Brought to you by Howard Sheckter
Archive for April, 2012
One more “Real Nice Day Today”…Then Stormy Eastern Pacific Pattern to Shift into California Late Tuesday….then continue into Saturday…..This will be followed by a long mild to warm break Next Week….
Monday April 9, 2012
A Closed Upper Low was located at 44N/137W this morning indicating little if any movement over the past 24 hours. This will insure one more very nice day for the Mammoth area. While the off-shore closed low is waiting for the upstream bump of the next system, The fair weather upper high is centered east of our area….thus winds will continue to be moderate over the crest today. Do not expect windless mountain weather today if your skiing/boarding the upper elevations. Temps will range in the 40s over the upper elevations of Mammoth Mt to the upper 50s today here near the Village at Mammoth.
Current Sat loop shows moisture streaming NEward on the eastern side of the upper low. PW according to AMSU imagery is about an inch off the coast of Northern Ca.
What we are dealing with are really two distinct systems here. The second system by far is the strongest for the Central Sierra as the upper jet comes into California in the “sweet spot”, just north of Pt Conception. So the Front Left Divergent portion directly effects the Central Sierra, according to the new Monday 12z GFS. Yesterdays EC painted up to 2 inches of QPF over the Central Sierra, Friday.
HPC is more in line with about 1.5 inches.. All this of course comes after the initial shot Wednesday of 1 inch + by Thursday AM. So this looks to be a productive week in dumping a good 3 feet over the upper elevations. This is great news as the winter so far is about 50% of normal here at Mammoth Pass.
Snow levels will begin about 6500 potentially insuring several plows for the loader operators. However, the pavement from several days of heating and the warm April sun will work with you guys in removal.
Outlook
The last period of storminess has taken about 6 days to redevelop…..figuring last Thursday to this Wednesday. This Wednesday through Saturday may be the last good period for snowfall for quite a while. The Dweebs feel that another storm or two is certainly possible climatically into early to mid May. What the Dweebs are seeing is the small high latitude block north of Alaska retrograding west to Siberia. See: http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cpc/cpc_NHEM_f264wbg.gif
The downstream effect retrogrades the long wave trof to north of Kauai and eventually a long wave positive height anomaly over the pacific NW. This pattern sets up anomalous warm weather for California prior to the 21st. Especially the (23rd through the 29th)
SEE: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/sweaver/cfs_fcst/images1/wk3.wk4_20120408.NAsfcT.gif
Now with that said, with the positive height anomaly over the Pacific Northwest, it is always possible that some pacific jet energy will split off down the Ca coast for a weak cutoff low that may initiate a Spring thunderstorm pattern for the high country. Well see how mother nature plays this one out.
Dr Howard and the Dweebs……………………….:-)
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Reference Glossary of Weather Terms
Disclaimer: I have been a hobbyist meteorologist for over 30 years here in the Mammoth area and I do this for my personal enjoyment. The National Weather Service saves lives every day . . . I do not. When making important planning decisions please use information provided by the National Weather Service as they are the most knowledgeable and accurate information source available today.