Bad planning and hyperbole
Photo: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times. Click on the image to be taken to the paper's storm photo gallery.
Contrary to forecasts, including the one repeated here, there were neither particularly heavy rains nor gales in Los Angeles yesterday. “I’m sympathetic with a blown forecast,” says Bill Patzert, an oceanographer with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Having carried it, this writer is too, but only to a degree. It gives rain a bad name.
But when wrong news is good news, why gyp? Moreover, there is more good news in a place with such bad zoning that even the best-behaved showers throw the city into chaos.
As reported in The week that was, and repeated here for good measure, last week, the Los Angeles Board of Public Works passed a Low Impact Development Ordinance that will require new construction to retain more rain water on site …
Rain, “strongest winds in over a decade”
A NATIONAL Weather Service statement predicts along with heavy rain for Los Angeles on Wednesday January 20, 2010 “the strongest winds in over a decade.”
From the report: “The heaviest rainfall will spread into the area between 10 am and 8 pm on Wednesday. Rainfall rates will range from three-quarters of an inch to one inch per hour with local rates up to 1.50 inches per hour across south-facing slopes. Total rainfall accumulations will range from one inch to two inches over coasts and valleys with two to four inches in the mountains. Local amounts up to five inches are possible along south-facing slopes.
With the amount of instability with this system there is a high potential for strong thunderstorms to develop on Wednesday and Wednesday night. Some of the thunderstorms may produce hail, wind gusts in excess of 60 mph and torrential downpours.
Atmospheric conditions will also be favorable …
Rain, explained
A TREAT arrived with the rain on Sunday, a treat worth breaking from this site’s normal policy of not quoting, referencing or linking to pseudonymous sources.* The Southern Californian meteorologist who blogs on science and home life as “Bad Mom Good Mom” passed on this explanation of our storm.
FIFTH graders in California study the weather. Not surprisingly, my fifth grade daughter and I have been talking about the weather on our walk to school in the mornings. Last week, we discussed the difference between latent and sensible heat and how the increase of surface level moisture can mask the temperature signal of global warming.
I am not sure she got it. I will have to figure out another way to explain that.
In the mean time, I want to better explain why meteorologists are so certain that Los Angeles will be hit by a series of heavy …
Rain likely
The National Weather Service’s prediction for a chance of rain over the weekend in Los Angeles County elevates to “rain likely” for Martin Luther King Day and into the following week. If you haven’t got your wildflower seeds in the ground, the next few days are your window. Over at AccuWeather.com, Ken Clark’s blog sees enough rain coming that he warns people living near recent burn areas to “be ready to evacuate.”
Meanwhile, as the struggle between town planners and developers continues over implementing a Low Impact Development ordinance that would decrease storm water run-off, a community meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at City Hall. Click here for details.…
Where art meets science
For a tantalizing version of how and if this lovely graphic from NOAA’s Global Forecast System might reflect appreciable rain for the Southwestern US, go to Ken Clark’s AccuWeather.com news and blogs.
Via Aquafornia.
Or to find your local forecast, click here and enter your zip code.…
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