Posted on 01/04/2005 8:56:14 PM PST by adaven
Trio of storm systems could have devastating impact on U.S.
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Moisture-laden storms from the north, west and south are likely to converge on much of America over the next several days in what could be a once-in-a-generation onslaught, meteorologists forecast Tuesday.
If the gloomy computer models at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center are right, we'll see this terrible trio:
All three are likely to meet somewhere in the nation's midsection and cause even more problems, sparing only areas east of the Appalachian Mountains.
"You're talking a two- or three-times-a-century type of thing," said prediction center senior meteorologist James Wagner, who's been forecasting storms since 1965. "It's a pattern that has a little bit of everything."
While the predicted onslaught is nothing compared with the tsunami that ravaged South Asia last week, the combo storms could damage property and cause a few deaths.
The exact time and place of the predicted one-two-three punch changes slightly with every new forecast. But in its weekly "hazards assessment," the National Weather Service alerted meteorologists and disaster specialists Tuesday that flooding and frigid weather could start as early as Friday and stretch into early next week, if not longer.
"It's a situation that looks pretty potent," Ed O'Lenic, the Climate Prediction Center's operations chief, told Knight Ridder. "A large part of North America looks like it's going to be affected."
Kelly Redmond, the deputy director of the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., where an unusual 18 inches of snow is on the ground already, said the expected heavy Western rains could cause avalanches. Since Oct. 1, Southern California and western Arizona have had three to four times the normal precipitation for the area.
"Somebody is in for something pretty darn interesting," Redmond said.
The last time a similar situation seemed to be brewing - especially in the West - was in January 1950, O'Lenic said. That month, 21 inches of snow hit Seattle, killing 13 people in an extended freeze, and Sunnyvale, Calif., got an unusual tornado.
The same scenario played out in 1937, when there was record flooding in the Ohio River Valley, said Wagner, of the prediction center.
Meteorologists caution that their predictions are only as good as their computer models. And forecasts get less accurate the farther into the future they attempt to predict.
"The models tend to overdo the formation of these really exciting weather formations for us," said Mike Wallace, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist.
Yet the more Wallace studied the models the more he became convinced that something wicked was coming this way.
"It all fits together nicely," Wallace said. "There's going to be weather in the headlines this weekend, that's for sure."
Wagner was worried about the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys as the places where the three nasty storm systems could meet, probably with snow, thunderstorms, severe ice storms and flooding. Some of those areas already are flooded.
The converging storms are being steered by high-pressure ridges off Alaska and Florida and are part of a temporary change in world climate conditions, O'Lenic said.
Over equatorial Indonesia, east of where the tsunami hit, meteorologists have identified a weather-making phenomenon called the Madden-Julian Oscillation. It's producing extra-stormy weather to its east. Similar oscillations in the north Atlantic and north Pacific are changing global weather patterns. Add to the strange mix this year's mild El Nino - a warming of the equatorial Pacific - which is unusually far west, Redmond said.
There's also another, more playful explanation: The nation's weathermen are about to converge on Southern California, and they bring bad weather with them.
The American Meteorological Society will meet next week in usually tranquil San Diego, which should be hit with the predicted storms and accompanying flooding in time for the group's gathering.
In 1987,when the meteorologists met in San Antonio for their convention, the city had ice storms. In 1993, when they gathered in Anaheim, Calif., it rained for 4.5 out of five days and triggered mudslides. Atlanta got rare snow during the meteorologists' 1996 convention. And in 2003 in Long Beach, Calif., heavy rain greeted them.
Ron McPherson, the group's recently retired executive director, said: "It always rains on the weatherman's parade."
Power is off in most of the area, icing is severe, branches coming down all over, roads coated.
We might have a COLD night here if our power goes out again.
Give me SNOW any day! This ICE is for the penguins!
Signing off again!
Do me a favor and don't send it here. We've had de-icers out and we don't even have any ice YET. I don't want a repeat of a couple of years ago when we had no electricity or heat for almost three days. (We did have a small woodburner in the family room, but the rest of the house was frigid. We couldn't even heat up a cup of coffee. And the expense for the downed trees in my yard was...well, expensive.)
Keep safe, Ohio, and let us know how you are.
You wag your bony finger like a church lady, using every dusting of snow to spread sanctimonious nonsense about visions and the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
It's just a snowstorm, thor.
You know why? Trial lawyers. They're ruining this country.
When I was in Norway I told them about the Blizzard of 93 (IIRC) and how two feet of snow shut us down for two and a half weeks.
They thought it was funny as heck. :P
It hasn't rained so much in one day in the Pittsburgh PA area since the big floods of this past September. I was out at 9 PM and waves of water were cascading down the streets. If it gets any heavier, the sewer drains will start to overflow at intersections.
What the heck are you talking about??? You sure you posted this on the right thread?
Slipperosity Cornpone?
You're getting our run-off.
Sully's weather journal (January, 2005)
Snow in Chicago. Freezing rain in the Midwest. Cold in Boston. Florida in the 80's. Flagstaff has snow. Aquifers in Sierras are being replenished. Mudslides in California.
How will we ever survive?
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