Wednesday December 30th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: Good Weather News From The Western U.S. For A Change
Dear Diary. It’s not often these days that I can deliver some good news, but finally the winter jet stream has lowered enough to bring beneficial precipitation to California and the rest of the West. While not every location will see heavy enough rain or snow to put a big dent in the current drought, this new weather pattern at least will stave off a catastrophe since mountain snow pack will increase, which will aid in restoring the levels of reservoirs for next spring and summer irrigation and drinking water use.
Here is the current state of the United States drought:
It appears that just about all of the drought area will see beneficial precipitation. Here is why. A cold pocket has persisted over Alaska for about a month, which has deepened as winter has progressed and expanded southward into the Gulf of Alaska. This effect has sent many frontal systems crashing unto the Pacific Northwest initially, but now there is a more southern trend into California, which is actually climatologically typical for a change.
Here we see another strong system, as denoted by the blue trough, set to move into northern and central California by the 6th of January:
At the surface here is what we should see by the 6th:
After initially hitting the West Coast thus particular system will move inland and have enough strength to produce heave snow in mist of the Inter-Mountain West area:
Already we have seen several systems since December 1st which have followed a similar track. In the Plains many strong winter storms are putting down a good coating of snow with rain falling on parched areas. Here we see one strong system forecast to affect Texas before the end of 2020:
Dr. Daniel Swain, our western weather and climate guru, has also taken note of this nice wet weather pattern change. Here are some of his notes:
One system did affect Southern California:
Hopefully, I’ll be reporting more good news as we move into 2021. At least this wet weather pattern should give many people hope.
More winter conditions, keeping in mind that typical cold, wet weather is what is needed for “relief” from effects from warm seasons made hotter via carbon pollution:
Here is more climate and weather news from Wednesday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton- “The Climate Guy”