Posted on 01/05/2005 8:29:29 AM PST by 1LongTimeLurker
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 yesterday.
If the gloomy computer models at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center are right, we'll see this terrible trio:
• The "Pineapple Express," a series of warm, wet storms heading east from Hawaii, drenching Southern California and the far Southwest, already beset with heavy rain and snow. Flooding, avalanches and mudslides are possible.
• An "Arctic Express," a mass of cold air chugging south from Alaska and Canada, bringing frigid air and potentially heavy snow and ice to the usually mild-wintered Pacific Northwest.
• An unnamed warm, moist storm system from the Gulf of Mexico drenching the already-saturated Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys. Expect heavy river flooding and springlike tornadoes.
Meteorologists caution that their predictions are only as good as their computer models. And forecasts are less accurate the further 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," he said. "There's going to be weather in the headlines this weekend, that's for sure."
The National Weather Service yesterday issued a statement warning that several inches of snow could fall by the end of the weekend in the central Puget Sound lowlands, including Seattle. The snow could begin as soon as tomorrow night, particularly in areas north of Seattle, with a growing chance of snow farther south Friday, the weather service said. Highs through this weekend are expected to be in the low- to mid-30s, with lows in the mid- to high-20s.
"Don't sound the alarm," weather service meteorologist Johnny Burg said. "But tell everybody to just pay attention to future forecasts."
The three storms are likely to meet in the nation's midsection and cause even more problems, sparing only areas east of the Appalachian Mountains. Property damage and a few deaths are likely, forecasters said.
"You're talking a two- or three-times-a-century type of thing," said prediction-center senior meteorologist James Wagner, who has been forecasting storms since 1965. "It's a pattern that has a little bit of everything."
The exact time and place of the predicted 1-2-3 punch changes slightly with every new forecast. But the National Weather Service, in its weekly "hazards assessment," alerted meteorologists and disaster specialists yesterday 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," said Ed O'Lenic, the Climate Prediction Center's operations chief. "A large part of North America looks like it's going to be affected."
Kelly Redmond, 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, said the expected heavy Western rains could cause avalanches. Southern California and western Arizona have had three to four times the normal precipitation for the area since Oct. 1.
"Somebody is in for something pretty darn interesting," Redmond said.
Somebody already knows.
A wintry blast yesterday closed schools and glazed roads with ice and snow in the Rockies and on the central Plains, a 40-mile stretch of Interstate 5 was closed north of Los Angeles after up to 3 feet of snow fell in the region, and new flooding hit northeast of Phoenix, killing one man and leaving another missing.
Various levels of winter-weather advisories and storm warnings were in effect into this morning from Arizona to Connecticut, the weather service said.
Up to 2 feet of snow was possible in Colorado, where one traffic fatality was blamed on the weather and an avalanche blocked U.S. 550 about 40 miles north of Durango, the weather service said.
The last time a similar situation seemed to be brewing — especially in the West — was in January 1950, O'Lenic said. Seattle received 21 inches of snow, killing 13 people in an extended freeze, and Sunnyvale, Calif., was the scene of 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.
He 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 a tsunami hit Dec. 26, 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 this year's mild El Niño — a warming of the equatorial Pacific — which is unusually far west, Redmond said.
Seattle Times staff reporter Warren King contributed to this report; yesterday's weather was reported by The Associated Press
Looks like you folks could get some snow up your way, FYI. ;-)
Don't forget the toilet paper, for criminey.
Bummer that they couldn't even think up a clever name like "Aztec Express" for the third storm system.
I think today is the one year anniversary of that three-day snow and ice storm that closed everything down. I couldn't get out of my driveway because of the ice.
My husband had to drive to Portland that night, so he took the 4-wheel drive vehicle. It took him nearly five hours to go 150 miles. Scary, scary, scary.
It's not though. Watch and see where these three storms finally merge to become one. ;^)
Nope......Summer and fall are the only decent times in the midwest.
That is a pretty map! I'm in the Blue Zone in southern Wisconsin. 10" coming...about 3" on the ground already. Yippee! I can get out the snowmobile for the first time in FIVE YEARS!
"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine." ~ Anthony J. D'Angelo
"Who cares about the clouds when we're together? Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather." ~ Dale Evans Rogers
"It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm." ~ Samuel Johnson, 1758
There's supposedly a scientific basis for wind chill. The 'official' wind chill table was updated just a couple years ago to be more accurate. There's no arguing the fact that, if you expose bare skin to X degrees with wind averaging Y MPH, it'll take the same amount of time for frostbite to occur as if it had been Z degrees with no wind. The only argument is with the numbers. The phenomenon is real.
If you've ever had frostbite, you know it's serious business. Don't make me post pictures. :-)
How 'bout naming it Paris Hilton?
{{{Look innocent}}}
Oh NOOOOOOOOO . . . WEATHER AGAIN? Why does it keep happening? Why are we always having to deal with this? When is somebody going to do something about WEATHER? I'm sure we can open a Congressional Committee or convene a UN Emergency Panel or something. Something should be done and we should spare no expense to make sure that the plan is carried out.
I'm glad you like it. Someone ought to get some pleasure from it. For your sake I hope the snow isn't followed by drenching rains followed by freezing temps. That was last weeks gift to snowmobilers and commuters alike. : )
Maine seems to be safe though!
She, a normally kind gentle soul mentioned slaughtering the damned seals barking all night outside her hotel room. She relocated to some dump motel closer to the mill, but without those damn seals barking all night! Night and day were irrelevant, as she couldn't identify the sun or moon for the full time she was there. Nothing but fog, mist, rain, and ice all 24/7.
Sounds like a drainage and/or ground-cover problem. Depends on what you're doing and where you're doing it, I guess.
Nope......Summer and fall are the only decent times in the midwest.
To each his own. Frankly, a big part of the year-round joy of living here is the relatively low (riff-raff-)population density. ;O)
If Paris Hilton were a storm, she'd be an immature nor'easter, with itty bitty little waves and a nasty smell at low tide.
Wind chill, heat index - stop the insanity!
Here in CR, snow's falling and the wind is blowing. We're under a Winter Storm Warning until tomorrow morning. We had about 3" overnight and maybe another 3" so far this morning. Forecast is for heavier snow tonight; predicted totals seem to be running from 10" to 14" by the time it's finished.
When you include the farmers, that applies pretty much for the nation as a whole. It may even be less, since farmers are less than 1% of the population. Where I grew up out in West Texas, most family farms were 2 to 4 square miles in size, even bigger for those with big families, like all those german catholic farmers in St. Lawrence, Wall, Rowena, Olfen, and Miles.
LOL! Good point.
It's too bad she couldn't have been here the past couple of days. Cold, but bright sunshine.
Awfully smoky, though. Something must be on fire to the north.
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