Boris
01-05-2005, 06:30 PM
I love this kind of stuff.
Threat of perfect storm in the air
THREE NASTY SYSTEMS TO CONVERGE ON U.S.
By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON - Moisture-laden storms from the north, west and south are likely to converge on much of America over the next several days in what could be a once-in-a-generation onslaught, meteorologists said Tuesday.
If the gloomy computer models at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center are right, we will see this trio:
• The ``Pineapple Express,'' a series of warm, wet storms heading east from Hawaii, drenching Southern California and the far Southwest, which already are beset with heavy rain and snow. It could cause flooding, avalanches and mudslides.
• An ``Arctic Express,'' a mass of cold air chugging south from Alaska and Canada, bringing frigid air and potentially heavy snow and ice to the usually mild-wintered Pacific Northwest.
• A warm, moist storm system from the Gulf of Mexico drenching the already saturated Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys. Forecasters also expect heavy river flooding and springlike tornadoes.
All three are likely to meet somewhere in the nation's midsection and cause more problems, sparing only areas east of the Appalachian Mountains.
``You're talking a two- or three-times-a-century type of thing,'' said prediction center senior meteorologist James Wagner, who has been forecasting storms since 1965. ``It's a pattern that has a little bit of everything.''
Forecasters said the Bay Area can expect lower temperatures and lots of rain from the storm.
The exact time and place of the predicted one-two-three punch changes slightly with every new forecast. But in its weekly ``hazards assessment,'' the National Weather Service alerted meteorologists and disaster specialists Tuesday that flooding and frigid weather could start as early as Friday and stretch into early next week, if not longer.
``It's a situation that looks pretty potent,'' said Ed O'Lenic, the Climate Prediction Center's operations chief. ``A large part of North America looks like it's going to be affected.''
In Northern California, there will be more rain, with snow in the mountains, said Rick Canepa, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Monterey Office.
``We're easily talking a few inches of rain in the valleys that will translate to many feet of snow in the mountains,'' Canepa said.
It will be a few degrees chillier than normal in the Bay Area, with lows over the weekend in the mid-30s to mid-40s.
The storms also will increase beach swells from the normal of about 10 feet to 12 to 14 feet, Canepa said.
``It looks like a pattern that's actually going to stick around possibly out 10 days, until the middle of the month,'' Canepa said.
Kelly Redmond, the deputy director of the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, where an unusual 18 inches of snow is on the ground already, said the expected heavy Western rains could cause avalanches. Since Oct. 1, Southern California and western Arizona have had three to four times the average precipitation for the area.
The last time a similar situation seemed to be brewing -- especially in the West -- was in January 1950, O'Lenic said. That month, 21 inches of snow hit Seattle, killing 13 people in an extended freeze, and Sunnyvale got a tornado.
The same scenario played out in 1937, when there was record flooding in the Ohio River Valley, said Wagner, of the prediction center.
Meteorologists caution that their predictions are only as good as their computer models. Forecasts are less accurate the further into the future they look. ``The models tend to overdo the formation of these really exciting weather formations for us,'' said Mike Wallace, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist.
Yet the more Wallace studied the models, the more he became convinced that something wicked was coming this way.
``It all fits together nicely,'' Wallace said. ``There's going to be weather in the headlines this weekend, that's for sure.''
The converging storms are being steered by high-pressure ridges off Alaska and Florida and are part of a temporary change in world climate conditions, O'Lenic said.
Threat of perfect storm in the air
THREE NASTY SYSTEMS TO CONVERGE ON U.S.
By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON - Moisture-laden storms from the north, west and south are likely to converge on much of America over the next several days in what could be a once-in-a-generation onslaught, meteorologists said Tuesday.
If the gloomy computer models at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center are right, we will see this trio:
• The ``Pineapple Express,'' a series of warm, wet storms heading east from Hawaii, drenching Southern California and the far Southwest, which already are beset with heavy rain and snow. It could cause flooding, avalanches and mudslides.
• An ``Arctic Express,'' a mass of cold air chugging south from Alaska and Canada, bringing frigid air and potentially heavy snow and ice to the usually mild-wintered Pacific Northwest.
• A warm, moist storm system from the Gulf of Mexico drenching the already saturated Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys. Forecasters also expect heavy river flooding and springlike tornadoes.
All three are likely to meet somewhere in the nation's midsection and cause more problems, sparing only areas east of the Appalachian Mountains.
``You're talking a two- or three-times-a-century type of thing,'' said prediction center senior meteorologist James Wagner, who has been forecasting storms since 1965. ``It's a pattern that has a little bit of everything.''
Forecasters said the Bay Area can expect lower temperatures and lots of rain from the storm.
The exact time and place of the predicted one-two-three punch changes slightly with every new forecast. But in its weekly ``hazards assessment,'' the National Weather Service alerted meteorologists and disaster specialists Tuesday that flooding and frigid weather could start as early as Friday and stretch into early next week, if not longer.
``It's a situation that looks pretty potent,'' said Ed O'Lenic, the Climate Prediction Center's operations chief. ``A large part of North America looks like it's going to be affected.''
In Northern California, there will be more rain, with snow in the mountains, said Rick Canepa, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Monterey Office.
``We're easily talking a few inches of rain in the valleys that will translate to many feet of snow in the mountains,'' Canepa said.
It will be a few degrees chillier than normal in the Bay Area, with lows over the weekend in the mid-30s to mid-40s.
The storms also will increase beach swells from the normal of about 10 feet to 12 to 14 feet, Canepa said.
``It looks like a pattern that's actually going to stick around possibly out 10 days, until the middle of the month,'' Canepa said.
Kelly Redmond, the deputy director of the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, where an unusual 18 inches of snow is on the ground already, said the expected heavy Western rains could cause avalanches. Since Oct. 1, Southern California and western Arizona have had three to four times the average precipitation for the area.
The last time a similar situation seemed to be brewing -- especially in the West -- was in January 1950, O'Lenic said. That month, 21 inches of snow hit Seattle, killing 13 people in an extended freeze, and Sunnyvale got a tornado.
The same scenario played out in 1937, when there was record flooding in the Ohio River Valley, said Wagner, of the prediction center.
Meteorologists caution that their predictions are only as good as their computer models. Forecasts are less accurate the further into the future they look. ``The models tend to overdo the formation of these really exciting weather formations for us,'' said Mike Wallace, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist.
Yet the more Wallace studied the models, the more he became convinced that something wicked was coming this way.
``It all fits together nicely,'' Wallace said. ``There's going to be weather in the headlines this weekend, that's for sure.''
The converging storms are being steered by high-pressure ridges off Alaska and Florida and are part of a temporary change in world climate conditions, O'Lenic said.