Weather Blogging

I daresay that some readers, say in Minnesota or maybe Illinois, are looking at this and wondering if I've utterly lost my mind. When you live where 11" of rain per year is normal and 3" per year has been normal the past two years, a storm promising 2"-3" at your house is a significant event. Such a thing has not happened here in something like ten years.

Final Update: Sunday, 1/27/08

Looks like the bulk of the storm has passed now, with just scattered showers for another 24 hours. In terms of the forecast, it turned out to be a fizzle. We got 3/4" at the coast, far short of the 2"-3" forecast, and the mountains got at most 3.5" instead of the prognosticated "as much as 10 inches." Just as well, since those amounts would have caused serious flooding, especially in the areas burned last fall.

Update 2: Saturday, 1/26/08 Romeo meets Juliet...

and promised choas ensues. Damn, this is cool, except that it might flood.

Update: Saturday, 1/26/08 "Where'd I leave my ark?"

Look how far south that low pressure has gone. All of that tropical moisture is now up over San Diego, but no rain yet because there's no atmospheric mechanism to make it precipitate out. Tonight the jet stream will move the low to the east and provide that mechanism and that's when, as we say in the South, the grits will hit the fan.

As of today we are .15" below normal for rainfall, year-to-date. I do believe that's about to change.

Update: Friday, 1/25/08 "We need a bigger boat."

It's still lurking down there, even more of it, and they are still predicting a connection. Stay tuned as the exciting saga continues.

Update: Thursday, 1/24/08

Tropical moisture moved south but the saga continues. Stay tuned.

Originally posted: 1/23/08

I love stuff like this.

See that long band of purple that goes diagonally from the southern Pacific up through Mexico and into Texas? That is tropical moisture, and there is one whole hell of a lot of it. Now see that roundness with a blob of purple near southern California? That’s the jetstream with a trough and a low pressure approaching San Diego.

Those two things are about 150 miles apart which, in meteorological terms, is a cat’s whisker. If they connect I am going to need plans for an ark. And they are, in fact, predicted to connect.