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Winter 2011-2012

Northern Arizona Weather, Outlooks Comments Off

Oct 092011

I think we should start with a review of last October’s record tornado event.

Tornado outbreak of October 2010

This was a massive event. The National Weather Service did an outstanding analysis of the event. Please take a look.

This fall isn’t much different. The last two storms have been fairly wet and quite violent. The September storm had tornado activity associated with it.

This year and last year will probably be very similar. La Nina is building cold water in the Pacific. Although the Sun is displaying stronger activity this year, it is still far below what it has been in the past. Global temperatures are lower than most of the last few years.

Global temperatures at 14,000 feet - AMSU Discovery

I think that colder temperatures could lead to stronger storms systems and better precipitation chances for Northern Arizona.

Last winter had ebbs and flows of temperatures and precipitation. I think we will see a similar pattern this year. Overall, I think we will end up slightly short on precipitation, slightly warmer than average. We could see big, cold, record-breaking storms from time to time.

Storm track could include Northern Arizona for next few weeks (winter outlook)

Models, Northern Arizona Weather, Outlooks Comments Off

Oct 022011

Both GFS and NoGAPS models are predicting a wet, continuously cooler week ahead. AccuWeather has predicted temperatures in the low 30s and upper 20s for Thursday and Friday. The pattern from the last few days for Arizona has been more of a monsoonal flow. With the jet stream dropping down, Pacific storms moving from the west to the east will be responsible for the next few precipitation events.

US Navy NoGAPS model precipitation outlook for 6 hours, Thursday morning, October 6, 2011

NoGAPS and GFS models are in agreement with a wet start to the week. Then, they indicate a bit of a break on Wednesday before the big cold push on Thursday and Friday.

US Navy NoGAPS temperature outlook, 5am Friday, October 7, 2011

I haven’t done a big winter outlook this year. I think we could see a similar year to last year. We have a weak La Nina, a more active, but still anemic, Sun, and a generally cold Pacific. For the winter overall, it will probably be warmer than average, drier than average, with scatter times of heavy snow and very cold temperatures.

Cooler weather after monsoonal weekend

Models, Monsoon, Northern Arizona Weather, Outlooks Comments Off

Sep 302011

Tropical Storm Hilary isn’t going to make it to Arizona. But, we will get a fresh shot of monsoonal flow out of the south. I don’t think we will see large amounts over the Northland. We could see strong thunderstorms and all their elements; wind, hail, etc.

Next up is cooler temperatures and a break from the recent, highly nice, unseasonably warm temperatures. The look out for the next two weeks has turned to colder forecasts. The National Weather Service has posted a nice slide today discussing the threat of frost and the average date of frost for multiple locations in Northern Arizona. We are clearly in the zone. Here is my post on Fall Freeze Probabilities.

Also, somewhere over the horizon another storm system will brush Arizona. But, this doesn’t look like the long-term trend. Unfortunately,a mostly dry, winter weather pattern could be taking a set.

6-10 day temperature outlook - Climate Prediction Center

Wet September

Monsoon, Northern Arizona Weather, Outlooks Comments Off

Sep 062011

Looks like we have 3 rounds of moisture for early September.

The current round took a very circuitous route to get here. It had to go way to the south, then get scooped up from the southwest on a Pacific low pressure trough. This is a pretty unusual moisture flow for this time of year. Typically, the southwest flow is dry. So, today our temperatures are lower and we have dew-points in the upper 50s.

The next round of moisture will take a shorter route and come in around Thursday and Friday. Next week, the current models show us getting the remnants of a tropical systems from Baja.

However, the high pressure that has brought severe drought to Oklahoma and Texas is drying out the entire region. I wonder if it will be able to hold off the moisture flow to Arizona.

More Cold and Snow Ahead

Northern Arizona Weather, Outlooks Comments Off

Feb 242011

The National Weather Service is calling for 5-10 inches for Flagstaff over the weekend. Accuweather is calling for 6.7 inches. The North American Mesoscale model and the GFS model both project about and inch of water. NOGAPS has about 20-30mm of precip. Sunday night and Monday morning will be very cold again. I fully realize that the next round of precip will, at least for the short-term, blow my winter forecast. I think the problem is the excessive cold pattern.

The current cold push could bring San Francisco it’s first snow in 35 years. Thanks to Tim R for the tip.

For Flagstaff, the average daily temperature for the month of February is running 3.8 degrees below normal. The remainder of the month isn’t going help us dig out of that. Although, today should be fairly warm with the overnight clouds locking in the heat from yesterday.

Did the weekend storm make up the deficit?

Northern Arizona Weather, Outlooks, Winter Storms Comments Off

Feb 212011

Over President’s Day Weekend, a large, powerful winter storm moved through Northern Arizona. Substantial precipitation had not fallen since the storm just before New Years. But, was it enough to fill in the deficit from a very dry January?

Here are the updated totals for Flagstaff:

WEATHER ITEM   OBSERVED TIME   RECORD YEAR NORMAL DEPARTURE LAST
                VALUE   (LST)  VALUE       VALUE  FROM      YEAR
                                                  NORMAL
..................................................................
PRECIPITATION (IN)
  YESTERDAY        0.31          1.18 1993   0.09   0.22     0.05
  MONTH TO DATE    2.68                      1.77   0.91     1.01
  SINCE SEP 1     11.65                     11.69  -0.04    11.32
  SINCE JAN 1      2.74                      3.95  -1.21     6.61

SNOWFALL (IN)
  YESTERDAY        5.5           8.7  1987   0.8             1.7
  MONTH TO DATE   17.9                      14.5            16.6
  SINCE SEP 1     57.3                      67.6           110.0
  SINCE JUL 1     57.3                      67.6           110.0
  SNOW DEPTH      13

For snowfall, we are still about 10 inches below normal for the season and over 50 inches below last year. More importantly, for the month of February we have had 2.68 inches of precipitation, almost an inch above normal. That brings us nearly equal to the normal precipitation since September 1. But, since January 1, we are 1.21 inches below normal. Remember that December was very wet and made up for deficits in the fall.

We have one more shot at a siginificant event this next weekend. While a weak system will move through around the middle of the week, it will not bring much energy or moisture. This weekend could bring an extend period of snows, but probably not as strong as last weekend.

Here is the National Weather Service’s Public Information Statement from the weekend storm:

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
 NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FLAGSTAFF AZ
 500 AM MST MON FEB 21 2010
 
 ...PACIFIC STORM SYSTEM SPREADS RAIN AND SNOW ACROSS NORTHERN ARIZONA THIS 
 WEEKEND...
 
 A STRONG AND ENERGETIC PACIFIC STORM SYSTEM SWEPT ACROSS ARIZONA 
 THIS WEEKEND SPREADING HEAVY RAIN AND MOUNTAIN SNOW ACROSS THE STATE. A 
 WARM START TO THIS STORM ALLOWED MANY LOCATIONS TO PICK UP 
 ACCUMULATING RAINFALL BEFORE CHANGING OVER TO SNOW ON SATURDAY. SNOW 
 WAS OBSERVED DOWN TO ELEVATIONS AROUND 4000 FEET WITH THE HEAVIEST 
 ACCUMULATIONS REPORTED OVER THE WESTERN MOGOLLON RIM AND KAIBAB 
 PLATEAU REGIONS. BELOW IS A SUMMARY OF PRECIPITATION AND SNOWFALL 
 REPORTS RECEIVED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE IN FLAGSTAFF 
 AS OF SUNDAY NIGHT.
 
 BELOW IS A LIST OF STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL REPORTS AND THE TIME 
 REPORTED (MST):
 
 ARIZONA SNOWBOWL..................44.0                250 PM 
 JACOB LAKE........................24.0                714 AM 
 FLAGSTAFF AIRPORT.................17.9                500 PM
 BELLEMONT.........................15.3                500 PM
 WILLIAMS 4 MI S...................14.8                551 PM
 MUNDS PARK.....................8 TO 13                905 AM
 KACHINA VILLAGE...................12.4                517 PM
 PARKS.............................12.0                909 AM   
 WILLIAMS..........................11.0                840 PM
 PRESCOTT 3 MI SSW.................10.0                206 PM
 PAYSON 14 MI NE....................9.0                539 PM
 DONEY PARK.........................8.3                630 PM
 MCNARY 2 MI N......................6.0                516 PM
 NAVAJO NATIONAL MONUMENT...........5.1                840 PM 
 PRESCOTT CITY......................4.5                730 AM 
 SELIGMAN...........................4.0                840 PM 
 PINETOP............................4.0                756 AM  
 SANDERS............................3.5                954 AM 
 PINE...............................3.5                818 AM 
 WINDOW ROCK.....................2 TO 3                400 AM
 GANADO.............................2.0                944 AM 
 METEOR CRATER......................2.0               1245 PM
  
 
 BELOW IS A LIST OF STORM TOTAL RAIN AND/OR MELTED SNOW REPORTS AND THE 
 TIME REPORTED (MST):
              
 FLAGSTAFF AIRPORT..................2.68               500 PM
 KACHINA VILLAGE....................2.47               919 AM   
 SEDONA AIRPORT.....................2.15               500 PM
 WILLIAMS...........................2.12               840 PM
 PINE...............................1.84               818 AM
 PAYSON.............................1.82               840 PM
 FORT VALLEY........................1.81               840 PM 
 BELLEMONT..........................1.81               500 PM
 MUNDS PARK.........................1.78              1011 AM
 PRESCOTT AIRPORT...................0.92               840 PM   
 GRAND CANYON AIRPORT...............0.95               840 PM
 HEBER..............................0.70               800 AM
 SHOW LOW...........................0.44               840 PM    
 WINSLOW AIRPORT....................0.39               840 PM   
 WINDOW ROCK AIRPORT................0.39               840 PM   
 SAINT JOHNS AIRPORT................0.14               840 PM   
 
 VISIT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ON THE WEB AT
 WWW.WEATHER.GOV/FLAGSTAFF FOR MORE DETAILS.

No Return to December Snows

Northern Arizona Weather, Outlooks Comments Off

Jan 202011

Blocking High Pressure off West Coast

Winter is finally look more like what I expected for Flagstaff. We are experiencing above average temperatures and very dry conditions. The weather has been beautiful. The Arctic Oscillation is about to return to positive and with that, I am afraid, our chances for precipitation are going to weaken severely. There are still occasional break-downs in the high pressure showing up in the forecast models, but nothing consistent. The very cold Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the current La Nina are back in charge.

Why so cold?

Outlooks, Winter Storms Comments Off

Jan 112011

Ever since I was kid growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina, I have been a fan of AccuWeather and Joe Bastardi. He always nailed storms like this current one moving up the Eastern United States. Here he has a great explanation of the current exceptionally cold winter, particularly in the east.

Joe Bastardi: Coldest January NATIONWIDE Since 1985, but WHY?

Will there be more snow?

Northern Arizona Weather, Outlooks Comments Off

Jan 102011

After a beautiful weekend, it is going to be cold tonight. This will be the trend for a while. Warming trends will be followed by very cold systems. By this weekend, temperatures should be slightly above normal. This will be followed by a small chance for snow early next week and a cooler temperatures again. Month to date, Flagstaff is 11 degrees below normal.

It continues to look like the Arctic Oscillation(AO) will hit a negative peak around 16-22 January. This could herald a return to a strong winter pattern. AccuWeather has snow in their long range forecast for Flagstaff on January 22-24. It is still a long ways out, but the AO forecast has been stable for quite a while.

Lake Powell Outlook

Lake Powell, Outlooks Comments Off

Jan 082011

With the storm track staying farther to the north, for now, it seems like a good time to look at how Lake Powell is doing and will be doing.But first, if you have ever wondered what Lake Powell looks like in the winter, check out their webcams: Lake Powell Webcams.

The lake level is following an almost identical path as last year. A steady decline due to power generation is eating up about 14,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water. The inflows are slowly dropping and are currently around 6,700 cfs.

The snowpack above Lake Powell is looking great!It has been running at 140-150% of normal for a while now. If this continues this will lead to a very nice increase for the lake next summer. Could we see a return to levels above the 3650 foot elevation? When haven’t been above that for roughly a decade.

It comes back to who do we believe. I thought we were going to have a dry, slightly warm winter. So, I think it’s fair to say it’s been wet and very warm. The very warm part will probably change if the current cold persists. Also, I thought this wouldn’t be the effect for the Upper Colorado River Basin. I thought they would be closer to normal. The Climate Prediction Center’s drought outlook seems to agree.

Drought Outlook - CLimate Prediction Center

Notice that they updated this on January 6. It looks like the Upper Colorado River Basin will not see the development of a drought. This bodes well for Lake Powell’s water level this coming summer. Also, notice, most Northern Arizona is no longer project to develop drought conditions.

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Switzer Canyon, AZ

Switzer Canyon, Flagstaff, AZ
temp:	59.2 F (15.1 C)
humidity:	17%
wind:	Calm
pressure:	30.36" (1028.0 mb)
station:	KAZFLAGS23
hardware:	Oregon Scientific WMR-100a
updated:	May 25, 8:26 PM MST
local forecast