We're all dressed up and ready to go to the Columbia CA Biplane fly in but have been held up (towing ye olde cranky trailer with the damned old rusty truck) by inclement weather. So I had time on my hands. All y'all are the beneficiaries or victims of this activity....depending on your point of view.
Here. Watch today's loop of visible moisture along the West Coast: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browsw2.html

There is a mini cyclone centered over Columbia California today. Notice also the conventional cyclonic activity in the Gulf of Alaska, or at least the portion we can see on this loop, accompanied by this weird counter flow attached to the coast.

This is not normal.

"NOAA's CFSv2 model is forecasting a strong El Nino event will develop this summer and continue through 2015.,<snip>. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has an excellent El Nino forecasting model which is also predicting a strong El Nino. Because the jet stream has already gone into an El Nino pattern by moving south over the eastern Pacific ocean and Mexico and further north than normal over the eastern Atlantic ocean, the likelihood of El Nino failing to strengthen is small. Last year's Kelvin wave failed to bring on a strong El Nino because trade winds in the south Pacific didn't weaken but this year they have and waters along the west coast of south America have already warmed. The south Pacific has moved out of the cool mode it was in a year ago.

I suggest we all panic and run around in circles.....just kidding.

Here's another knot head with a prediction. I mean scientist. Personally I blame George W Bush if this doesn't happen.

"El Niño conditions have flourished in recent weeks, says Paul Roundy, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University at Albany. “Buoy observations suggest that the growth rate of El Niño conditions over the last few weeks is larger than any past event at this time of the year, even larger than the big event of 1997,” Roundy says. “The present amplitude, when compared with signals at the same time of year, for growing events, is the largest in the historical record going back to 1980.”

Sorry I couldn't resist

Things seem abnormally normal here in Alaska

Those are encouraging analyses for those (like me) who are skiers residing in/near the Sierra Nevada! Not to mention CA/NV farmers.

Since you seem to have more than a passing interest in meteorology, have you read any good explanation about why the past few winters we've had such a big, persistent high pressure sitting here in the Western Great Basin? Even when a decent cold front and associated storm develops in the Pacific and moves East, the high blocks it, so it splits and the Rockies get it.

Pierre

Well here is what this guy says about the past two winters
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/03/w ... -past.html

and he is talking about same information calling for El Nino
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/04/i ... oming.html

Bring it ! God I hope it snows around here again some day !

I was an attending physician at Stanford during the El Nino of 1997. It sucked. It rained at least part of the day for 30 days in a row. Lousy for motorcycling. Maybe this will be a droughtbuster for California.

DCO-65 wrote:Well here is what this guy says about the past two winters
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/03/w ... -past.html

and he is talking about same information calling for El Nino
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/04/i ... oming.html

This is good stuff. He's drawing from a lot of peer review papers about the pending El Nino not just spinning as some of the comments on his blog suggest. I do enjoy watching the Satellite images. I'm not sure I can draw any conclusions from them but I know when they don't look right.

Mountain Doctor wrote:I was an attending physician at Stanford during the El Nino of 1997. It sucked. It rained at least part of the day for 30 days in a row. Lousy for motorcycling. Maybe this will be a drought buster for California.

There was flooding along the El Camino in South City and San Bruno last winter. See's candy showroom floor had about a foot of water on it. Shasta has been far below the high water mark for as long as I can remember. I think to bust the drought, California needs a change in water policy.....but that's a different discussion not for here.

I think Cal (SoCal anyways) is in a permanent state of drought. It's called living in a desert. Has-been actor Wm Shatner recently came up with the idea of building a new pipeline alongside I-5 all the way from Seattle to LA, and stealing a bunch of fresh water from the pacific northwest to run in it. What a genius. That worked about a hundred years ago but I don't think it'll fly now.

As a side note, the building of the LA Aqueduct starting in 1908 is a very interesting story. Google it up sometime.

Mister701 wrote:

Mountain Doctor wrote: Shasta has been far below the high water mark for as long as I can remember. I think to bust the drought, California needs a change in water policy.....but that's a different discussion not for here.

Shasta was full three years ago, right up to the bushes. We had a hard time finding shoreline to tie the houseboat off. However, Shasta Lake tends to drop one (1) Foot every day from mid July through August or early September. I definitely agree with you that Kalifornian's need to learn how to conserve!

propeller26 wrote:Shasta was full three years ago, right up to the bushes. We had a hard time finding shoreline to tie the houseboat off. However, Shasta Lake tends to drop one (1) Foot every day from mid July through August or early September. I definitely agree with you that Kalifornian's need to learn how to conserve!

I did not know that. Every time I've been through there it seems like hundreds of feet of steep dirt shoreline.

I was a kid over my head with the responsibility of grooming and snow removal operations in the Sierras the last time a real El Nino came through. We had so much snow we pushed it off the runs and into the trees. The snow banks around the parking lots got too high for the blowers, so we knocked them down with snowcats. We cut 10 feet from under the chair lifts just to get clearance to turn the lifts on. After a 20 foot dump over a ten day stretch, I took a much deserved trip to the coast for a few days. I showed up at Pismo beach with 8' of snow in the back of my pickup which had bucking horse plates at the time. The first surfer I met said "holy shit dude, you must get a lot of snow in Wyoming, and you must drive really fast!"