Archive for July, 2017

So far, as the Dweebs earlier forecasted, our summer has been pretty void of strong thunderstorms here in Mammoth Lakes. We have been for the most part, void of the wide spread heavy rains that give our area about an inch of precipitation during the Summer months. The idea was, back in May, that additional Trofing in the pacific NW would force the deeper moisture of the monsoon, further east and south. So far that has worked out. Most of the deeper moisture and dynamics has remained further east and south. Late July and Early August typically bring the best chances for wetting rains here in Mammoth Lakes.

High temperatures here at 8000 FT have reached well into the 80s with 87 our warmest day so far since the solstice.  Typically, our warmest day reaches 88 during the summer. So over all, not a hot summer here in the Eastern Sierra and certainly drier than normal.  We still have August to contend with and I do see a rather warm weekend coming up along with chances of some wetting rains developing next week.

It will be drier Wednesday and Thursday with seasonal temperatures today Wednesday with just some afternoon clouds. It will be warmer over the weekend with isolated TSRW’s     Next week…..A return of at least modified Monsoon and air-mass modification leading to some days of wetting rains…

Winter Guesses:  teleconnections…

The North Pacific is warmer than normal well up into the Bearing Sea and even that sea into the arctic to its north.  As a side note, I just got back from a trip to the NW passage and flew over the Mendenhall Glacier. Most of the Glaciers are in retreat in that area.  Many are disappearing pretty quickly according to the locals and experts I spoke with.

The forecast of ENSO is for neutral ENSO conditions moving back to weak La Nina conditions by January.  This argues for more AR events this winter as the correlation between weak El Ninos to weak La Ninas that favor more west coast AR’s.  The PDO is still in its Positive phase like last winter updated today for the month of June.  The QBO has dropped to weakly negative.  It is over do for a flip to negative. the Sun is heading toward its solar minimum.  All these indices are positive for at least a normal to above winter. However, it is still very early to be making winter predictions…

Dr Howard and the Dweebs,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:-)

High temperatures in Mammoth reached 86 degrees on Saturday with a slight weakening of the upper high expected the next few days…It was a very mild night as well with early morning lows in the upper 50s Sunday morning. Breezes have been light over all.

Forecast Models week 1 and 2:

What I see for the State of California is a lot of hot July weather with Southern CA becoming more humid in the coming weeks. For the time being, there will be a lesser amount of thunderstorms for the Central Sierra.  Now this may change when we get into week 2 and 3. However, for the time being, the Gulf of Alaskan low is far enough west to allow the continental high to periodically build west for scorching heat over the state, with the upper flow configured more SW/NE  keeping our flow more SSW shunting a lot of the moisture and dynamic’s to our south and east. As mentioned above, a slight shift in this pattern would provide a “northwestward surge of the above” Beginning about the 15th, then during the 2nd and 3rd week of July. Without a good surge of moisture and dynamics, it is going to be a very hot Mid to late July for Sierra Nevada and California. Southern CA will likely continue to have more often than not, hot weather except for the immediate coast. Coastal dwellers of southern can thank the Chilly Sea Surface temperature for its cooling effect. It will only be times of off shore flow that you will not benefit for the SSTs cooling effect.

Models peak in the heat looks to be about Friday July 21st as a 600DM upper high at 500MB builds over Ely, NV that afternoon. Heights are north of 597DM over Mammoth and Bishop.  That is usually good in drier air for record highs in Mammoth and Bishop, with about 90 in Mammoth and 110 in Bishop. If by chance we have a monsoon push with that upper high, then it will be hot and humid with afternoon thunderstorms, but no records. I am sure that the models will need some tweaking before hand and so I will update this mid-week.

Some incipient thoughts about winter of 2017/18:

Changes; The QBO after being in its positive phase for 24 months has become negative during the month of June.  However, it is only weakly negative and may flip back.  A positive QBO by some climate scientists is associated with a Trof in the west.  However, this is not a widely accepted concept.

SSTA’s. The warmer than normal sea surface temps in the Bering Sea and North Central Pacific during last fall has become warmer than normal again after being cooled over the Winter. The Warm Blob is still gone from the NE pacific.

ENSO is currently in a very weak El Nino phase/ENSO neutral, and is forecasted to cool again this Fall and Winter.  This leads to a greater bias towards more AR events for California.

Sun solar cycle is heading for solar minimum and which again argues for a wetter winter for California.

At the Moment, The Dweebs Bias is still wet for the Winter of 2018.  But not as wet as last winter.

Dr Howard and the Dweebs………………..:-)