records for nine years, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

Sunday School Lessons

It's that time once again for another stirring SUNDAY SCHOOL! Yea, yippee, aren't you excited? So grab your mouse and click it up a notch!

Back during our last Sunday School, January 25 we theorized that La Nina was a "happening reality." Lo and behold, the very next day--January 26-- NOAA & NWS jumped on the La Nina bandwagon. The full story is told in a 30-page document that insanely heavy on jargon, numbers, charts, graphs and lots of little arrows and squiggly lines. If you can hack looking at this mind-numbing piece of science it's located here. We will expand and expound more on this topic later. It's Sunday morning and I need more coffee.

Here's a real fun gift received in this morning's email inbox. It's a perfect little ditty for this morning's weekly Sunday School. One of our Dear Readers and Followers found a 1985 media clipping about some guy who studied weather proverbs such as: “The squeak of the snow will the temperature show.” Thanks to Stephen N. (AKA Stephen S.) we now have these gems preserved for posterity a click over right yonder on our website.

Speaking of Sunday School, it's time for a pop quiz! OK, Class, what, where and when were the most extreme high and low temps recorded for Idaho? Or Arizona? Or whatever? I can hear your groans, class, and I feel your pain. But, trust me, these are trivia well worth remembering. Imagine the bets you can win!

For the record, Idaho's highest temp ever recorded was 118 in Orofino in 1934 and it's lowest was 60 below at Island Park Dam in 1943. Click here to see every stat's extremes and scroll down the page for the actual data.

How's the Sea Ice doing? Not to fear, Class, simply click here.

Class, this is a great one!!!! I'm sure you've been reading that Redoubt ash caused engine failure on a jetliner back in 1989. Well, I've been having trouble finding the details of the story. I finally found them this morning in Russia at KVERT--Russia's science center for watching volcanic activity on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

If you thought those people who surfed down onto the Hudson were worried, imagine what it would be like to free fall 18000 feet with NO engines on a 747 jetliner. Now, we're talking a real "life passing in front of your eyes" experience. Here's the details--it's an amazing story--WOW:

"On December 15, 1989, a Boeing-747 flying from Amsterdam with 231 passengers and 13 crewmen on board started to descend from the cruising altitude in order to land in Anchorage, Alaska, USA. The plane was at a height of 7500 m, and was flying a distance of 240 km from Redoubt volcano, when suddenly it entered an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption. As a result, all four engines died. After eight minutes, and with only 2000 m to land, the pilots finally were able to restart the engines. After the aircraft landed, over 60 kg of volcanic ash was removed from each turbine-engine. All four engines, as well as the navigation system, and electric system had to be completely replaced. The loss to the airline due to this incident was over 80 million dollars."

Talk about pucker factor! By the way, I do a redoubt Rewrite at least twice daily. I added some new links this morning. Check it out. This concludes Sunday School. Now GO PLAY!