From NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
California which has long been suffering through a strong, multi-year drought, is finally beginning to see some much needed relief as a result of a recent series of storms that are part of a weather pattern known as the “Pineapple Express.”
The Pineapple Express is known as an atmospheric river. A large, slow-moving low pressure center off of the West Coast taps into tropical moisture originating from as far south as the Hawaiian Islands. This moisture is then channeled northeast by the subtropical jet steam towards the West Coast where the topography aids in squeezing out the moisture as air flows over the mountain ranges. Though these rains are certainly welcome and very much needed, they have also led to flooding and mudslides.
The first storm in the series arrived in the middle of last week, the week of January 2, and brought rain to northern and central California. The next storm occurred over the weekend of January 7 and 8 and brought heavy rains again to mostly northern and central California although southern California also received significant amounts. This event lead to widespread flooding, down trees and mudslides, especially in the Sierra Nevada where hurricane force winds occurred and Interstate 80 was closed due to a massive mudslide. Blizzard, winter storm, high wind, and flood warnings are already in effect as the third plume of moisture in this series is already making its way through the interior part of the state where several feet of snow are expected in the Sierra Nevada.
The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland has been used to monitor rainfall over the global Tropics for many years. By subtracting the long-term average rainfall or climatology, rainfall anomalies can be constructed to show deviations from the normal pattern.
TRMM is the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite that was in operation from 1997 to April 2015. It was designed to measure rainfall over the global Tropics using both passive and active sensors, including the first and at the time only precipitation radar in space. With its combination of passive microwave and active radar sensors, TRMM was used to calibrate rainfall estimates from other satellites to expand its coverage. TRMM’s successor, the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite was launched on February 27, 2014. TRMM and GPM are joint missions between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.
The TMPA analysis was used to find rainfall anomalies for the one month period ending on January 10, 2017. During this period, higher-than-average precipitation extended from over and east of the Hawaiian Islands northeastward into California and covers most of the state, eastern Oregon and much of the northern Rockies. Embedded within this region are areas of much higher than average rainfall located northeast of Hawaii and over parts of central California with most of this due to the recent, ongoing atmospheric river event.
In contrast to the current situation, a 2016 analysis for the same time period showed average to slightly below average rainfall had fallen over the central and interior parts of California during this period. Also evident in the analysis is the well-pronounced, massive area of well above average rainfall associated with last year’s El Nino where well above average sea surface temperatures stretched across the central, equatorial Pacific bringing much enhanced shower activity. That has now been replaced by La Nina conditions, which tend to suppress rainfall in this region as shown by this year’s anomalies.
The current plume of moisture is expected to subside by this Friday with much drier conditions forecast for the weekend.
On Jan. 11, 2017 at 2:59 a.m. EST, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center (NWS WPD) in College Park, Maryland noted “A series of Pacific storm systems will continue to impact the western U.S. with heavy rain and snow through the next couple days. One frontal system will move across the Great Basin toward the Rockies today, bringing widespread snow to much of the interior western U.S. Snow will persist across the central Rockies into Thursday as the front weakens overhead.”
The second low pressure system is forecast to affect California by late in the day on January 13, when it is expected to generate rain and mountain snow. Snow is expected over much of the Great Basin on January 14 with scattered rain showers farther south over portions of the Southwest.
The potential for heavy rain and snow across the West will persist as these two systems traverse the region.
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Having lived in Leadville, Co back in the 80’s I remember Tahoe got 12′ of snow from one storm. That spring we had mud slides in the Vail area.
Okay all you geniuses who keep carping on about more dams for California, first, please say where it is you want to put them. Only one location has been surveyed and planned that is of any consequence, but it was never built. The Auburn Dam. And good luck getting any other potential sites approved. Second, if you could build more dams, how do you plan to save 100% of the flow of early season flooding, such as we are seeing now? I’ll give you the answer…you can’t. Every multiuse dam is used temper the flow of water and save the folks downstream from uncontrolled flows.
In 1997, at the peak of the PE storms, Oroville dam was receiving flows in excess of 300,000 CFS (8500 CMS) and releasing 180,000 CFS (5000 CMS). They could have filled a bone dry reservoir in seven days, but the reservoirs aren’t bone dry. They’re typically held at something over 50% in case the rain doesn’t show up. So cut that time to 3.5 days to reach uncontrolled spill and a full reservoir to serve up electricity and water to the communities down stream that no longer would exist because of truly devastating flood.
For some reading about the realities of flooding in California and the 1997 flood in particular try this. file:///Users/paulbhull/Documents/Science/Floods/CNRFC%20-%20Storm%20Summaries%20-%20December%2026,%201996%20-%20January%203,%201997.webarchive
Or this, by the man in charge of flood control in 1997.
http://cepsym.org/Sympro1997/roos.pdf
pbh
In addition, the benefits to costs often do not justify a new dam (and many of the old ones either).
In most cases a lesser cost approach would be to buy the properties downstream and allow a return to natural conditions. Cities ought not be allowed to destroy far away places. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars
“…Okay all you geniuses who keep carping on about more dams for California, first, please say where it is you want to put them…”
Just downstream of properties owned by folks like Al Gore, Barbara Streisand, etc.
Put them where CA gets the most annual rainfall ie. northwest CA…
Here’s the average precipitation map for CA:
http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/californiaannualprecip.html
McComberBoy commented: “…Okay all you geniuses who keep carping on about more dams for California…”
You don’t need to be a genius to understand if you require more water storage you need a reservoir. There are many places reservoirs could be added. The rest is politics. Either manage the problem or go home.
And a reservoir for water supply doesn’t always require a dam be built across a valley.
Upground reservoirs can be built. When rain is plentiful, water is pumped from a stream to fill it. When rain is not plentiful, water is released back into the stream to supply the downstream demand.
(But I suspect that most of the problems encountered with building dams in California have to deal with property cost and, most likely, endangering the potential habit of some critter that hasn’t actually been spotted in the area in a hundred years or more.8-)
The real genius is the governor who gripes that Californians are using much more water than was projected 20 years ago while forgetting he’s welcomed over 10 million water-consuming illegals because they support his party.
+1 And they are financially supported to come!
We’d need to get creative and at no small expense. We’d need to create massive lowland holding basins as well as max out the perc-ground water mechanisms. There would have to be massive use of eminent domain. Lots of construction of encirclement levees. Yes it could be done of money were no object, there were no NIMBYs, no EIRs, and we didn’t have to worry about mosquitoes.
I’ve lived here 55 years and its business as usual. Sometimes it rains like crazy and you string a few of those wet storms together and you get floods. Shocking.
Slap a bow tie on to look nerdy as possible and babble vaguely scientific crap and, viola!
I’ve remarked previously on building recharge ponds with gates to split water as available to service down stream needs as required. They would be bedded with filtration sands and located to take advantage of permeable formations communicating with aquifers.
What is so politically contentious about storing water when it is intermittentently abundant. Why can’t the opposition sell the idea of this and other storage types? It’s also a flood control and fire control mechanism built into one. I guess their is no opposition or the swamp is even deeper than in Washington DC.
Where I lived the National Resource Defense Council sued our central California water district to keep it from dredging behind our dam that is 90% silted in. Fresh water is already spilling over spillways of the dams in many areas and it’s only the second week of January.
The usual atmospheric river (AR) runs quite a distance north. Seattle grumbles about their 40+ inches of rain, but they are at the southern end of the normal AR. As you move up the west coast you have Port Renfrew (138 in) and Gold River (112 in). Further North you get to Prince Rupert with 120 inches. Those of us in the Ketchikan area feel like we are usually in the deepest part of the atmospheric river. We quit talking about inches and began using feet of rainfall. Usually we are in the 12 to 14 feet of rain each year. There was that one year where we almost got to 18 feet.
We are having a dry spell. That is supposed to end this weekend. So I guess relief is on its way to California.
Haverwild , you’re right as soon as this High pressure area breaks down it will be back to normal, thanks for your stats.!
Oops, Haverwilde, sorry.( Man 18 feet ! Was there ever a DRY day?)
With the rain this weekend we should lose the ice.
Yes we have dry years, record for least rain was 1995, just a little over 7 feet that year.
We tend to exaggerate on occasion, average rainfall is 12 feet according to one source, 13 from another. So we split the difference and make 14 feet. 🙂 Do I have a future as a climate scientist, or what?
You fit right in 😉 ( 7 feet how do even live in that? I left western Europe in the 70’s because I hated rain, glad I moved to an semi arid area our average is ~11 inches!) When you look at the shape and the geological formations of Alaska and Northern BC they are just right to catch every bit of moisture coming of the Pacific, we live in the rain shadow of the Coastal Mountains very similar to all the arid areas in California and Washington etc.
The Cal governor has the authority to make and rescind drought declarations.
Keep in mind California is a revenue challenged state due to its massive underfunded state pensions and shaky debt-ridden finances.
Now everything about Cal’s governments from Sacramento down to the local water-utility district is extremely concerned about maintaining revenue flows. Revenue flows are needed to send payments to the unholy beast – CalPERS.
Moonbeam’s drought declaration over the past 3 years allows water utilities to exact punitive water rate measures against customers. Those punitive water rates have generated substantial upper end revenues for entities like la-la land’s municiple water district.
Further, drought declarations give more power to beaurecrats over the people.
Does anyone really think Cal’s watermelon pols are going to allow Moonbeam to declare the drought over?
The same thing in Australia. February 11th marks the 10th anniversary of Tim Flannery’s famous “even the rains that fall will not be enough to swell the river systems and dams.” Our dams have managed to fill a few times since then. We have wasted billions since on desalination plants and their upkeep. It is all pure scaremongering to deceive us of our freedoms and money.
Looks like California’s drought was not permanent after all, just like Australia’s droughts. Droughts do not last forever-the rains will return, typically with a vengeance, as has been the case from time immemorial. Just look at the line from one of Australia’s most loved songs “…of droughts and flooding rain” written over 100 years ago.
Time to wake up- all the climate alarmism is scaremongering with a truly insidious hidden agenda.
Really came to comment on the 1983 “atmospheric river”/pinapple express in comparison to the heading image. It was early in the satellite image era, but I vividly remember watching on my then retro black and white TV, having hoisted every valuable tool I could lift on to saw horses, and squished through the soggy carpet; a very different animal.
The headline image is a classic “comma” storm. A jolly good one to be sure, but pretty much the seventies norm for a major storm.
There was no comma in 1983. There was a huge trough, much like yesterday’s, but the ridge to the south was much better developed. These two Godzilla’s produced a very thin band of precipitation extending from Indonesia through Hawaii (for Norcal) that produced rain equal to the heaviest non shower rain yesterday for three days.
The trough slowly prevailed and drove the band saw south. As we ripped our carpets out in Novato under clear skies, they were building a plywood extension atop Glen Canyon Dam. We were hours away from losing Lake Powell…
It is interesting to visit the water management page for Shasta Lake in California. Comparing inflow, outflow, and elevation makes El Niño years stand out. The current inflow (01-10-2017) is 7th highest since 1997.
We do not have long, multi-year droughts in Southern California. We have desert that is peppered every 8 to 10 years with major rainfall events. This so-called 200 year long, unprecedented megadrought was what, 6 years? Well, it was 10 years long before that. Before the 1998 El Nino, about 10 years of not a drop. Now, you go to the Southern California Flood Control District discharge records of say San Gabriel flood control dam, which drains Angeles National Forest so is not apparently affected by urbanization, and from 1933 to 1969 El Nino it was hard to find a drop being discharged by that dam. The west years since 1969 are 3 times the rainfall prior to that. 1969 El Nino discharge from that dam not seen since records started in 1933.
Hi Donald,
We live directly downstream from the San Gabriel dam. (Well, Morris Dam intervenes, but San Gabriel is the next one up.) I’d be interested to know how you get access to the discharge records of which you speak. I have to question the report from the 1930’s. The historic flood of 1938 is well documented:
…on the night of March 2–3, 1938 a flood of 150,000 cu ft/s…poured out of the mountains and into San Gabriel Reservoir. San Gabriel Dam was able to knock about 40,000 cu ft/s,,,off the peak of the flood. Further downstream, Morris Reservoir was able to absorb roughly 30,000 cu ft/s, reducing the flood to less than half of what it would have been if not for the dams.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gabriel_Dam
I believe the water was over the spillway at one (maybe both) of these dams. Even with the dams, the flood took out the western span of El Puente Largo, downstream in Azusa.
All of this is perfectly consistent with your description of S. Cal as a desert with intermittent rainy seasons. And we’re having a good week. : > )
After the 1938 flood they began turning every creek, stream and river into a concrete channel and had completed the work by 1980. When the record 1982/1983 rainfall season hit, the destruction was much less severe than 1983, even though there was more development.
The Pineapple Express is delivering well for us here in Mariposa. My new Acurite weather station has measured over 14 inches for January so far. And 28 for the season. Amazing, considering last year was normal at 36 inches and the year before was 18 inches.
Thankfully, except for a couple of short power outages during some T-storms, we are not seeing flooding or high winds.
I’ve closely watched the radar the past two weeks, and the “river” seems to have been pointed right at us the whole time.
Anybody got a spare $5 billion so I can build a dam to store all this liquid gold?
Save your water-storage money. No need to build new reservoirs, according to genius Gov. Brown. The Bullet Train will solve everything. If that doesn’t work, spend the money on California’s own satellites. Now that is wise planning for the future. /sarc
In 1916 the professionals at the United States Geological Survey and the National Weather Service did not need neat names like “Pineapple Exprss” and “Atmospheric River”. They studied the January rains that devastated much of Southern California, especially San Diego, and cited “Storms” and “Lows” that originated near Hawaii.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/0426/report.pdf
Naming certain types of weather goes back centuries and is world-wide. Sirocco winds, ahmal winds, monsoons, Santa Ana…. people named winds and certain types of weather long before there was politically-correct idiocy.
I’m no longer in exceptional drought. The drought is slowly disappearing.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/weather/179632d1484228745-winter-thread-2016-17-northern-hemisphere-droughtmoniter.png
California always hogs the press with cries of doom and over-acted panic. Oregon is in a declared state of emergency but no one here is having any crying jags or beating a path to major network news because it just isn’t that big of a deal. We need to re-allocate state services. So we just do it without knashing our teeth in full view of whoever has media credentials.
I was in Yosemite Valley on Jan. 1, 1997. That December had been a big snow month, but the Pineapple Express washed it all down, with an 8500-9000 foot snow level.
For us, we were luckily, I had to work on the 2nd so we left fairly early that morning. We had been watching flooding in Oregon and Northern California on the TV while we ate pizza in the Camp Curry cafeteria before we went to bed not having any idea we were next.
There was quite a bit of snow on the ground still when we retired, but there was no snow, but 4 inches of water in the parking lot when we left. It had been raining heavily all night long, and there were waterfalls everywhere, Glacier Point above us had an almost continuous width stream of water falling from it. We stopped at Yosemite Falls on our way out, it was huge and loud, and I took some pictures before we left.
We had to ford a couple of streams that were flowing 4 to 6 inches deep and 10 to 20 feet wide, the water had overflowed the culverts going under the road that routed the normally tiny creeks. Good thing we were in my lifted F150! We made it out about an hour before the roads were closed, saving us an unwanted extra 3 day stay in one of 3 stranded areas in the valley.
This year they took precautions and closed the valley to non-essential park personnel.
Question: Is the Pineapple Express (Maui Monsoon) associated with either the La Nina or the El Nino conditions? Just curious. Thanks
Almost all of the biggest storms to hit California/PNW occur during negative ENSO conditions, and close to or at the solar minimum.
If the Pineapple Express starts in Hawaii and finishes in California it is just a localised weather event in the USA.
Good point, this.
Much like the warmunists who want to say that the Medieval Warming Period was only local, then re-define local to mean pretty much the whole planet.
The storm continues on eastward into the heart of the US. Take a look at Colorado and points east. …http://www.intellicast.com/Local/WxMap.aspx?location=USCO0105
Be carefull with what you wish, you might get it.
and it’s not over with yet…
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/610prcp.new.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/814prcp.new.gif
The meridionality is there. This is negative PDO and negative ENSO. The thing is, the arctic troughs are reaching very far equatorward. These components in the time series are pushing the mean “climate bands” equatorward. Wait … it was not supposed to do that … we’ll never see snow again … Alta California will turn into Baja California. Yeah, I know, weather not climate. But these time series components are tweaking the climate just a little bit and not in the poleward climate zone direction.
v’