My lovely wife and I are back home now from our medical diversion to Stanford, and everything is OK. Looks like this was the last time surgery was needed. Thanks for all the well-wishes and help everyone!
While en-route on Thursday April 7th late afternoon, interesting weather (not climate) occurred as we passed through Fairfield, CA. It is not quite the Bay Area, but pretty darned close with an elevation of only 62 feet. Have a look at this photo:
The photo above is taken by a friend (Jane Locas) also traveling through at the same time. We saw similar scenes, but couldn’t get to the camera while on I-80. We did snap this photo when we pulled off:
It looked and felt like wet snow, and that’s what everyone was calling it we spoke to at the restaurant where we snapped this photo in the parking lot, but I have my doubts. Here’s why.
Have a look at the met obs from Travis AFB, nearby for the time period:
The METAR report doesn’t mention snow, but does mention -TSRA (ThunderStorm and RAin). METAR codes are here. Note also the winds.
There was convective activity in the area, and we did see some mild thunderstorms and some lightning on the trip prior to driving through Fairfield.
When I picked it up and examined it felt exactly like wet snow and had the right texture, it was also very slushy, so melting had occurred. Note the air temp of 43-46F during that time. Note also in the first photo above the “clumpy” pellet like shapes seen through the windshield.
While Al Gore might have been at his bayside condo in downtown SFO contemplating whether the lack of an update for months on sea level at UC will make his purchase look better or worse, I think we can safely rule out the Gore effect and say it was simply a thundersnow weather event precipitating something known as graupel.
Thundersnow formation with an occluded front.
Wikipedia says:
Thundersnow, also known as a winter thunderstorm or a thunder snowstorm, is a relatively rare kind of thunderstorm with snow falling as the primary precipitation instead of rain. It typically falls in regions of strong upward motion within the cold sector of an extratropical cyclone, where the precipitation consists of ice pellets rather than snow. Thermodynamically, it is not different from any other type of thunderstorms but the top of the cumulonimbus are usually quite low.
That pretty well describes the mesoscale phenomena I witnessed while driving that day.
Had I had time and a thermos container, I would have collected a bunch of the graupel took it home, and brewed some Hail Ale, which is a fond memory from long ago and some stormchasing work I once did.
However, as Mike Lorrey posted on the next day, that storm headed south and caused some real snow in the Los Angeles area.
Snow in Los Angeles County, NWS Winter Advisory
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In the Sierras at mid elevations, we simply called this stuff popcorn snow. And it piles up real fast in Winter.
Whether it’s thundersnow or thunderhail, it is a thing of the past in the World according to Gore. It melts on the news, not in your lane, as the picture testifies.
There are 19 million results on Bing for The Gore Effect. The first several were definitions.
As to 404 error, I get that a lot, close the window and try again. Usually, the second try works.
Has anyone done a statistical analysis of the Gore Effect to determine whether it is real or just an amused impression?
I think some people in the San Francisco Bay Area consider Fairfield part of the Bay Area.
We had experienced graupel at Vail last Sunday, including thunder & lightning with the passage of a strong cold front. Lightning closed all the lifts for about 1/2 hr. The one run we got in the graupel was brutal – 40 mph winds driving them into you like little BBs. Quickly changed over to very heavy snow. About 4″ in the 1st hr & 1 foot of fresh powder by lift closing. It was an amazing ski day.
Fantastic news on the health front. Best wishes to get your lives back to normal. As to the photos, well that is just too timely.
Cheers
I’ll join the chorus on graupel. I typically see it in New Hampshire in early season snow showers, sometimes it will change to “real” snow. It doesn’t need the up and down ride that hail gets, all that’s necessary is for a snowflake to pass through some supercooled cloud. The droplets freeze on contact and you wind up with a little ball of rime ice.
Another name for it is soft hail, I think that’s mostly a European term, and one I’m not fond of. I think they should call it graupel….
Two good links:
http://www.liveweatherblogs.com/prometweatherblogs/2/2/4263/WINTER-WEATHER-101:GRAUPEL-,-SLEET-VS-HAIL-,-FREEZING-RAIN
This goes into some details, but I think some of:
was taken from http://emu.arsusda.gov/snowsite/rimegraupel/rg.html which has some really neat LT-SEM (Low Temperature Scanning Electron Microscope) photos of different types of rimed snow flakes. Science-speak calls them snow crystals, since only one type is a flake.
What you saw, and what I generally see, is like Fig. 5 – a 2 mm fluffy pellet with the snow crystal completely buried inside.
Glad you are back home safe with good news.
How interesting that stuff has a name! We experienced this once in June in the Nebraska Sandhills north of Anselmo. Slushy hail-snow that came from a thunderstorm.
Glad to hear things went well Anthony. Fingers crossed your wife is out of the woods now with her health problems.
I am glad everything went well Anthony!
“Lady Life Grows says:
April 9, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Has anyone done a statistical analysis of the Gore Effect to determine whether it is real or just an amused impression?”
See these for starters:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2199416/posts
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1869/Climate-Depot-Factsheet-on-the-Gore-Effect-Phenomenon
Extremely glad to hear everything is OK Anthony.
There have been numerous thundersnow events this past winter over the US, due to the extremely dynamic systems that brought them….not unlike this early spring storm that dove down through California.
Check out the lightning display (wait a few minutes) during the snow-draped landscape outside of DC back in January:
And one also in January in NYC:
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Great news Mrs Watts and for the family Anthony.
All the best. Hope there is time for a holiday together soon.
@ur momisugly diogenes (April 9, 2011 at 3:10 pm):
Well, I do remember very well such a warm early April in the UK. It was 30 years ago, to the day and weekend … it was my wedding day, something one tends not to forget.
Excellent news, that your lovely wife is now in the clear, Anthony! Have a rest this weekend as well, the both of you.
Wow. First time I’ve read the word “graupel” in an English-language text.
I’ve never had occasion to look for an English-equivalent since moving to Australia from Germany in 1968.
P.S. I’m pleased to read the little medical success story.
Really glad all went well Anthony. Never mind the weather, it’s the climate that counts and from what I read on the sunspot post, things don’t look too good. Burn wood, paper, petrol, anything that produces CO2 and water vapour. We seriously need AGW. I’m too damn old to keep digging the snow out of the drive. Given that, after a cold winter, spring is here early in the UK but of course it’s just weather. Next week, we’re back to rain and colder temps.
Well, I watched some of this stuff come down out my office window. We just call it “hail” as all hail here tends to be “small hail” (which is what that link defined graupel to be).
Yeah, a bit like snow that had slushed a bit and gotten stuck together into snow pellets (another way to describe it).
Had a pretty good dump of it. Please tell Mr. Gore to send the Global Warming. He promissed it to me. I’ve planted my garden twice now, based on his assuring me that things would be warmer. Having “hail damage and cold winds” was not on the agenda.
Where to I apply for my subsidy / grant for “Climate Change Damage”?