Snow will come to California’s Sierra Nevada a bit earlier than usual.
Ryan Maue adds: “as this storm pulls eastward, it will “bomb” out or explosively deepen over the Great Plains and move into the upper-Midwest. The barometric pressure will fall to 962 mb 955 mb according to the most recent GFS forecast, making it one of the deepest northern United States continental extratropical cyclones since 1979 for the 30-day period between October 15 and November 14. This will clearly be a historical storm and an extreme event: evidence of global warming La Nina.”
URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SACRAMENTO CA
407 PM PDT SAT OCT 23 2010
…POWERFUL PACIFIC STORM TO BRING HEAVY SNOW TO THE HIGHER
ELEVATIONS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA AND LASSEN PARK…
.A POWERFUL PACIFIC STORM WILL BRING HEAVY RAIN…SNOW AND STRONG
WINDS TO THE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA AND LASSEN PARK AREAS TONIGHT
AND SUNDAY. THE HEAVIEST SNOW AND STRONGEST WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO
IMPACT THE AREA DURING THE DAY ON SUNDAY…TAPERING OFF LATER
SUNDAY NIGHT.
CAZ068-241245-
/O.NEW.KSTO.WS.W.0014.101023T2307Z-101025T0600Z/
WESTERN PLUMAS COUNTY/LASSEN PARK-
407 PM PDT SAT OCT 23 2010
…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 11 PM PDT SUNDAY ABOVE
7500 FEET…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SACRAMENTO HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WARNING ABOVE 7500 FEET FOR HEAVY SNOW…AND BLOWING SNOW
WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 11 PM PDT SUNDAY FOR WESTERN PLUMAS
COUNTY.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS: 6 INCHES TO A FOOT ARE POSSIBLE ABOVE 7500
FEET IN WESTERN PLUMAS COUNTY…WITH SEVERAL FEET OF SNOW
OCCURRING ON TOP OF MOUNT LASSEN.
* ELEVATION: ABOVE 7500 FEET.
* TIMING: SNOW WILL OCCUR OVERNIGHT AND SUNDAY AND WILL BE HEAVY
AT TIMES.
* LOCATIONS INCLUDE: LASSEN NATIONAL PARK.
* WINDS: SOUTHWEST WINDS 20 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 70 MPH.
* IMPACTS: PERIODS OF SNOW AND STRONG SOUTHWEST WINDS CAUSING
BLOWING SNOW WILL RESULT IN POOR VISIBILITIES ABOVE 7500 FEET.
ALTHOUGH THE WINTER CAMPGROUND MAY EXPERIENCE RAIN…SNOW WILL
OCCUR ON THE ROAD TO MOUNT LASSEN.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER
CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING.
&&
$$
CAZ069-241245-
/O.NEW.KSTO.WS.W.0014.101024T0600Z-101025T0600Z/
WEST SLOPE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA-
407 PM PDT SAT OCT 23 2010
…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 11 PM THIS EVENING TO
11 PM PDT SUNDAY ABOVE 7500 FEET FOR THE WEST SLOPE NORTHERN
SIERRA NEVADA…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SACRAMENTO HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WARNING ABOVE 7500 FEET FOR HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW
…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 11 PM THIS EVENING TO 11 PM PDT SUNDAY
FOR THE WEST SLOPE OF THE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS: 1 TO 2 FEET OF SNOW ABOVE 7500 FEET.
* ELEVATION: ABOVE 7500 FEET.
* TIMING: RAIN AND SNOW OVER THE SIERRA NEVADA WILL CONTINUE
OVERNIGHT AND BE HEAVY AT TIMES DURING THE DAY ON SUNDAY.
* LOCATIONS INCLUDE: THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA
INCLUDING SONORA PASS ON HIGHWAY 108…EBBETS PASS ON HIGHWAY
4…CARSON PASS ON HIGHWAY 88…AND ECHO SUMMIT ON HIGHWAY 50.
* WINDS: SOUTHWEST WINDS 20 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 70 MPH.
* IMPACTS: HEAVY SNOW AND STRONG SOUTHWEST WINDS WILL RESULT IN
POOR VISIBILITY…AND POSSIBLE ROAD CLOSURES OR DANGEROUS
TRAVELING CONDITIONS OVER THE HIGHER MOUNTAIN PASSES.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS
ACTIONS…
A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER
CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW
ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. ONLY TRAVEL IN AN
EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL…KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT…
FOOD…AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.
&&
Tom, out here on the central Pacific coast, summer ocean water temps are about 60 F. And you’re complaining about 77 F bath tub water. Shame on you. 🙂
I’m sitting here in the Sierra foothills of Northern California, Sunday, 10/24. It’s raining cats and dogs. Windy, too. Normally, we don’t see much rain here until mid-November or later.
This is, of course, proof absolute of
global warmingclimate change. As are all anomalous weather patterns.Look at the GFS at http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/12/model_m.shtml it appears the storm will reform on the other side of the Rockies and head northeast across Minnesota and Lake Superior. The lowest SLP I see is on http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/12/images/gfs_ten_060m.gif at 956 mb! Sure seems like an Edmund Fitzgerald event to me. While I don’t have direct experience with it, The “Witch of November” is a fairly reliable event, a major storm that shippers try to have their Great Lakes shipping season over with before it comes. Several ships have not survived it, the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald in November 10, 1975 is by far the best known.
Please read http://www.gordonlightfoot.com/wreckoftheedmundfitzgerald.shtml
More at http://www.shipwreckmuseum.com/edmund-fitzgerald-36/
Richard Sharpe says:
October 24, 2010 at 12:36 pm
1. How much energy there is in the hydrological cycle
2. How much additional energy the additional CO2 will contribute? 100%? 10%? 1%, .01% …
Well, for one thing, the back of the AGW envelope
defiesrewrites Thermodynamics.See, they have 1 C02 atom per 10,000 other atoms, and that C02 atom grabs 1 bit of energy and then multiplies it 4 fold, thereby heating up adjacent atoms in a forced feedback. This creates the missing heat out of ‘thin air’.
I tell you, these guys are missing thier golden opportunity. They should be busy perfecting the C02-H20 water reactor (Missing Fusion) and cranking out those units on the assembly line.
October 24, 2010 at 12:22 pm
crosspatch…1989 or 1990 possibly??? Warmest and less snowiest winters until 2007-08…If so, we finally know where the snow got stuck….here in S and mid Scandinavia,
that is…
October 24, 2010 at 1:02 pm
BS Footprint…(and others) , have a look at WIKIPEDIA for expression of “raining cats
and dogs”……….Quite interesting… Fishes are most common, it seems, as raining animals…
Pat Frank says:{October 24, 2010 at 1:00 pm}
“Tom, out here on the central Pacific coast, summer ocean water temps are about 60 F. And you’re complaining about 77 F bath tub water. Shame on you. :-)”
Yes, it’s shameful isn’t it. However, at my age I find no joy in “displaying my bravado” by entering into water that is uncomfortable. By the way, our summer Gulf temps are 88-90 F, now that’s true bath water and I might add that Great White’s are less likely to be found in bath water.
RE: Tom in Florida: (October 24, 2010 at 2:04 pm)
“However, at my age I find no joy in “displaying my bravado” by entering into water that is uncomfortable.”
In Seattle, I believe there is an organization known as the ‘Polar Bears’ that sponsors a mad dash into the frigid waters of Lake Washington each year in midwinter…
Douglas DC says:
October 24, 2010 at 12:42 pm
DC, I currently live in the Ophir Beach area… My wife runs one of the local governments so there is a radius of how far she can live outside of town. It is beautiful here, but you have to be prepared to take care of yourself. We had mudslides in this area a few years ago, my neighbors said it was 11 days before ODOT had 101 opened up again. People are prepared here.
Not sure if you follow the local politics, but it appears that Curry County may dissolve or file BK… Sooner than some people are expecting. The county is handing over services to the local citys, to provide in their region.
Things are getting interested out here, at the edge of the world.
Richard Sharpe says:
October 24, 2010 at 10:21 am
R. Gates says on October 24, 2010 at 9:22 am
Another change of seasons and another shift in the jet stream. Nice to get the weather report here on WUWT.
Of course one storm and one season means nothing, but in general storms mean lots of energy in the atmosphere, and in the longer term, increased CO2 means more energy in the atmopshere and an acceleration in the hydrological cycle. This is a process the planet has used for millions of years to balance out the CO2 in the atmosphere through the weathering of rock which removes CO2 from the atmosphere and returns it to the oceans. Here’s a nice little paper about this you can read:
http://www.karst.edu.cn/carbon/rockd.htm
Can you tell us what an acceleration in the hydrological cycle means or is it just more bullshit to try to baffle us with?
______
A concise definition would be:
“The global hydrologic cycle, which can be conceptually described as evaporation of water vapor from the ocean, transport of water vapor by atmospheric winds to land regions, condensation, and precipitation of atmospheric water back to the surface, and subsequent transport, by streams, of this water back to the ocean.”
I take it however, that you did not read the link I gave, nor probably would you read either of these:
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/climatechange/science/38408/hydrological-cycle-is-accelera-1.asp?unit=c
http://drc.ohiolink.edu/handle/2374.OX/9428
____
To say that increasing CO2 leads to global warming is only a vague description of the overall truth of the greenhouse effects of CO2. (Climate “disruption” is also vague) The acceleration of the hydrological cycle, which seems to one of the planet’s natural reactions to this increase, is not vague at all, and is just one more effect from this increase and like many of the effects of increased CO2, show greater energy in the earth’s atmospheric and ocean systems.
But now that N. Hemisphere winter is approaching, I’m sure with each cold and snowy day, certain skeptics will point out how they prove AGW must be wrong.
R. Gates says:
October 24, 2010 at 3:05 pm
“The acceleration of the hydrological cycle, which seems to one of the planet’s natural reactions to this increase,”
Which would lead to stronger and more storms, right? Yeah, right. So we can’t be warming, otherwise we would have more and stronger storms. Thanks for debunking AGW in such an elegant way. We appreciate that.
Oh, BTW, can a planet have unnatural reactions? 🙂
R. Gates says:
October 24, 2010 at 3:05 pm
“To say that increasing CO2 leads to global warming is only a vague description of the overall truth of the greenhouse effects of CO2.”…..
=============
Don’t keep us in suspence, give us your truth 🙂
Oh, and proof of your claims, would be appreciated.
Wonder if this winter will be dominated by zonal flow…
The Ice(storm) cometh.
After getting slammed two years ago, Seattle lifted the ban on salt for clearing roads after failure to do so shut down the city.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008579442_snowpolitics01m.html
The wind has whipped up and I’ll be driving home at 1 am. Nnnnot lookin forward to it.
Bastardi predicted this fairly well I thought. He said October wouldn’t be bad, but then it would turn. El Nino was nice while it lasted. Now we pay dearly.
Ric Werme says:
October 24, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Please read http://www.gordonlightfoot.com/wreckoftheedmundfitzgerald.shtml
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called “Gitche Gumee.”
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the “Gales of November” came early.
Ric, here’s an excellent tribute to the Edmund Fitzgerald crew of that fateful November 10, 1975:
R. Gates says:
October 24, 2010 at 3:05 pm
But now that N. Hemisphere winter is approaching, I’m sure with each cold and snowy day, certain skeptics will point out how they prove AGW must be wrong.
=============================
No.
You are deliberately conflating acronyms here.
We are talking about CAGW and not AGW.
And, no, a hard winter certainly does not disprove “AGW.”
But the good thing is, CAGW has scientifically disproven itself at the starting gate, so your point is moot.
Show me the evidence….R. Show it forth.
You can’t because there is none.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
R Gates
You sometimes have good arguments but you often have bad math.
Your claim that ‘there will be more heat in the atmosphere’ and that it means stronger convections and storms and higher energy movements in general is false. It represents the false claim that a warmer world will see more energetic hurricanes. If you raise the enthalpy of a system, it does not and cannot mean a higher turnover of energy through the system unless the energy input rate has increased, save that it is venting stored energy. Wrapping a towel around a hot water bottle does not increase the total energy in the bottle.
Your argument turns on the general ignorance of people about the difference between the temperature of a system and the rate of energy passing through it and pretends that both are happening simultaneously with no additional energy input. It is widely claimed that the sun does not change much in energy input, so that means the rate of transmission of energy into the atmosphere will not change much either.
Your further argument also has it that as the system will heat up (putatively because of an increase in CO2) so the quantity of heat in the atmosphere will increase. I grant that if the atmosphere heat content increases (for any reason) there is indeed more energy in the system. Your claim is that the energy accumulates because of CO2 increases. For that to happen the quantity of heat released has to decrease. But there is no decrease, is there?
You picture this extra energy in the atmosphere creating havoc inside the system, while simultaneously venting heat faster from the atmosphere beceause of more powerful storms. It is logically impossible. If the system vents heat faster when it is even slightly hotter (a well established fact) then it is no longer hotter. Full stop. The heat leaves. As you disallow that solar input has changed enough to cause heating (say, temp rise from 1975-1998) then there is no more heat coming in, right? In short, if the system temperature rises briefly, it is immediately (within days or hours) vented from the system. If it hides in the oceans for a while, it is vented upon surfacing.
If the atmosphere is receiving as much energy as before (the general statement from those opposed to seeing the solar variation as meaningful) then the equilibrium state will be the same energy going in as goes out, with a slightly higher temperature in the atmosphere. In the case of CO2, this is supposed to be in the mid-altitudes in the tropics, something already show to be false. But let’s continue anyway.
If the whole system is hotter, then there is no relative advantage for air movement to a colder place because it is warmer there too. It will not ‘rain more’ because if the land is warmer, the rain will stop after the slightly wetter clouds dump their regular moisture load, down to equilibrium again. It won’t rain less either because the clouds have more total moisture (being warmer). That equilibrium takes only a matter of 6 hours to stabilise and happens each day.
If it is the poles not the tropics that warm faster (the retreat position of the warmists) then the driver of N-S air movement is reduced in intensity. That does not increase the storm intensity either.
The whole notion that a warmer world will create, simultaneously, increased vertical system dynamics AND hotter prevailing temperatures with constant solar input is simply bad math. It is characteristic of the warmist position that everything will be worse simultaneously – a thermodynamically impossible condition because unlike the name, there is no greenhouse glass preventing mass transfer upwards into the cold of space. As soon as the atmosphere increases above certain temperatures, it vents the heat into space by punching thunderclouds slightly higher. This is also well-established and not a mystery to anyone.
As any brief review of the evidence for much higher historical CO2 levels and temperature shows, there is an upper limit limit to the atmospheric temperature (something like 24 C) no matter what the CO2 concentration. Surely you are aware of this?
The alternative to your view is that if the atmosphereic temperature rises from solar variation, GHG changes, cloud cover drop or any combination of physical or electrical or radiative factors, the heat is vented by vertical air circulation. The only possible supoprt for your view that there will be increased storm ferocity (caused by this ‘higher energy level’) is if the input of energy increases, which means accepting (the truth) of solar input variation and its attendant physical changes on Earth. As the solar cause is flatly denied, the CO2 promoters such as yourself are stuck in a logical cleftstick from which you have no way out save to repeat increasingly complex thermo-impossiblities to the credulous. There is no point in repeating them here at WUWT. Wrong channel.
Alas, I was at an altitude of 7843 feet today at noon and the temps were about 42 degrees. We camped last night at about 6380 feet and the temps never got below the low 40’s. LOTS of rain, but no snow in sight. No snow at Mammoth today or tonight either. Looks like the trees had a lot of new growth this year and when it does start to snow, it is going to be something but the predictions of 2 feet of snow I do not think will come to pass, at least not below 10,000 feet altitude.
Oops, should have said the altitude that I was at was in the southeastern corner of Yosemite in the Ansel Adams wilderness at the end of Beasore road and beyond up the 4×4 trails that extend up to about 8000 feet altitude.
Well Mr. Gates the greenhouse effect doesn’t seem to be holding any warmth from Phoenix, AZ to Houston. It gets pretty darn cold at night.
But then what happened to make everything atmospheric so dry? Could it be a lack of water vapor from a cold La Nina?
But, on the bright side, Tom in Florida. I went swimming end of last week in Lake Eufala, Oklahoma and the water was great! Wren Lake in Illinois on Tuesday, cool, but not what I’d call cold. Lake Ray Hubbard, Texas on Thursday. It was perfect, totally awesome and I can’t wait to get back. The solar brightening of late warms the lakes up a bit by noon. Hope nothing big blows its top for a while to dim out the sun. I also dislike seeing a swimming season come to a close.
Speaking of the sun, looks like its grabbed a higher gear now and the solar cycle is accelerating. Looks a bit healthier, less pekkish.
Like an elongated cycle 20.
Addendum. We found a portable US Forest Service Weather Station on one of the mountains just southeast of Yosemite today.
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/42711416
This would be a great one to monitor if you could find it’s frequency as it is at about 7600 feet altitude and will get snow very soon.
The acceleration of the hydrological cycle, which seems to one of the planet’s natural reactions to this increase, is not vague at all, and is just one more effect from this increase and like many of the effects of increased CO2, show greater energy in the earth’s atmospheric and ocean systems.
Congratulations, Gates, at last you’ve admitted that the hydrological cycle, complete with water vapor, constitutes a negative feedback to any alleged increased energy retention due to increased CO2 concentration. You should be feeling much better.
I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news for my friends in the Pac Nor West (I had a lovely time there in the summer of ’91) but our best forecasters here in NZ, METVUW (Victoria University, Wellington) put out a global MSL Rain Forecast, as well as many other regions besides NZ, and the forecast for the middle of next week looks like a repeat of the present, or something close to it.
The thing that always fascinates me with the El Nino/La Nina events is how varied they are for different people in different locations. In 50 plus years of weather/climate memories and records we get far more enjoyment from a visit by the ‘Girl Child’ than the ‘Boy Child’. For west-coasters of both islands here in NZ, La Nina brings a change from the dominant westerly flow. This can lead to prolonged increases in sunshine hours, and temperatures. It can bring on an increased frequency for heavy rain months as just happened here in September (the 3rd wettest month on record for Palmerston North since June 1928). These wet months are often followed by prolonged periods of drier, sunnier and warmer weather. I guess while some for good reason dread La Nina, we down-under can’t wait!
Cheers
Coops
DirkH says:
October 24, 2010 at 3:43 pm
R. Gates says:
October 24, 2010 at 3:05 pm
“The acceleration of the hydrological cycle, which seems to one of the planet’s natural reactions to this increase,”
Which would lead to stronger and more storms, right? Yeah, right. So we can’t be warming, otherwise we would have more and stronger storms. Thanks for debunking AGW in such an elegant way. We appreciate that.
Oh, BTW, can a planet have unnatural reactions? 🙂
_______
The hydrological cycle ultimately leads to the weathering of rock, which removes CO2 from the atmosphere, transporting it to the oceans. When greater amounts of CO2 are present, this cycle “accelerates” from the excess energy in the system. (You can’t get “accleration” of a system without the application of energy). This cycle in general acts over millions of years to keep the system in balance. Generally, CO2 levels keep fairly constant, or have for the time period of human civilization’s emergence. Now of course, the CO2 levels have increased 40% in just a few hundred years (virtually instantly in geological terms), and so the big question is, how sensitive is the planet to this large and rapid increase of CO2, and how will the natural hydrological cycle react to this anthropogenic “burp”of CO2? Some studies (as I linked to in my earlier post) would seem to indicate that the cycle will and has acclerated, meaning on average heavier downpours in places that get rain (think Pakistan this summer), but also increased dryness in areas that are already marginally dry.
Looks like my prediction was right! Here is the webcam at Mammoth Mountain. The camera is at about 9000 feet and the snow line is about 500-1000 feet higher.
http://www.mammothmountain.com/WebCams/MainCam/
Another storm is headed our way later in the week. If you look at the pictures at the bottom of the page you can see (this will change tomorrow) a LOT of water at the bottom of the Gondola lift. It rained a lot there yesterday.