Hot and cold: Summer 2009

CLICK on the maps to enlarge these graphic wrap-ups of summer 2009 from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Or click here to be taken to the NOAA Satellite and Information Service.

Chance of rain for Los Angeles

Posted at 8am Saturday October 10th, 2009. Click on the icons to be taken to the National Weather Service for the latest updates.

Saturday: Patchy fog, high 74F

Saturday night-Monday: Chance of drizzle. Low 55F, high 68F

Monday night: 20% Chance of showers. Low 57F

Tuesday: 30% Chance of rain. High 68F

Tuesday night: Chance of rain. Low 59F

Wednesday: Chance of rain. High 68F

Smoke, heat in Los Angeles

For a special Greater Los Angeles weather advisory, click here

Political map / weather map

WEATHER is wild. Water policy is dictated by state. This map is as quick an explanation as any as to why congressional delegates from California and Oregon are pushing for a Comprehensive Integrated Water Policy, to be headed by a water czar. More on that after reading a wad of water and energy bills that passed this week and trying to figure out what is happening in the absence of a water czar, or if a water czar would bring any over-arching reason to these bills and their spend-a-thon.

In the meantime, to be taken to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center, click on the heat wave in Oregon.

To be taken to the weekly drought map, a new version of which was published Thursday, click here.

This post has been updated on Friday, July 31st, to account for the delay in reporting on the import of

“You’d better put your money on conservation”

THE PREDICTION this month of an El Nino weather system capable of bringing much needed rain and snowpack to California reminds Bill Patzert of another time that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast an El Nino. That was September 13, 2006 (announcement art, left). “That was the driest winter in the historical record with 3.21 inches,” said Patzert.

As a climatologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Patzert is part of the team of scientists contributing to El Nino forecasting for NOAA. However he has become a well known dissenter, calling previous El Ninos forecast by the administration “El No Show” and “El Wimpo.” Nothing he sees this year encourages him to believe that we’re in for anything like the rainfall of the classic El Nino years of 1997-98 (31.01 inches in Los Angeles) or 2004-05 (37.96 inches).

“I’d love to be wrong. At this point it

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