Smorgasborg.
SURF:
Good NW earlier in the week has been replaced by record temps today and smaller surf. Same is on tap tomorrow as we just have leftover small NW with a touch of SW and Santa Ana conditions. Saturday is a carbon copy of Friday which is a carbon copy of today which is a carb- nevermind.
FORECAST:
Things are starting to heat up in the Aleutians but it's taking it's sweet time.
WEATHER:
Fall may finally be arriving. But not until after Saturday. A couple more days of hot dry weather then moisture increases late Saturday into early Sunday as a trough of low pressure moves in from the N. At the same time, tropical moisture from the S heads our way too. By Sunday afternoon the combination of weather events we give us some light showers. That lasts into Monday. Weak high pressure sets up mid-week and then another low pressure system heads down from the N next weekend- for rain on Halloween? Make sure to keep up to date on any developing storms at Twitter/North County Surf.
BEST BET:
Nothing really until the small NW/SW arrives late next week. Hopefully the rain/winds hold off until the weekend.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
As we head towards our ‘rainy season’ (rain being a relative term since we only get about 10” here in southern California), I thought it would be interesting to see what real weather is like across the US; whether it’s rain, drought, or snow. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has put together some great data to digest. Here’s what they had to say:
The Wettest and Driest Places in America
The lists below show the ten wettest and ten driest locations in the United States. These are annual normals, or what would be expected in the mythical “average” year.
Ten wettest stations in the United States
1 Yakutat State Airport, AK 155.12"
2 Ketchikan Int’l Airport, AK 141.25"
3 Hilo Int’l Airport, HI 126.72"
4 Annette Island Airport, AK 101.63"
5 Quillayute State Airport, WA 99.54"
6 Mt. Washington, NH 96.87"
7 Cordova | M.K. Smith Airport, AK 90.42"
8 Sitka Airport, AK 86.81"
9 Stampede Pass, WA 81.23"
10 Kodiak Airport, AK 78.00"
Ten driest stations in the United States
1 Yuma Airport, AZ 3.30"
2 Las Vegas | McCarran Airport, NV 4.19"
3 Barrow | Post-Rogers Airport, AK 4.53"
4 Bishop Airport, CA 5.17"
5 Mercury | Desert Rock Airport, NV 5.93"
6 Bakersfield Airport, CA 6.47"
7 Big Piney | Marbleton Airport, WY 6.48"
8 Winslow Municipal Airport, AZ 7.01"
9 Alamosa San Luis Airport, CO 7.31"
10 Lancaster | William J. Fox Field, CA 7.38"
Unlike extreme temperature stations, which were dominated by where you are on a map, the “ten wettest” list is dominated by what you see when you look out the window on a clear day. It’s no accident that all of these stations are within a few miles of some pretty substantial summits: mountains play a huge role in local precipitation. That cements our first precipitation truism: the windward sides of mountain ranges tend to be significantly wetter than the leeward sides. So how does that work? The mountains provide the mechanism to lift moist air until it cools enough to condense cloud droplets (or form snowflakes) that are big enough to fall to earth. Or, to put it a little less technically, the mountains will “wring out” the precipitation from moist air. Unlike other weather mechanisms, like cold fronts and warm ocean waters, the mountains don’t go away. Basically, all that’s needed is some moist air being driven toward higher elevations. In most cases, the warmer the air, the more water vapor it can “hold”, and therefore deliver. But, as this list clearly shows, the cool, damp air of the Gulf of Alaska is plenty moist to dump tubs of rain (and snow!) onto Alaska’s southern mountains. Each of the listed Alaskan stations sits along Alaska’s southern coast, where the ocean, the mountains, and a persistent low-pressure feature – the “Alaskan low” – work together to produce prolific rainmaking.
The dry side of the table underscores the corollary of the first point: the leeward reaches of mountain ranges tend to be much drier than the windward side. Many of the dry stations sit just east of a significant mountain range. After the moisture is wrung out on the windward side, the air will warm as it descends. This warming brings the air out of saturation – it is plenty capable of “holding” the remaining water vapor – which means precipitation doesn’t happen in most situations.
It’s also worth noting, looking across these lists, that the wet stations are comfortably in the far northern regions of the country. And many of the dry stations, especially those that aren’t obviously in the “rain shadow” of a mountain range, are at sub-tropical latitudes. The world’s major deserts sit at around 25 to 30 degrees latitude. The exceptions to the above are: 1) Barrow, Alaska, which is so far north and so cold, that there’s just not a great deal of precipitation, and 2) Hilo, Hawaii, which is so far south that it’s tropical. Hilo also sits on the east side of a major summit, the windward side in the tropics, where the prevailing winds are easterly. Or, to sum it up in a truism: all else being equal, subtropical latitudes tend dry.
The following lists show the places with the most, and the least, days per year with precipitation.
Places with the most frequent precipitation
1 Hilo Int’l Airport, HI 272.1 days a year
2 Cold Bay Airport, AK 249.3 days a year
3 Yakutat State Airport, AK 240.1 days a year
4 Sitka Airport, AK 235.6 days a year
5 Ketchikan Int’l Airport, AK 233.9 days a year
6 Annette Island Airport, AK 231 days a year
7 Juneau Int’l Airport, AK 229.8 days a year
8 Cordova | M.K. Smith Airport, AK 219.9 days a year
9 Mt. Washington, NH 210.4 days a year
10 Quillayute State Airport, WA 206.3
Places with the least frequent precipitation
1 Yuma Airport, AZ 17.9 days a year
2 Las Vegas | McCarran Airport, NV 26.5 days a year
3 Bishop Airport, CA 27.6 days a year
4 Lancaster |William J. Fox Field, CA 28.8 days a year
5 Mercury | Desert Rock Airport, NV 32.1 days a year
6 Long Beach |Daugherty Field, CA 35.2 days a year
7 Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport, CA 36.5 days a year
8 Phoenix | Sky Harbor Int’l Airport, AZ 36.6
9 Sandberg, CA 37.7 days a year
10 Bakersfield Airport, CA 39.2 days a year
What do these lists tell us? They tell us that the places that get the most and least precipitation per year also get the most and fewest days with precipitation. Let’s not overthink this.
Snowfall
Finally, the ten snowiest places in the United States:
1 Valdez, AK 326.3"
2 Mt. Washington, NH 281.2"
3 Hancock | Houghton County Airport, MI 207.7"
4 Yakutat State Airport, AK 143.4"
5 Talkeetna Airport, AK 137.1"
6 Syracuse | Hancock Int’l Airport, NY 123.8"
7 Sault Ste. Marie | Sanderson Field, MI 120.4"
8 Caribou Municipal Airport, ME 108.7"
9 Flagstaff | Pulliam Airport, AZ 101.7"
10 Traverse City | Cherry Capital Airport, MI 101.4"
What does this list tell us? As you’d expect, the more northern and higher-elevation places make the list. But the influence of the Great Lakes really pops in this list. Large, relatively warm bodies of water, especially in the early winter, can juice snow-making storms with even more moisture and atmospheric instability. Being downwind of a Great Lake means you experience this early and often in the winter. Or, presented as a truism: The Great Lakes Make Great Flakes.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
When the Big One finally hits and 1/2 of California falls into the ocean, Barstow will be the new surfing hot spot. This point break is what I'm envsioning in the middle of the desert- just on the other side of the Union Pacific railyard.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
All Star
One Bad Hombre
Parko's So Good At Carving I'm Going To Have Him Do My Turkey
