The title of this post is a famous quote from the cowardly lion in the 1939 movie the Wizard of Oz. Readers may remember this film was one of the very first to show “climate disruption” manifesting itself as extreme weather, as regular garden-variety tornadoes in Kansas turned ugly and started transporting people into alternate universes.
I thought that quote was rather appropriate for the kind of weather I’m experiencing in Las Vegas today, on the morning after the ICCC9 conference. This is the view from my hotel room window:
This view is looking southeast at the West end of the McCarran International Airport (KLAS). You can see puddles on the runway and on some of the surrounding land plus the rain shafts coming from the clouds. For those of you that prefer data over pictures, here’s some:
source: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=vef&sid=LAS&num=48
Of particular interest is the graph in the upper right. Note that it registers .08 inches of precipitation this morning but also smaller amounts of precipitation going all the way back to Tuesday.We’ve had sort of a monsoon season this week.
Before I went to the ICCC9 conference, a number of people wrote to me expressing concern that climate skeptics headed to Las Vegas in the middle of July were risking being embarrassed by a heat wave and potentially new high temperature records being set.
That’s why I wrote this post about records and possibilities that might occur during the conference.
But instead, rather than heat waves we got cooler weather as a result of rain and clouds.
In case you’re wondering whether or not the rainfall today set a new record I’ve done that work for you and look it up at the local National Weather Service office. The table below shows that for July 10 we fall significantly short so far. Of course the day is not over.
source: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/vef/climate/LasVegasClimateBook/July%20Normal%20and%20Record%20Precipitation.pdf
While not unprecedented, it is a rather unusual weather event to have rain in July in Las Vegas. It’s almost as if all those climate skeptics coming to Las Vegas had some sort of a symbiotic Gore effect.
I have some other observations to depose later but for now I really need some coffee.
Watts effect?
I would never be so vain as to consider such a name.
And the cyclists in the Tour de France are slipping and sliding all over the place because of the wet roads.
No, it’s common for Lost Wages to get some rain in July and August, and sometimes a lot; search ‘Las Vegas monsoon season’.
Wait for the Polar Vortex next week for more unusual weather.
A little rain in the desert is a lot. The ground does not usually allow it to soak in, so it sits. And makes mud!
Did Algore show up? 😉
Nice. Cleans the air. Keeps the dust down. We could use some of that.
Seems like the ICCC9 went well.
Actually, this is the monsoon season in Las Vegas. July and August are the prime months for the southwest monsoon season (google it) and we see a shift in wind and weather patterns. Most of the year in Las Vegas, the winds and the weather come from the west, but in the summer monsoon season, the wind and weather predominantly come from the southeast, bringing moist(er) air from the gulf.
Thunderstorms this time of year are not unusual. We also get a lot of virga in the summer, too.
Watts….Your not in Kansas anymore!
Watts on second?
July is usually our hottest month in Toronto. It has been rather cool so far. No extreme heat alert days called yet.
The Monsoon actually made it to the Bay Area over the weekend. Got enough sprinkles to turn the dust on the windshield into mud. Although ENSO appears to be flailing a bit (which stinks given the CA drought) I suspect that it may have spiked the Monsoon this season.
Well, a warmer world does bring more needed precipitation to arid and parched lands. How much longer can we hold on to the benefits of our slight warming, before cooling takes them all away. Again! Be happy! GK
The forecasting websites are predicting days in the 70’s and lows in the 50’s for Wichita for up to 3 or 4 consecutive days next week, which is quite unusual, but not completely unheard of for mid July (enough to slow down the production in our vegetable garden for sure, which is the opposite of past years when it was just too hot).
In fact, the wave of cool air coming next week is supposed to cover most of the country east of the Rockies. Forecasters think it’s once again due to the so-called Polar Vortex (who says it takes a vacation during the Summer apparently?), though I’ve heard of Piers Corbyn saying we’re right now in the transition to the meridional jet stream based Little Ice Age pattern that we may be stuck with for the foreseeable future.
This is the Gaia principle in action.
Gaia H/T to the skeptics!
I once had a client in Las Vegas. One day I called their office and the phone went unanswered. A little later I called back, it rang repeatedly and I was just about to hang up when someone answered. I asked where everybody was. She said “It’s raining, we’re all outside watching!” She went on to explain that they get so little rain that, when they do, the roads turn into ice rinks – and the real fun begins.
I love flying into places like Vegas and Phoenix. When you look down on the desert landscape, all you can think is “It’s all shaped by water!”
At one time in the past there were no speed limits on rural open paved highways in Nevada. Drove NW of Vegas once between 90 & 100 mph and could see why, as the road was wide and finished flush with the desert and even if I had left the highway would probably only have known it from the giant trail of dust (provided I avoided the occasional Cactus). This unlike Montana which on many open speed rural paved highways were in bad shape and I was uncomfortable at the time driving 60mph.
Vegas is in a bowl with mountains on all sides. When you get even a little bit of rain the streets can flood pretty quickly.
JimS says:
July 10, 2014 at 11:11 am
July is usually our hottest month in Toronto. It has been rather cool so far. No extreme heat alert days called yet.
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Have your jackets and sweaters handy it’s going to get cooler still next week according to the forecast. In fact the unseasonably cool weather is supposed to last through the end of the month for you up there in Toronto and everyone here in the US in the great lakes and midwest. Supposed to extend down to Texas even. Doesn’t bother this Hoosier a bit. I like highs in the 70’s (F.) and lows in the low 50’s or even high 40’s.
http://www.local2.ca/ssm/viewarticle.php?id=15416
I once examined the null hypothesis that the probability of setting a single specific type of weather record (high temperature, low temperature, precipitation, etc.) on a specific date was inversely proportional to the number of years for which the weather records for that date were recorded.
For example, if 110 years of daily rainfall data is available for July 4th at a particular location, the probability of setting a rainfall record *this* July 4th at that location is 1 in 110. (At the end of the day there will be exactly 1 record rainfall datum in the 111 years, and 110 non-record rainfall datums.)
Framed this way, the hypothesis is amenable to statistical analysis.
Similarly there will be a 110 in 111 chance there will not be a record for that date, and a (110/111)^365 ~= 0.0368 chance (3.68%) of no one-day record rainfall event *all year*. Corollary: with a 110 year weather record, the chance that a one-day rainfall record will be set at least once in the year is 96.32%. [Psychological corollary: THAT will be the day everyone remembers.]
Every time I’ve tested this with actual weather data (which I have done with temperature and precipitation data for my home towns of Richmond, VA and Amarillo, TX) I have been unable to disprove the null hypothesis.
In other words, the null hypothesis, which implies that the chances of a record weather event have nothing to do with the climate, and a LOT to do with how long the weather record is, has not yet been invalidated by long-term changes in the climate, which would shift the frequency of one-day record weather events.
Unusual weather is not unusual. What is unusual is to understand how usual it is.
Corrigendum: ” the probability of setting a rainfall record *this* July 4th at that location is 1 in 111.”
@Tadchem – Richmond and Amarillo? Your living locales are eclectic! 😉
Still got that 72oz steak challenge in Amarillo?
Hmm…
usually the weather is different,
even when it is the same which is unusual.
TomB says:
July 10, 2014 at 12:01 pm
I love to fly over the desert with Google Earth (anyone can do it anytime) and it is very clear that water have formed the desert floor. There are water runs everywhere.
Here’s a stat you might find useful: what percentage of the year do we experience “normal” weather , I.e. rhe average +/- 20%? (More than 20% we might consider not “normal”.)
There should be some stat that reflects normal local climate variability to counter the ridiculous claim that every big event is a sign of global climate change. A bar graph of (for example) max temps per day during the pre CAGW years of 1945 to 1975 would define what normal is/was. Then you could see where today fits, maybe as a percentile of a “normal” variation.