Spring Deluge

Nearly everyone along the Wasatch Front from Draper north is getting a good soaking this morning and for that we can all be thankful.  A dump like this will really increase the soil moisture and help with the gardens and the lawns.

Plus, it is snowing again in the mountains.

Source: Snowbird

Many of the observing sites at the resorts have been shut down for the summer, but our site near the base of Alta shows a temperature of 32.5ºF with about 0.32 inches of snow-water equivalent since midnight and 0.56 inches in the past 24-hours.  It's probably cream on crust at upper elevations, but one shouldn't complain in May.

The Record Snows of Mount Shasta, Redux

Regular readers will recall the overhyped and inaccurate predictions of record snowfall (218 inches in four days) on Mount Shasta last winter which we discussed in two posts (Is a US Snowfall Record in Jeopardy and Mt. Shasta Update).  The storm that still holds the record for single-storm accumulation occurred on Mt. Shasta from 13–19 February 1959 (more below).  An article examining this storm (Hansen et al. 2013) is included in the inaugural edition of the Journal of Operational Meteorology, a publication of the National Weather Association.

Unfortunately, the article is payrolled except for National Weather Association members, but if you aren't a member, you can have a looksee at the abstract above and get the gist.

There does, however, seem to be some confusion concerning the record status of the February 1959 Mount Shasta storm.  Hansen et al. (2013) suggest that the 4.8 m (189 inches) of snow that fell on Mt. Shasta was unmatched and unbroken until the early 1990s, citing an web posting by Freeman (2011) for this statement.  Freeman (2011) states that "This storm was credited with producing the most snow in a single storm in North America until the late 1990s when an eastern state beat the record (de Blij and Muller)." I suspect the de Blij and Muller reference is for their book Physical Geography: The Global Environment, which I'll need to get at the library, but suspect there might simply be confusion between point and areal accumulations. I am unaware of any single-storm accumulation at any single location in the east approaching 189 inches, but the total area accumulations in their storms can be very large.  

Weather historian Christopher Burt includes Mt. Shasta as the single-storm record, but notes that a reliable measurement of 194 inches in four days was made at the Norden railway depot in the Sierra Nevada from April 20–23, 1880.

News Bits

I thought I'd take a moment to report three items of interest making news this past week.  

1. Quantum Leap.  First, as discussed at the Capital Weather Gang, a major infusion of computer power is in the works for the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), which is receiving support from the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 (a.k.a., the Sandy Supplemental) to increase their computer capacity from 213 teraflops to 2,600 teraflops by the 2015 fiscal year.  The Capital Weather Gang called it a game changer, so I'll call it a quantum leap.  No matter what it is called, it is a badly needed infusion of computer power that will hopefully be leveraged to produce a significant advance in weather prediction capabilities for the nature. 

Source: allposters.com

2. Strategic Planning.  Curiously, as NCEP gets this infusion of computer power, this week also saw the release of Forecast for the Future: Assuring the Capacity of the National Weather Service, a report from the National Academy of Public Administration.  I gave it a quick skim, however, and didn't see anything too earth shattering.  Given that the NWS is still living off the vapors of the Modernization effort of the 1990s, lets go after a quantum leap not just in terms of NCEP computing but across the agency.  Such an investment would not only benefit the public, but also a growing private-sector weather enterprise.  

3. 97% again.  As reported in the Guardian, another study has come out showing that ~97% of climate scientists/climate papers/climate abstracts conclude that climate change is caused by human activity.  More specifically, the latest study by Cook et al. (2013) finds that "among abstracts expressing a position on [anthropogenic global warming], 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."  I find it remarkable that 97% keeps coming up in these surveys.  There must be a conspiracy...

Avenues Rainbows

There was a great rainbow display this evening in the Avenues with very distinct primary and secondary bows.  The primary is the brighter, inside bow, but unfortunately, the pot of gold was located just a bit east of campus.  That's a pity as we're always looking for more funding.

To compensate for my poor photographic skills and the fact that it was nearly impossible to take a picture given that wind was coming from the rainbow's direction and driving rain into the lens, I've doctored the photo below just a bit to help with contrast.

There was some evidence of supernumerary bows on the inside of the primary bow.  I tried to get a good photo, but alas, it was beyond my skills.

For you weather and optics geeks, Les Cowley's Atmospheric Optics site is the cat's meow.  He has a great page on rainbows.  I just learned that the dark area between the primary and secondary rainbow is known as Alexander's dark band and is named for Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described the effect in 200 AD.  Cool.  

Smokin'

If you think it has been hot in Salt Lake with maximum temperatures of 93ºF and 89ºF the past two days, it could be worse.  Temperatures in parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota reached or eclipsed 100ºF yesterday.

The ramp up to the 106ºF in Sioux City, Iowa is most impressive.  The call letters for this station are KSUX, and I think it is safe to say that the weather there SUX at present.

It was less than two weeks ago that it was snowing in Iowa (see From snow to 100 degrees, this is Iowa | Weather - KCCI Home).

Ah, the joys of spring!

Records and Rain

Yesterday's high of 93ºF broke the previous record for the date of 92ºF set in 1996.  The relative humidity dipped to as low as 11%.  We need rain.

There's a slight chance of thunderstorms the next couple of days, but then a bonafide trough coming in for Friday and Saturday (timing TBD).

Keep your fingers crossed.  We could use the rain.