Storm 15

Storm 15 was once that huge oceanic front ram-charging Vancouver heading straight out of the west across the upper North Pacific. Then it ran out of ram-charging room. It is now caught up in a strong northerly upper air current and is coming our way down here. There has been some sprinkles overnight. Though the storm quickly lost its girth, it is now a very stark low pressure cylone. More interesting, look at the massive southerly wind currents heading from out of the Mexican latitudes from way down on the pacific side of Mexico, across the southwest, over the plains and on into Canada. All that warm air going so far inland caused yesterday's killer tornado in Oklahoma by clashing with the cold winter air.

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Walking in the Rain on Friday

Pic: Fresno State women's sports team jogging in the rain. Later on in this walk, on maple crossing Shaw from Fresno State to the 7-11, I was hit by a car while entering the crosswalk on a green light by the guy turning right onto Shaw. Knocked me a few feet forward and on my butt in the middle of Shaw Avenue, but there was no harm, so no foul and I waived 'em on. About 40 witnesses! Dangerous conditions for pedestrians to walk during a real rain storm, the only real rain storm of the year in Fresno, a terrible town for pedestrians as it is.

Problem is, i can't resist rain or high winds -- so I leave the house and go for really long walks in it. The sky rumbled with thunder and flicked with lightning about 7 times during the walk. Now, when you walk underneath electric lines, you are in the "cone of protection" (* not guaranteed). But the sky began lighting up while I was under open sky. Had me only slightly worried. There wasn't very much lightning and it wasn't ground-to-cloud. Of course, that can change. So I sped up my walk.


Pic: This cloud was approaching and rumbling with thunder. I hoped it really give me a great downpour because I was walking in my new rain pants, lightweight rain-repelling jacket and waterproof boots. While not the torrents I expected, the rain managed to defeat my rain gear. When I got home, my underclothing was wet. That wasn't supposed to happen.
Neither was getting hit by a car :-(
By the way, that's a Red Tail Hawk that is flying around in the picture.

Storm # 10

1. The jet stream splits in two out at sea and is weak and brief just off the coast of California.

Storm number 10 approaches, appearing to be followed by 11 and 12. Maybe?? Pretty pleaseeee??
I don't know if the storm fronts out at sea are indeed headed this way and Storm 10 looks weak in the picture. There was another storm this year that did the same thing. It lined up flat against the California Coast, its cloud band exhibiting a swift, strong south-to-north pull. That storm, I think it was Storm #3, gave Fresno a few hours moderate rain, with briefly heavy rain. It was the best rainfall event of the year. This storm looks better. The forecasts are iffy, as recently as tonight going with "chance of rain", as if waiting to see if there will be sufficient strengthening to produce good precipitation. Interesting note: there's been some large cells out over the Mohave Desert all evening.
The Jet Stream, a concentrated band of upper level winds that runs between the ridges of high pressure that extend from the south and troughs of low pressure that extend from the north, is taking a wild path over the North America, going way up to Alaska, then plunging all the way down across Canada and into Florida. The Jet can vary in intensity, from being broad and swift to being thin and slow, and can also split up into many weak little strands sometimes.
One map I saw showed the jet running south to north over California, but I just located a current map of the Jet, and there is no continuous Jet Stream driving approaching storm, hence it doesn't have much support. However, a small one is present, and, who knows, it could suddenly intensify like that one storm did back in November, 1978. The storm my friend contended was part of a Hurricane. Hurricane my ass. Well, the southern moisture feed could have included remnant moisture of a hurricane, I suppose. Hmm, come to think of it, if there was an entire dying hurricane caught up in the southern feed... But that doesn't explain the two feet of snow at 7,000 feet in the Sierra. Anyway, that night, it just dumped.

Update 090121
Another dud?

Update 090122 ... I just heard rain outside...
Update 090122 - Dud barely averted.
I declare this storm not a dud, but just barely. Don't tell that to Southern California, who saw hardly a drop. We just had a good rainfall here in central, and Northern did somewhat better. The best of the year, for about 6 hours here in Central. But the real winner was the local mountains which scored a day of moderate to heavy-moderate snowfall. The radar doesn't pick up most of the mountain storm activity due to rugged terrain, but it does get into the some of the mountains thanks to the San Joaquin River Gorge.

Update 090123
Storm #10 is still here. It's been raining infrequently all day, but this still means snow is still being fed to the local mountains more than less continuously. The Jet Stream is still split in two out at sea, but the small patch over California at the beginning of this storm has expanded considerably. That may be what is keeping the 10th storm event alive. A side note, finally my native California seeds are sprouting - I planted them in i think around Thanksgiving?

Storm #5

Storm #5 is hitting the mountains. The NEXRAD ground radar sees well into the Yosemite N.P. portion of the Sierra, revealing a strong snow event underway and moving southward. Northerly travel means weakening, but a Southerly cloud band wind is just like last time serving to offset it.

Storm #4

Yesterday a wave of cold air from British Columbia and Alberta blew down straight north to south, bringing colder, drier air to all the West Coast. The wind blast of Saturday morning was once a big rain and snow maker in Seattle, but was bone dry before even reaching southern Oregon. Airflow that goes north to south makes precipitation bands die.

Next, a strong storm center drifted south behind the blast front, moving much more slowly. The strong center was able create winds from the southeast that were stronger and faster than the northwesterly direction it was traveling, producing a healthy rain band that had great hang time, while working its way south down the entire length of California. In fact, it became stronger the farther south it got. The San Joaquin Valley got its first soaking rain session, the Sierra the storm that possibly started the ski season. Hopefully. We'll know for sure by tomorrow if it was enough snow.

Meanwhile, very active weather over the pacific. A Rossby Wave, waves of cold low pressure toughs essential for winter storm building, dropped so low, it spawned a "cutoff low" that drifted down to Hawai'i, an event called a "Kona Low." The cutoff low has produced heavy rains and flooding in Hawaii. These cutoff lows can save a rainy season when they drift Northeast to California. The fact that Hawai'i is having extreme weather at all may eventually bode well for California.

December 10, The Unofficial Start of The Rainy Season

It is December 10, 2008! Aren't you excited? What huh? That is my annual date for the Official Unofficial Start of the California Rainy Season! (The Rain Monkeys in the studio are clapping - mix the fake clapping audience sound loop with one of happy monkeys).
Welcome to California's Rainy Season, the most wonderful time of the year! From now until my Official Unofficial End of the California Rainy Season on April 24, powerful Pacific storms will appear from the vast stretches of ocean. The coast will get slammed by violent wave storms that in some places will rearrange the map. Heavy rains will drench the Coast Ranges. The Sierras Nevadas will be buried in deep, moist California snow. High winds will buffet the passes and mountain inlets. A tip: don't build your home in areas prone to mudslides, in canyons or washes, or at the foot of avalanche zones. Do be careful when traveling the state during inclement weather. And welcome to California's Rainy Season, the most wonderful time of the year!

Global warming is real.

[Not my photo. I found it on Google. As soon as it freakin' freezes here , I'll take a picture]

Global warming is real. When I was a kid growing up in the 70s, and you notice this as a school kid, the morning after Halloween almost always had frost on the ground here in San Joaquin Valley. By the 80s it was a few days after Halloween, by the 90s it was a week later, and now it's almost two weeks later, almost to Thanksgiving. This year the ground hasn't frosted yet, and It's December 1st. But that's because of normal weather variations. It never frosted here in other years, too. But ON AVERAGE, there's been change. I guessing that global warming since I was born in 1963 has been about 3 degrees. At least that's what it looks like out here. And just think, I might never have drawn this conclusion had I not remained living here my whole life.
At the same time, look at how much everyday life has changed to use more energy all over the world. Next, look at how much the CO2 level in the atmosphere has shot up since 1963. Next, look at the accelerated glacial melt. That's as direct a link to temperature change of an unnatural rate as you'll ever find. Our environment is showing lots of stress. We are trying to document these changes and their effects in order to prove this is true, scientifically, on paper, but as for me, no paper proof can compare to the frosty grass proof I've observed here at home.

SAD (Seasonal disAffective Disorder)

Fresno's annual low cloud and fog cover appears angelic as you drive from out of it on Kings Canyon Road (Hwy 180 East). [Not my photo -- I found it on Google. It beautifully captures the spectacle of the San Joaquin Valley fog line. All the ascending roads out of the valley offer spectacular views of this phenomenon.]

One of the big "gee whiz, how hard it must be for them poor buggers" stories on the news is the one about Seasonal disAffective Disorder (SAD) (My acronym for it). They keep that one on the standby shelf in case there's no news about terrorists.
SAD (Seasonal disAffective Disorder) is supposed make a lot of people just a little sadder than usual at this time, wintertime, and it can be a bear to deal with in a gray San Joaquin Valley. I used to suffer greatly as a teenager. Which doesn't explain why people get absolutely miserable in springtimes.
The suns's back, everything should be fine, right? But NOOOOOOO. When all the cute couples are out holding hands and all the thugs are out terrorizing the sidewalks of Fresno again, and you ain't got nobody, you feel like a total loser. They don't have name for that, do they, other than "go-pop-a-pill-to-feel-bettertime (presented by Pfizer)." Of course, spring is when cute people start showing lots of skin skin in public again. Which ought to cheer you up.
Barack will be president by then, the stimulus package will have public works projects going, and there will be lots of construction workers about...

And now, meet Tickle-Tickle County

Tonight's sporadically widespread sprinkly-rainy sky. Down there, everything and I mean everything is totally slippery. Once we get enough rain, the surface will be less slippery.


Had this one laying around. Last week or so's California fires, Nov. 16. My friend's Mom was just blocks away from one of them.

Watchin' the storm come in Nov. 25-26

Just Rollin' into Hanford and Corcoran. Very hazy with light rain outside. Well, work's almost over. Will go home--- hopefully in rain.

In the second pic, you can see I'm enjoying a nice rain period of the season's second storm. It's a minor storm, but with powerful sectors. It consists of just these cloud bands moving up the valley, after starting out as heavy rain bands just off the coast of LA, San Diego and Mexico. The most impacted county is Santa Barbara. The rain is hitting all the places that just got torched in Santa Ana wind-driven fires last week.


Here it is heading north from the Southern California Coast.

Monday morning, still raining. I want to find out how the experience went in Santa Barbara, LA and Bakersfield, but I can't find anything. Weather stations in Bakersfield reported no rain that I could find. Strange. For Fresno, the storm managed a low-moderate impact (for period of time of sustained light warm rain lasting from about 4 am to 12 noon), but rain totals were very light. Hanford And Merced reported record precipitation, however, where before midnight about 1/10th of an inch fell. The old record at both stations was a "TRACE".