Weather news of note …

The weather on the west coast has turned upside down. As of today, Los Angeles has recorded over 9 inches of rain since February 17th, in addition to 6.8 inches during the January storms. Overall, the area has recorded more than 11 inches in February, and over 33 inches since last July 1st. LA’s rain this month is more than what the Atlanta area saw during last September’s hurricanes.

The storm has caused at least six deaths, has spawned tornadoes (unusual for California) and has forced the condemnation of many houses because of weather damage.

Meanwhile, what we usually think of as the rainy Pacific Northwest has been unusually dry. Both Seattle and Spokane, Washington have gone 12 days without rain, and Portland, Oregon has been dry for 11 days.

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Meteorologists in Russia are being told to issue better forecasts … or else. According to this article, the mayor of Moscow has threatened to impose fines on weather forecasters.

Moscow Mayor Juri Luschkov said: “Weather forecasters in our city and the surrounding area will be held responsible for financial losses that the city incurs through their incorrect prognoses.”

If the Gwinnett County Commission put in a similar rule here, I guess I would be out of business.

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A lot of folks visited the site during the thunderstorms we had earlier in the week. I tried to keep up with the warnings, and posted the severe weather warnings and observations of hail in the area. Obviously, there’s no way I could keep up with what you could find on TV. I had a chance to watch Glenn Burns and David Chandley on Channel 2 report on the storm, and their ability to zoom in to the neighborhood level with close-in radar was amazing.

On the other hand, under normal circumstances, neither TV nor radio provide the depth of statistics you’ll find here, anytime you want it.

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I hope you got your golf in on Tuesday or Wednesday. After today’s rains, expect better weather, although slightly cooler, through Sunday afternoon, when moisture returns through Monday. Then, we get cooler, but drier weather for the rest of the week.

Predicted temps are not as cold as projected earlier in the week. I saw a few preliminary forecasts of freezing rain in early March that have now disappeared from forecasts, and after looking at the computer models tonight, it looks like when it’s wet, we are going to be warmer, and when it’s cold, we are going to be dry.

But, keep in mind that it’s difficult to be exact about precipitation more than 3 days in advance. It will definitely be colder than normal through the first part of March, and we’ll just have to wait and see if that brings snow or ice.

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This weekend’s weather focal point is in California, where the semi-dormant El Nino is producing torrents or rain in the Los Angeles area. Here are some 24 hour rain amounts in the area, as of 3 PM Pacific Time on February 11th:

Los Angeles Airport - 1.47 inches
Van Nuys - 2.46 inches
Malibu - 1.52 inches
Simi Valley - 1.87 inches
San Diego - .98 inches

The picture below shows the storm centered on Los Angeles:

Meanwhile. on the east coast, the rainy weather on Wednesday moved up the northeast coast, producing snow in some areas of New England. A high pressure system over Texas and a cold air mass from Canada are in control, producing the high wind gusts we saw today and yesterday. Look for the winds to moderate Saturday, and a return to seasonable temperatures, before the rain now in California reaches our area for almost another inch of rain on Sunday.

Although a cold blast of Arctic air is going to affect the North Central states next week, the Southern branch of the jetstream will protect the Atlanta area, and we will see more or less normal February temperatures during the week next week, with the next chance of rain coming the weekend of February 19th.

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