Tropical storm my...
patootie...Lat/Lon of New York City 40.47N 73.6W Lat/Lon of "Tropical Storm Chantal" 40.29N 62.7W Damn - I didn't know New York City was in the tropics. Who 'da thunk it? |
Short
Jul 31
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| It originated @ 36.1N 66.0W Skipper. |
Short
Jul 31
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| Prevailing winds and currents are the result of warm and cold air
circulating between the polar regions and the tropics, but there are
circular wind and current patterns in every ocean created by the
rotation of the earth. Normally, our winter winds come from the SSW
and bring wet weather. While the wind may have stared in the arctic,
by the time it gets here it's done a U-turn down by Hawaii and started
back north again. The warm tropical air explains why our winters are
so much milder than inland locations at similar latitudes, only a few
days below freezing here in a typical winter- (but only a few days
above 85 or so in a typical summer). Our dry winds do tend to be northerlies, with the rare downslope
easterly creating the very unusual burst of 95-100 degree
temperatures.
More of our summer winds are northerlies- unless it's raining or going
to rain (common conditions, both) and in that case the wind swings
around from the south most of the time. There are some Puget Sound communities north of the Convergence Zone
that experience localized wet winds from the north. In those cases,
the wind has been blocked by the Olympic Mountains and a local
subcurrent spills south from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The major
airflow for stormy weather, however, remains SSW to NNE overall. Winds directly from the arctic are very rare in this area. |
Jul 31
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| Sacramento, across the Yolo Causeway (normally dry) looked like you were
driving the highway across Lake Ponchatrain. << There was an "El Nino" year like that around '93-'94... can't remember. I do
remember driving across that caseway though... wild sight. --Mike |
Mike
Jul 31
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| Interesting.... |
Short
Aug 1
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| It has to do with where the storm originated, skipper. :-) You guys just need more imaginative nomenclature. Out this way we get
winter storms that blow in from Hawaii. We call the phenomenon "The
Pineapple Express". They are tropical windstorms because they
originate in the tropics. |
Jul 31
|
| I'll be darned. I always thought they came from the Gulf of Alaska
and the Aleutian Islands. Have they started wearing grass skirts up
that way when no one was looking? If so, I'm now a believer in global
warming. |
Wayne.B
Jul 31
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| The cold storms come from the North. The ones that cause floods are "The
Pineapple Express". Lots of warm rains that can melt the snowpack in 3-4
days. 1953 was one like that. Flooded most of the Central valley. Yuba
City was under about 6' of water. Another in 1964. When you drove to
Sacramento, across the Yolo Causeway (normally dry) looked like you were
driving the highway across Lake Ponchatrain. |
Calif
Jul 31
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| Very little of our local winter weather originates in the GOA. Most of
the winter storms come from the S/SW. When moisture laden air from the
tropics meets cold-arse air pouring down the Fraser River Valley or
Columbia Gorge from the mountains, we get our rare snowstorms. But I'll let you off the hook- you don't have to believe in global
warming. :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Express |
Jul 31
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