The Pacific Decadal Oscillation(PDO) is a cousin of El Nino Southern Oscillation(ENSO). It operates on a much longer, decadal, time scale. The temperatures of the Northern Pacific Ocean can be a big effect on Arizona’s Precipitation. It has been negative, or cool, for several years. Recently, it has moved more severely in that direction. Here is a recent article about it: The PDO’s influence on Climate Change: How low will it go? I think there is still a valuable question about how the sun’s current low output and activity will effect our precipitation in Northern Arizona. Could the combination of a cooling climate offset the cool phase PDO?
Well, for this weekend, it looks like we could get a little precip on Saturday and Sunday. Small amounts with a slight cooling trend.
Summer 2009 Prediction
This picture is a summary of previous analog years from Joe D’Aleo at Intellicast. The accompanying article can be found at ENSO Update. This analysis is based on analog years of solar activity and El Nino Southern Oscillation(ENSO).
If this summer is like the analog years, we could be looking at summer being a couple degrees below normal in Northern Arizona.
This outlook contrasts with the Climate Prediction Center‘s outlook below.
Climate Prediction Center Outlook May-July 2009
Looks like we could get some weather this weekend and early next week. But, right now it looks like Flagstaff will be on the southern end of the weather and see little rain.
Also, it looks like this summer could be cooler than normal. More on that later.
There is suddenly a slight chance of rain this afternoon. I bet we don’t get more than sprinkle, if that. But, we are going to see temperatures coll over the next few days to a normal or slightly below normal level.
There is an chance of some moisture showing up early next week. Again, I doubt it will be much as our dry trend will probably continue until the Monsoon Season. Sorry folks.
Below is the record report from the National Weather Service for our Record Low Temperature at the airport. For comparison and a little validation, I recorded 15.1 degrees F this morning at my house. It was chilly. With a record low of 15F, the average temperature for the day was 10 degrees below normal. For teh Month to date, we are 2.1 degrees below normal.
Better times are ahead. Temps should move into the 60′s and 70′s for the next few days.
Statement as of 05:54 PM MST on April 17, 2009
… Record low temperature set at Flagstaff AZ Airport…
a record low temperature of 15 degrees was set at Flagstaff AZ Airport today.
This breaks the old record of 16 set in 1924.
It snowed all day, but the accumulation was minor. But, holy cow, it got cold by noon. It was 26F in my car at lunchtime. Tomorrow, we will see what the official precip was. Not a hefty amount, but it did snow most of the day.
There could be as much as another inch of snow tomorrow. This is only being forecasted by Accuweather, but they are pretty conservative about precip forecasts for Flagstaff.
The good news is that we should be warming up for a good while. Still, we may see another bout of winter weather by the end of the month.
Hopefully, I will get my weather station back on line by the weekend. It will be really nice to read my own graphs again. I will start posting about Lake Powell Weather after that.
We are going to see strong winds again around Wednesday. Also, it is going to get cold and possibly rain and snow(not much). But, can this really be the end of winter?
The long range forecast from the Climate Prediction Center is pointing toward warmer weather ahead. I think we will see another snow episode or two before June. We will see.
8-14 Day Outlook April 13, 2009
I blew it yesterday. We didn’t even make a quarter of an inch of water. But, everyone pretty much blew it. 4-8 inches of snow was the consensus for yesterday. The official report was 4 inches of snow, 0.21 inches of water. Oh well. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise. The whole winter season has been below normal for precip and slightly above normal on temperatures.
Way down below at the end of this post (it’s a long post) are some charts for the nation. One of the things you don’t see on this chart is that Hawaii has been quite cold. They logged their coldest March ever. Parts of the Northwest were 5-6 degrees below normal.
Arizona had its 11th warmest and 12th driest march on record. This is in contrast to the whole country being fairly mixed or more moderate. When taken as a whole, of the 115 March records, it was the 65th coolest and the 74th wettest. Both in the middle of the spectrum. For Arizona, this will hopefully change as La Nina weakens. Here is the summary for Flagstaff, warm and dry:
AVERAGE MAXIMUM FOR MONTH.................... 54.2 (NORMAL 50.3)
AVERAGE MINIMUM FOR MONTH.................... 23.7 (NORMAL 22.8)
MONTHLY MEAN................................. 39.0 (NORMAL 36.6)
DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL...................................... +2.4
HIGHEST 30 YEAR MEAN FOR THE MONTH................. 41.8 IN 1989
LOWEST 30 YEAR MEAN FOR THE MONTH.................. 26.8 IN 1973
HIGHEST TEMPERATURE THIS MONTH....................... 67 ON 1ST
LOWEST TEMPERATURE THIS MONTH........................ 12 ON 31ST
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE FOR THE MONTH....... 73 ON 26TH IN 1988*
RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE FOR THE MONTH........ -16 ON 4TH IN 1966
DAYS MAX TEMP 32 OR BELOW......................... 0 (NORMAL 4)
DAYS MAX TEMP 90 OR HIGHER........................ 0 (NORMAL 0)
DAYS MIN TEMP 32 OR BELOW........................ 29 (NORMAL 30)
DAYS MIN TEMP 0 OR BELOW.......................... 0 (NORMAL 2) *
ALSO OCCURRED ON OTHER DATES
HEATING AND COOLING DEGREE DAYS DATA
HEATING DEGREE DAYS FOR THE MONTH............. 800 (NORMAL 880)
HEATING DEGREE DAYS FOR THE SEASON........... 5203 (NORMAL 5711)
COOLING DEGREE DAYS FOR THE MONTH.............. 00 (NORMAL 0)
COOLING DEGREE DAYS FOR THE SEASON............. 00 (NORMAL 0)
PRECIPITATION DATA
TOTAL FOR THE MONTH................................. 0.22 INCHES
NORMAL FOR THE MONTH................................ 2.62 INCHES
DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL FOR THE MONTH................ -2.30 INCHES
TOTAL FOR THE YEAR ................................. 2.43 INCHES
NORMAL FOR THE YEAR................................. 7.36 INCHES
DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL FOR THE YEAR................. -4.93 INCHES
GREATEST IN 24 HOURS............................... 0.17 ON 12TH
GREATEST FOR THE MONTH...................... 6.75 INCHES IN 1970
LEAST FOR THE MONTH.........................TRACE INCHES IN 1972
DAYS WITH 0.01 INCH OR MORE....................... 3 (NORMAL 9)
DAYS WITH 0.10 INCH OR MORE....................... 1 (NORMAL 6)
DAYS WITH 0.50 INCH OR MORE....................... 0 (NORMAL 2)
DAYS WITH 1.00 INCH OR MORE....................... 0 (NORMAL 0)
SNOW DATA
TOTAL FOR THE MONTH.................................. 0.3 INCHES
NORMAL FOR THE MONTH............................... 23.9 INCHES
TOTAL FOR THE SEASON............................... 81.0 INCHES
NORMAL FOR THE SEASON.............................. 96.4 INCHES
RECORD SNOWFALL FOR THE MONTH.................. 79.4 INCHES 1991
MOST DAILY SNOWFALL FOR THE MONTH............ 0.3 INCHES ON 12TH
March 2009 Temperature Rank
March 2009 Precipitation Rank
The safe bet continues to be 4-6 inches for this upcoming storm. But, some models are pointing toward longer precip times and a little more moisture. I think 4-8 inches may be the better target range. I am betting on 6-8.
That might be overly optomistic, but many models and websites are lining up. Looks like it will fall mostly as snow and start overnight on Friday. The good news isn’t just this storm, but the continued chance for some precip into next week.
So, if it falls as snow, expect 4-6 inches. If it’s too windy, it might be stuck to the side of your house like last Friday.
Should know tomorrow when I will have the weather station up and running again.
