Atmosphere Comparison

[Jim]

The endless chatter of weather.

[big_load]

@chumley
It's been a strange year for rain out here. Up in my little NW corner of NJ, we've had three or four periods of flooding with long dry spells between. I think we're roughly about average, maybe a little below, but the distribution has been lumpier than usual. I wonder what hurricane season will bring.

[Jim]

Back in Arizona, that happened to us in 2010, and to a lesser extent this year. In Flag, we were above normal last year, but we had long dry periods. Most of our yearly precip came from the big January storm, a few heavy monsoon thunderstorms in July, the freak storm in October that came with tornadoes, and the late December nasty storm. August and November were fairly normal, but the rest of the time it was really dry. We all remember the Schultz.

[Jim]

Will Flagstaff hit 90 this year? I was looking at records for the last 90 days and I found that our high temperature so far this year has only been 89 degrees. If we don't hit 90 in the next 2 to 3 weeks, it seems very unlikely that we will this year. In 2010, the high was 90 a couple of times. In 2009, 93. In 2008, another La Nina year, it was only 89. In 2007, we approached Flagstaff's all time record high temp and missed by 1 degree. It was 96 on July 4, 2007. In 2006, the high was 90.
I think we won't hit 90. It's already late in the summer for Flagstaff, and with the cold temps this June and July (we had a record low of 37 on one day early last month), it seems as though this year is not to be a warm one.

[azbackpackr]

I guess I am surprised by those stats. Flag has never hit 100?

[PLC92084]

I've been studying weather patterns in that area going back ten years to get a feel for what we might expect on an upcoming trip... It looks like temps have been trending down a little. Many places seem to be cooler than expected...

[Jim]

The earlier part of the decade seems to have been warmer than the later part. A lot of people I knew who moved away from Flagstaff (ironically) have said that winters were wetter in the past, summers warmer and the storms more like they are in SE AZ. That could be memories selectiveness, and they also talked about the 80s and 90s.

Flagstaff has never had a recorded temperate over 97 degrees, but we have been well, well, below zero. Literally every winter I have been here, we have been below zero at least a few times, but we have not been 90 or above in 2 (so far) of the 5 summers.

[Jim]

Anyone recently hiked or been on south facing Pusch Ridge trails, like the Finger Rock or Ventana Canyon? I was looking at a few Tucson webcams just now and everything still looks really brown. Maybe that south face never noticeably greens when seen from 5 miles away? It's hard to tell how much rain that area has had this summer. I know it was super dry this winter.

[azbackpackr]

I was just down in the Tucson area hiking Wrightson this past weekend, and was surprised at how green it is around there. But I didn't go to the Catalinas.

[chumley]

I would really enjoy an end to the mid-110s and appreciate some solid rain. The valley hasn't had much monsoon love this year, and it's been an awful week as far as temp and humidity goes.

[big_load]

Our hurricane forecast is 5"-10" of rain. That would give NJ 13"-23" for the month of August. I wonder what the rainy season will be like.

[JimmyLyding]

Looks like you folks on the East Coast are going to have a very interesting weekend. This week has brought the wrath of Mama Nature to my mind. The "big" earthquake back east certainly reminded me that not only could that huge bay tree fall onto my new car, but that my apartment building might disintegrate. While I'm inside it. Now I'm thinking about an early "pineapple express" bringing a hurricane right into the Bay Area in September. And I thought the orb weaver spiders all over the place were the worst of my worries.

[Jim]

This has been an unusual Monsoon season from my experience. Not totally absent like in 2009, but we haven't really had the wide spread storms of other past years, on most days. I'm not complaining at all, I like how it has ended up. We had a few really moist periods, and the Airport and town have done well on precipitation, and we've had dry out periods too. Now, for the last week, we've had smaller storms around but nothing close by. It almost is starting to feel like it is mid-September and things are slowing down for fall. Phoenix might be below for the season, most of SE AZ is still below, but we're right about normal up here. One decent storm of 1/3 of an inch would put us on the monthly August mean.

I think September will be below normal, since we've been rather weak this summer. It will be interesting to see how the October to December period plays out. Last Fall, we had all that October rain and a very long growing season until late October. It did the vegetation a lot of good, that which wasn't blown over in the early October tornadoes.

[Jim]

Bit warm?

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PHOENIX AZ
122 AM MST SAT AUG 27 2011

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT PHOENIX AZ...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 117 DEGREES WAS SET AT PHOENIX AZ
YESTERDAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 114 SET IN 2001.

A RECORD HIGH MINIMUM TEMPERATURE OF 93 DEGREES WAS SET AT PHOENIX
AZ YESTERDAY BREAKING THE OLD RECORD OF 87 DEGREES SET IN 2010.

$$

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/ ... SR&pil=RER

[PaleoRob]

Massive monsoon storm up here in Page last night. Got to watch the lightning dance across the Paria Plateau before darkness fell - and then the storm hit hard.

[chumley]

In a sure sign of the coming apocalypse, I actually had to turn the hose on the oleanders this weekend as the lack of rain this summer caused them to begin to wilt. While I'm sure they would have survived without my assistance (they're tougher to kill than Gaddafi), I do want them to look sort of alive. My neighbors thank me.

[big_load]

With three days left, this is now the greatest single-month precipitation total in NJ history. It took me three hours to get to work, dodging all the flooding-related closures, not to mention all the downed trees and power lines. I'm better off than many, since I power (unlike 600,000 others in NJ). The real question is how long I'll have water, since the community water company doesn't have power and we get low priority out in the sticks. I can always pump water from the lake. It won't get back down to normal end-of-summer level for weeks.

On a side note, I just watched a moron testing how deep he could drive his Dodge pickup into the Passaic River, which now occupies some the parking lot at work. It was totally unnecessary. He had to go out of his way to do it. He turned a few circles in an area that was about knee deep and stalled once, but was able to restart and drive off. They probably would have nailed him for trespassing if he got stuck.

[chumley]

People are dumb. I just saw a post from a Facebook "friend" in CT. She posted a video of her husband in the yard and the "tree that almost hit him when it fell". I still can't figure out what the urgency was to be outside during the storm. She said they ran out of ice and water and had to go get more. Apparently they missed the 5+ days of 24-hour storm preparedness news coverage ahead of time. The video of them driving their Prius to the store around downed trees and powerlines was great too. :roll:

[BEEBEE]

@big_load
What part of NJ are you living in. I grew up in the Bergen county area and worked in Newark for 11 years before moving to AZ in 02. Last big storm with flooding i experienced there was Floyd.

[big_load]

@BEEBEE
I live in Sussex County. This storm had maximum wind and rain similar to Floyd, but the big numbers happened everywhere from the ocean to mid-PA. Some of the northbound lanes of I-287 washed away just above I-80 in Parsippany. Every river in North Jersey is flooded, many at near-record levels. I don't know what's going on farther south. As you must be painfully aware, living so close to NY, coverage of NJ road closures and power outages is minimal to nonexistent. For example, no closures were announced for Rts. 10 and 46, although both are shut down in key spots. Amtrak and NJ Transit are both still down today.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the sunny skies of AZ and sorry to hear that the monsoon wasn't more fulfilling.

[BEEBEE]

Yea I was still working as an EMT during Floyd it was a very busy time. I remember what a mess that made of Bound Brook, Wayne, Pompton Lakes, Rochelle Park, Lodi and the rest of the flood plains. My Mother lives in Toms River. They weathered the storm okay but from the reports I am getting from friends many are flooded out and in the dark.