Seriously, It’s A Big Deal

Forget for a moment our shortage of potable water. Native Southern Californians pine for cloudy, rainy days. I see it in neighbors and co-workers. They’re excited about Friday’s potential.

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You wouldn’t believe how much time I’ve spent looking at the forecast for Friday. There’s a chance for rain in Palm Springs, a rarity in May.

Tiny. Miniscule. Little. Your choice. Not much is going to fall. Think interval wipers.

It’s a big deal to my viewers, so it’s a big deal to me.

Forget for a moment our shortage of potable water. Native Southern Californians pine for cloudy, rainy days. I see it in neighbors and co-workers. They’re excited about Friday’s potential.

I moved to California for the opposite reason, but I’m willing to play along. I understand.

I face a new problem in Palm Springs that didn’t exist for me in Connecticut. Our valley is small and the mid-range weather models have a tough time seeing it. Their grids are too coarse.

Usually Connecticut’s weather is homogenous. Everyone gets similar weather. Not so for the Coachella Valley versus its neighbors.

Approaching storms are obvoius. It’s easy to say LA and the OC will get a few sprinkles Thursday and more rain Friday. That doesn’t mean any of it will reach Palm Springs. We’re nestled between mountains.

Even nearby spots live Riverside and Moreno Valley will likely see rain. They’re on the other side of some tall mountains, the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa ranges.

Yesterday, I got to use the high res CANSAC WRF run. Its 2 kilometer horizontal resolution makes a huge difference. It only goes out 72 hours, so it’s only now becoming useful. Today, the 15 hour HRRR will add more insight.

There’s more to forecasting in the desert than I expected. More wind to consider. More storms that get close, but miss. It’s very intricate. More microscale than mesoscale.

It’s a lot of fun.

How Random Is Life?

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A little asteroid just whizzed by Earth. Not terribly large. Estimates say 20-60 feet long. 2015 HD-1 is one of billions of rocks randomly orbiting the Sun. Tonight it came really close to us.

With asteroids, astronomers calculate the object’s closest distance from Earth and compare that with our distance from the Moon. 2015 HD-1 was only .17 LD (Lunar distances) from our planet. Roughly 40,000 miles.

Astronomers have only known about this interplanetary speck a few days. An automated sky search run by the University of Arizona found it first. It was magnitude 20.1. Very dim.

Sixty feet long isn’t enough to do the Earth in. A sixty footer would probably break up in the atmosphere. Much of it would burn, but plenty of large rocky fragments would fall to earth. And there’d be a destructive sonic boom.

When an asteroid exploded over Siberia a few years it was flying glass from the sonic boom that injured nearly 1,500.

We didn’t know it existed until Saturday. How random is life?

Do We Really Want To Be China?

Here in SoCal pollution was so bad it was a national joke. Nearby mountains disappeared in a brownish haze. No more.

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A favorite target of the political right is the EPA. Just yesterday in a hearing with the EPA administrator, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said:

Sessions: When we go to our states, the group we have the most complaints about from our constituents — whether it’s highway people, whether it’s farmers, whether it’s energy people — is the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s an [agency of] extraordinary overreach. And you apparently are unaware of the pushback that’s occurring in the real world.

Of course many businesses dislike the EPA. It’s an agency made to primarily say, “No!” In this case, no is a good thing.

Wikipedia summarizes some of the changes to what we breath from 1970 to 2006:

  • carbon monoxide emissions fell from 197 million tons to 89 million tons
  • nitrogen oxide emissions fell from 27 million tons to 19 million tons
  • sulfur dioxide emissions fell from 31 million tons to 15 million tons
  • particulate emissions fell by 80%
  • lead emissions fell by more than 98%

As a kid growing up in Queens I watched soot from dozens of chimneys as the apartment buildings in my neighborhood burned their trash every afternoon. Today we’d be shocked. Then, it was standard operating procedures.

Here in SoCal pollution was so bad it was a national joke. The photo at the top of this entry is Downtown Los Angeles in the 70s. Nearby mountains disappeared in a brownish haze.

No more.

Our air still needs help, but the trend is in the right direction. Today, much of SoCal’s 21st Century pollution actually floats over the Pacific from China and the rest of industrialized Asia.

It costs more money to keep emissions down. In business that cost comes directly from profits. No wonder business hates the EPA.

But, do we really want to be China?

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Who Said I’d Be Bored?

Some computer models show around an inch of rain in Palm Springs by Monday morning. That’s a lot in a place that floods easily. I spent time tonight explaining ‘washes’ to the tourists and snowbirds watching.

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I’m forecasting the weather for the Coachella Valley at KMIR. The physics of weather are the same, but there are different tools to use.

Satellite imagery is a lot more important here. Anything coming from the Pacific is out of radar range nearly all the way to the coast.

I’ve been looking at a plume of moisture from north of Hawaii curving up the Pacific then back down the West Coast. It’s the big weekend weather maker for SoCal. The only way to see it is from the bird.

Saturday, while it’s raining in LA and San Diego, there will be partly cloudy skies over Palm Springs with a few sprinkles. We are protected by steep mountains, some over 11,000 feet tall.

On Sunday the moisture heads in from the south. No protection there! That’s when we get the bulk of our rain.

Some computer models show around an inch of rain in Palm Springs by Monday morning. That’s a lot in a place that floods easily. I spent time tonight explaining ‘washes’ to the tourists and snowbirds watching.

On top of the rain we’ve got wind for Saturday and as much as a foot and a half of snow in some mountain locations.

Who said I’d be bored forecasting here?

I Love You NASA, But…

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I was just reading a release on the progress of NASA’s New Horizons mission. It was sent toward Pluto back when Pluto was still a planet. It gets there this summer.

New Horizons is still over 100 million miles out, but closing fast. Low-res images of two of Pluto’s four moons are coming in. It’s an amazing achievement.

But why?

Actually, I know why. Space technology creates many well paying jobs. It’s a political landmine to cut.

Unfortunately, there is almost no practical payoff to space. All the good discoveries happened decades ago. I’ve been hearing about pharmaceuticals and metallurgy in space for the last forty years! Don’t hold your breath.

i19_025588I don’t know what they do on the International Space Station on a daily basis, but it’s the modern version of a ham radio operator’s basement from the sixties. And, it’s expensive.

What we need is to better explore Earth. We need to understand and leverage the natural power around us. There is untapped energy in tides and ocean currents. There is great heat at the center of the Earth.

The same types of skills NASA employs for space are needed for Earth! Only the mission need be changed.

Could harnessing heat from the Earth’s core be any more difficult that sending a mission to Pluto?

This is a pipe dream. I don’t see it happening. I wish it would.

There are so many bright and wonderfully talented people at NASA. Their accomplishments are way beyond mind boggling. They’re just solving the wrong problems.

Rain For SoCal, Again

Once again we’re right on the 3-hour flash flood line. I expect some flooding. Homes in burn areas will be threatened by mudslides. A few inches of rain probable through this region.

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Helaine saw the hashtag #stormageddon touted on TV a few minutes ago. SoCal is bracing… again. Is there some weird secret competition with the East on weather?

“Yeah… well… rain!”

Actually this storm looks very un-SoCalish. The radar from Vandenberg AFB shows a squall line out front. The HRRR agrees. The squalls remain intact as the line slides down the coast. Embedded thunderstorms are entirely possible.

We’ll have rain most of the day Friday though the bulk falls between 4-7 AM. We’re right on the 3-hour flash flood line, again. I expect some flooding. Homes in burn areas will be threatened by mudslides. A few inches of rain probable through this region.

wind15min_t410m_f0945The heaviest wind comes with the heaviest of the rain. Winds will gust out of the south. The wind map to the left highlights the higher ground where winds will be strongest.

If there’s snow for our two nearby tall peaks it will happen late in the storm. My second winter and no white so far.

Father north, San Francisco proper has gotten 2-4″ of rain with some windward mountainsides getting over 7″.

So far, this is the awful winter everyone was praying for!

Rain Is Different Here

In the burn areas, places that had fires in the last year or two, it will take much less for canyon walls to fall. The scrubby growth that held everything together was burned away.

People in scenic canyon homes are usually OK, not always. They always say they’ll rebuild.

When a storm approaches the Southern California coast, as is the case tonight, it’s a big deal!

Thank you weather.cod.edu

Rain leads the news in SoCal just like snow does in the Northeast.

Every area has some sort of natural Achilles heel. Ours is rain. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it.

This is a semi-desert climate. We get our paltry rain in a very few large doses. The water is good for reducing fire danger and irrigation, but most of SoCal’s water comes from the Sierras, hundreds of miles away. Rain at my house isn’t quite as important as it seems.

The latest computer guidance says we can take around an inch of rain in an hour, up to three inches in six hours before we flood. Close call.

In the burn areas, places that had fires in the last year or two, it will take much less for canyon walls to fall. The scrubby growth that held everything together has burned away.

People in beautiful homes with spectacular views are usually OK, not always. Sometimes their houses fall. Other times something falls on their houses. They always say they’ll rebuild.

Irvine has a few large drainage channels carrying runoff to the sea. Always empty. That will change.

No snow for Santiago Peak–visible from the bedroom window. A quick estimate keeps the rain/snow line above 10,000 feet–higher than these mountains.

NERD ALERT — Feel free to skip the next paragraph.

In Connecticut I’d look for the 850mb 0C isotherm as a good rain/snow indicator. During this storm it will be close to 10C over me. These storms tend to be convective–so cellular. Rain amounts will vary greatly city-to-city.

Hopefully the storm’s mightest punch will be in the Sierras. If you start hearing of little mountain towns with a new feet of snow you’ll know we hit the jackpot!

Oh–people here can’t drive in rain. I’ll leave it there.

I’m Studying Up On Mars

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Tomorrow will be busy for me. We’ve got two slooh.com shows about the close encounter between Comet Siding Spring and Mars.

I host, surrounded by cometary experts. I still have to know the science.

This is an unprecedented event. We’ve never seen a comet get so close to a planet.

That worries NASA.

Actually, let me modify that. Their worry is later.

First, cards on the table. NASA is always interested in ‘visitors’ to our part of the solar system. But there’s a lot more buzz for Comet Siding Spring C/2013 A1. It will come close to Mars and to billions of dollars of hardware circling Mars, plus rovers on-the-ground.

Comet-Siding-Spring-Trajectory-Mars-br2Siding Spring is speeding in from the Oort Cloud, a theorized mass of billions of comets 100,000 times farther from the Sun than we are. It will zip by Mars at a closing speed 35 miles per second–186,000 mph.

The comet misses Mars. We’ve all got that, right?

Later, Mars passes through the debris field left in the comet’s wake. Scientists expect some fragments will be drawn toward the planet where we have satellites and stuff.

NASA’s official “Best Estimate” says the particles miss. Their conservative estimate says 90-100 minutes after the closest approach a stream of small debris will come, then quickly go.

Our satellites all had their orbits disrupted, putting them on the far side of Mars when this happens.

T-0 is officially called the “time of the particle fluence center.”

NASA is praying one or more of the rovers will take a photo or two of the comet brightly shining through the Martian atmosphere. That’s pretty damn cool. It will likely happen and will surely include a part of the rover, lest we forget whodunit.

We’ll also get images from whatever sensors can be turned around on satellites.

I’m not sure how much of this is actually advancing science and how much is showing off. An opportunity and challenge like this shouldn’t be squandered, but this is more photo-op than anything. After all, we’re landing on a comet next month!

Everything is now set. It’s too late for change to matter. Any debris that hits the Red Planet was jettisoned off the comet years ago.

Distance and time are very different in space. You can’t think in minutes and seconds or inches and feet. Our best orbital predictions say C/2013 A1 won’t be back for around a million years.

Smoke Is Scary

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Helaine called from the road. She wanted to tell me about the Silverado Canyon Fire. At eight miles distant, it’s far enough to not be a threat, but close enough to see. There’s a layer of dirty pink smoke to my northeast. The photo above shows the smoke plume rising well beyond the homes in my neighborhood.

30500 Silverado Canyon Rd   Google MapsIt’s a 200 acre brush fire in a steep walled canyon. There’s not a lot of wind today. I’m hoping firefighters knock it down quickly.

I can’t smell the smoke–we’ve already had a few of those in our fifteen months here. Seeing it rise is enough.

silverado-canyon-dropFox 11’s live chopper feed has been following tankers dropping water and flame retardant. From their 8,000 foot perch the blaze looks massive.

When you live in a place where rainy days are few and far between, fires are a natural worry. It’s all being brought home today.

Has Anyone Started A Roger Goodell Pool Yet?

roger-goodellHow long until Roger Goodell exits the NFL? This month? This week? This evening? I suspect his time is short.

I don’t have to rehash this story. What Ray Rice did was inexcusable.

The question now is, did Roger Goodell do the inexcusable too? I think so.

Forget AP’s revelation for a moment. Nothing in the tape released by TMZ offers anything the commissioner didn’t know earlier. Rice, as reported, was up front about the fight. He was charged with a violent crime. He knocked his girlfriend unconscious with his fist!

How did seeing the TMZ elevator video change that? The only difference was now we could see what the NFL already knew! That was their worry — not what Rice had done, but that we knew.

And, again, this is regardless of whatever tape they did or didn’t see. They knew this was a brutal act by a 206 pound athlete based on Rice’s own admission.

Goodell will leave the NFL a wealthy man. I just saw a report he made $29 million in 2011. Don’t cry if he loses his job.

Violence against women is a scourge which must be stopped. If Rice’s punishment serves as a warning to others, so be it. The same goes for any punishment Goodell receives in his role as whitewasher and enabler.

TD5, But You’ll Probably Call Her Dolly

There’s concern, but it’s likely this storm won’t grow strong enough to produce major damage. Though water temperatures in the southern Gulf are bathtub warm, wind shear will limit intensification.

National Weather Service   Graphical ForecastThe Hurricane Center just gave a cluster of clouds in the Gulf of Mexico the once over. Those clouds are now Tropical Depression 5. Sustained winds are under 30 mph, but some strengthening is expected. TD5 will likely become Tropical Storm Dolly.

The midpoint of the Hurricane Center’s storm track is Tampico, on the Mexican Gulf Coast. Metro Tampico has nearly a million people.

There’s concern, but it’s likely this storm won’t grow strong enough to produce major damage. Though water temperatures in the southern Gulf are bathtub warm, wind shear will limit intensification.

rgb0-laloIn an average year we’re on the “E” storm on September 1. So far 2014 has only produced A, B and C.

In early August the Hurricane Center revised their pre-season “below average” forecast to point even more strongly in that direction. Being a few letters behind remains the expectation.

There’s still danger this hurricane season, but less than usual.

Always Use The Right Tool

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I’ve been a bad boy recently when it comes to chores. Today was a day to make up time.

On the list, a trip to Home Depot. We want to replace a few plants. Some aren’t healthy. Others, let’s just say they didn’t make the cut. There were other odds and ends as well. There’s always something you need or want at the Depot.

I headed to the garage and realized Helaine was gone. Her SUV too. That only left my two-seater. There was really no way to put this off.

Vrooom.

HD has a self serve packing department. I pulled ten or twelve feet of heavy brown paper from a roll to wrap the front seat. On the floor, a plastic trash bag from home.

Holy crap, it fit! Tall plants. Short plants. Fifty feet of garden hose. Fifty pounds of paver sand. Even a spray bottle of bug stuff.

Nothing spilled!

The plants are home, healthy and I have proof they can survive 50 mph winds.

Rosetta Reaches The Comet

I have mixed emotions about this sort of project. We spent a boatload of money and untold brain power solving a problem through science, math and engineering. An incredible achievement.

But, aren’t there more pressing practical problems on Earth which would have benefited from this kind of massive effort?

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As this blog entry goes out a spacecraft has reached a comet. That’s never been done before.

Rosetta launched in 2004 and will arrive at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 6 August. It will be the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the Sun, and deploy a lander to its surface. Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its member states and NASA.

ESA is the European Space Agency. They’re running the show.

I have mixed emotions about this sort of project. We spent a boatload of money and untold brain power solving a problem through science, math and engineering. An incredible achievement.

But, aren’t there more pressing practical problems on Earth which would have benefited from this kind of massive effort?

Rosetta, still around 60 miles away from 67P, is transmitting incredibly detailed photos of the weirdly shaped comet. Some have compared the shape to a duck. Potato shaped objects are much more common.

Was it once two separate entities that somehow fused? Does it contain pristine samples from the dawn of the universe 13.77 billion years ago? There are sure to be surprises.

After orbiting this tiny space chunk (about 2 1/4 by 2 1/2 miles though quite irregular) for a while Rosetta will move to an orbit of 30 miles, then 15 miles. Finally, probably in November, a capsule will be deployed from Rosetta to the comet’s surface.

Is this money well spent? It’s certainly splashy science… amazing science. I wish there was a well defined practical payoff.

The Illustrated: How Does My Garden Grow?

Back in Connecticut there was a rush of color as plants flowered over a short period. Here, something’s blooming year round.

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Steffie picked a lemon earlier today. It came from one of the two little lemon trees (very pretty) near the patio. Wow! We grew that.

We have a small outdoor space. I’m the plant wrangler. Most of our plants are thriving. A few are suspect. We need more flowers!

Back in Connecticut there was a rush of color as plants flowered over a short period. Here, something’s blooming year round.

The flowers attached to this entry are in bloom now. In most cases photography makes them look larger than actual size. They’re all clickable for a larger view.

Here Comes Bertha

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It takes a while for the Atlantic hurricane season to get going. The real action is still far ahead.

Meanwhile, out in the Tropical Atlantic a cluster of thunderstorms is being eyed by the National Hurricane Center. It is Atlantic Invest 93. It will become Bertha.

This “Invest” stuff is a recent addition to the hurricane info deluge. It’s a heads up more than anything.

The storm is probably headed to the northern islands of the Caribbean–possibly the Virgin Islands, then northwest into the open ocean. There’s a lot of wiggle room between now and the weekend.

Intensity forecasts say tropical storm, possibly low end hurricane. Intensity forecasts are notoriously awful.

Up the East Coast? There’s that potential, though the most common track would is well offshore.

It will be watched closely.

Graphics from the math geeks at UW Madison.