UPDATE: Flood Watch Ended for Port Alberni thanks to cooler temps/snow in mountains — But Flood Warning for Cowichan Valley issued (details here)
As Jeff Masters at WUnderground and many other weather bloggers have said… this year hasn’t been your typical El Nino year in North America. Why? Because we had an exceptionally negative Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation that kinked the jetstream all crazy like and allowed waves of very cold Arctic air to flow down into North America and Europe (and very warm air to flow into Alaska and Greenland).
Well… that weather pattern is breaking down now… and it looks like the jetstream will move south into a more El Nino like pattern and flow across the continent, bringing more storms to California rather than us and warmth to the Eastern US.
Before that happens though, we need to get through this weekend. We’re expecting over 100mm over the next couple days, and then probably another shot over 50mm on Sunday/Monday.
Once we hit late next week, the temperatures *should* cool off a bit and while we won’t be getting any large dumps of snow, it should at least calm the nerves of VANOC as the snow comes back to the local mountains.
Oh and, and speaking of the Olympics. Apparently there is a new data gathering service being set up by the NOAA flying out of Japan to coincide with the Olympics in Vancouver . Their goal is to gather weather data from the West and Central North Pacific waters where data is sparse right now.
The Pacific is literally where most of the weather comes from for North America, so this data will be fed directly into computer models and should make them more accurate in their long term forecasts not just for us, but all of North America.
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10 responses to “El Nino is finally coming”
Ohhh.. pretty.. one hit wonder from Laser Zeppelin light and sound.
was that the start of the storm?? becuz i was going ZOIKS at that rumbling in the valley
Ssggggcccroooobby doooo! 🙂
Apparently there was a big flash just outside our front of the house followed by a boom that rattled the windows and freaked out the kids!
I’m sorry I missed it!
WE had nothing of the sort out here, but HOLY MONSOON BATMAN! And it’s still coming down! I think we might actually come close to getting what EC is predicting for us.
nooooooooooo! no more flooding please 🙁
Row, row, row your boat… I just had to unplug the backyard drain… was watching TV to hear what sounded like a pond forming outside my door.
Speaking of ponds, went for a trip out Ash Valley.. there is about 2 feet of water going over the spillway at Elsie Lake. I can’t say I’ve seen the water that high since years way back when they used to have that 6′ high wood wall on top of the original spillway. Everything else is swollen. Amazing what 5 (or more) inches of rain can do in 36 hours.
Wow, we actually had sunshine today! At least I think that’s what that bright ball of light in the sky was when I went out to do the weather obs. It was sure blinding, though!
Well, I think my rain gauge is hosed. There is no way Port Alberni is getting more rain than the West Coast! My system clocked 15mm while Nick shows 51mm. Something is NOT right here!
I think Mike needs to restore his WMR968 and run it parallel for awhile… if you get different amounts, then you know something is wrong, otherwise we’re just kicking your ass in the rain dept.
Well, it seems that EC thinks Port Alberni is whupping West Coast ass in the rainfall department. I might try to re-level the ISS better in the next couple days, see if that makes any difference. Otherwise, I should get a graduated cylinder and dump a measured amount of water into the bucket, and see what I get on the console.
But, I see the rain has started here. So here it comes!