From NASA JPL, video animation follows.
Wet weather is again hitting drought-stricken California as the second and larger of two back-to-back storms makes its way ashore. The storms are part of an atmospheric river, a narrow channel of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere connecting tropical air with colder, drier regions around Earth’s middle latitudes.
The storm that arrived on Feb. 26, 2014, and the one about to hit, are contained within the “Pineapple Express,” an atmospheric river that extends from the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii to the Pacific coast of North America, where it often brings heavy precipitation. This next storm is expect to be the largest rain producer in Southern California in three years.
This animation, created with data acquired by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows the total amount of water vapor contained in the atmosphere for most of the month of February if it were all to fall as rain. Typically, the atmosphere over Southern California and most of the continental U.S. in winter holds only about 0.4 inch (10 millimeters) or less of water vapor. However, much wetter air lies tantalizingly close in regions to the south and west. The largest amounts of atmospheric moisture, up to 2.4 inches (60 millimeters), are associated with a persistent band of thunderstorms circling the tropics. These thunderstorms are the source of several atmospheric rivers apparent in this animation. One atmospheric river arises near Hawaii around Feb. 10 and comes ashore in Central California a few days later, bringing the largest Sierra Nevada snowfall of the season to date. Other atmospheric rivers can be see originating in the Gulf of Mexico and extending into the Atlantic on the right side of the movie; the northward movement of tropical water vapor is important in winter storms in the eastern U.S. and Europe. The animation concludes with the current Pineapple Express. Moisture from around Hawaii has surged northeast, and the persistent, dry air immediately west of Baja California has been replace by air with up to 1.6 inches (40 millimeters) of water vapor. The next storm will bring that moisture ashore, where it will be forced upward by coastal mountains to fall as heavy rain. Up to 8 inches (20.3 centimeters) of rain is predicted in some parts of the Los Angeles area by March 2, bringing possible flooding and landslides to recent wildfire burn areas.
The recent cold conditions in the eastern U.S. are also apparent in this movie as very dry regions. Because cold air can hold relatively little water (less than 0.4 inch or 10 millimeters), cold region are always dry. So, the eastern U.S. has some of the driest air in this animation. However, high pressure systems also dry the atmosphere by forcing down air from above.
That descending air expands and warms, but retains the low moisture amounts it had when it was higher and cold. So, cold Minnesota and warm Mexico have similar water vapor amounts in this movie.
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Here are a couple articles about California’s water problem, which claim that it’s largely due to environmental politics.
This article from a year ago (in a non-drought year):
http://westernfarmpress.com/blog/californians-lose-800000-acre-feet-water-305-minnows
This article is from a couple of weeks ago (in a drought year):
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/02/califorinia-drought-is-not-about-climate-change-its-about-failed-liberal-policy/
Here’s an excerpt from the year-old Western Farm Press article:
“This is not a drought year. The meager allotment is the result of too much water.
Heavy rains in November and December created a water flush through the Delta, herding the threatened Delta smelt/minnow south, closer to water pumps that move water from the Delta to the San Luis Reservoir, a storage terminal near Los Banos, Calif., that collects state and federal project water for movement south to urban Californians and San Joaquin Valley farmers. To protect the endangered minnows, the pumps were periodically stopped through the winter. No pumps; no water south. Just water west into the ocean.
The ridiculous environmental rules protecting the Delta minnow say the pumps can only gobble up 305 of the minnows in a water year, which ends Sept. 30. The count is already 232 — more than 75 percent of the limit. So to make sure pumps supply water to 25 million people and millions of acres of farmland consumes no more than four minnow buckets full of smelt — 800,000 acre-feet of water is gone.
Mike Wade, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition points out, “Despite the heavy rain and snowfall earlier this water year in December, farmers will be receiving less water than last year, which was a dry water year.”
The newer Gateway Pundit article says:
“The current drought in California is not about global warming…”
I am so confused now. I read that the fear mongers say that these storms are just rouge storms, and yet this article implies a series of rain storms from the pineapple express. Has that ever happened before?…. Of course I’m being sarcastic. To hell with people SAVE the minnows. more sarcasm..
Paul Vaughan says:
March 1, 2014 at 12:02 pm
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Paul,
There doesn’t seem to be much interest in the comments on this thread to follow the origin of the water vapor being transported to Cal. over the past several days.
What you observed in your links is the same that I was seeing. I guess Bastardi gets a pass on this one unless some other Distinguished Meteorologist wants to pick it up from here. I don’t buy in to his claim that the storm/water vapor came from the north (though it was a contributor) but I’m just a country bumpkin so I now reluctantly yield to academic authority.
The current rains really don’t amount to . . .
Well, read here and see what real storms are like:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Midnight-mudslide-clobbers-Rio-Nido-3105122.php
See if you can find a copy of J. M. Nash’s “El Niño” (2002) for long descriptions of this storm.
“… environmental rules protecting the Delta minnow … {mean} farmers will be receiving less water than last year… .” (quoted by Dave Burton at 2:39pm today)
As rishrac (at 5:39pm) said sarcastically: “To hell with people SAVE the minnows… .”
And as Dr. Patrick Moore, Greenpeace founder, concurs in his
condemnation of Envirostalinism:
“Humans are… part of the environment.”
Janice Moore says:
March 1, 2014 at 11:17 pm
+++++++++++
Great find and post Janice.
Thank you, Mario!
#(:))
#(:))
#(:))
Mario Lento says:
March 1, 2014 at 1:40 pm
So I submit that drought in summer causes higher temperatures… rather than higher temperatures causing drought…
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That explains why the summer of 1957 was so hot then, in part. That was an above average dry year, ie winter of 1956/57, which followed the flood year of 1955/56 in No Cal and Oregon. Then in 1974/75 through 1977 there were 3 years of drought, and it was also hot up in the mountains at that time. The drought broke in the winter of 1977/78.
Dave Burton says:
Out of interest, what are the objections to building a series of settling tanks covered with mesh sufficiently fine to keep the smelt out and pumping water for agriculture and domestic use in the area out of these?
Apart from the fact that California State has the economy of a banana state that is?
Janice Moore says:
March 1, 2014 at 11:17 pm
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Thanks for sharing that. It was well worth listening to.
@ur momisugly eyesonu (March 1, 2014 at 6:18 pm)
I agree that the origin is on the tropical side.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/03/2100Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/equirectangular=-124,0,275
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/03/1200Z/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-147,30,500
The more interesting thing is the interhemispheric exchange aligned precisely with California meridionally.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/nasa-report-the-effects-of-solar-variability-on-earths-climate/comment-page-1/#comment-70134
The flow currently crossing the Pacific now looks like a Pineapple Express
…http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/imagery/nepac.html
The flow that I mentioned up above has mostly dissipated. That is what the pattern would like, except that it could not hold itself together. There was a lot of dry air space all around that system.
goldminor,
Interesting to see you are still here. Looks like some of that WNW moisture my move in to Cal.
Anyway I’ve got the associated links saved to bookmarks to watch this region. Prior to this lead post and thread I never had the inclination to look at the water vapor loops in this area that has an effect on US weather, even to the east coast.
Yes, Kate, Mario, Janice, I’m a retired surgeon who sutured wounds without ever understanding how they healed. You got me. I started reading WUWT when I mistook albedo for libido and have been hooked ever since. You might be interested in reading my 2008 posting on “Davids Home Now” on medical care.
I’ve been known to be full of hot air whether or not from adiabatic processes. 🙂
Hi David: I hope the tongue and cheek way I responded was not offensive. I could not tell if you were being rhetorical or sarcastic so I wrote in a dry fashion – giving you credit for knowing 🙂 I hope you’re OK… Mario
eyesonu says:
March 5, 2014 at 6:27 pm
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Here is my prize satellite picture from several years ago. This shows the formation of hurricane Sandy… http://goldminor.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/the-spirit-of-the-atlantic-surveys-his-realm/
Mario, I omitted 🙂 🙂 :).
David Thomas says:
March 13, 2014 at 8:45 pm
Mario, I omitted 🙂 🙂 :).
+++++++help me follow your train of thought –I am not following… dense I am.