SLOweather

It’s been a convective day so far around SLOweather. Here’s a clip cut from the lightning tracker page about 11:30 AM.

… due to high upper level winds.

The next try is tomorrow, Wednesday, April 26, 2006 at 3:02 AM PDT.

NASA will try again at 3:02 PDT Tuesday morning to launch a Boeing Delta II rocket carrying the CloudSat and Calipso satellites. Maybe the third time is the charm.

The forecast is for mostly cloudy, but if you’re up letting the dog out at that time, give it a look. Nighttime launches are pretty spectacular if the sky’s are clear enough.

Now is the time to get out and see the wildflowers in the Carrizo plains National Monument.

http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/carrizo/

http://www.blm.gov/ca/bakersfield/carrizoplain/carrizoplain.html

A current report is here:

http://www.desertusa.com/wildflo/ca.html

Last year at this time, we did an all-day trip through the Monument. The loop from SLO up to 58 to Soda Lake Road, through the Monument to 166, to 101 and back home was just about 200 miles, and well worth it. Here’s a pic from that trip.

It looks like this year is just as spectacular, if a little later.

Thursday, the 13th, is the April Full Moon, known as Full “Pink” or “Seed” Moon (American Indian–from profusion of pink wildflowers). Also “Grass” Moon, “Spring” or “Full Egg” Moon, Full “Fish” Moon.

All of the names come from local tribal observations. Based on the recent spring rains we’ve had here. I’d go with Grass Moon this year, I think.

I think I’ve mentioned this topic before here, but today is a good time to bring it up again. I received the following email today from a SLOweather user:

—
Hi. I like your site- lots of good info for weather nerds like me. One thing I’ve noticed though is the rain totals you post are almost always much higher than the totals posted by the National Weather Service, Wunderground and the Weather Channel. Sometimes the totals on sloweather.com are up to 3 times what is listed on the other sites. ???
—
The official reporting station for SLO is at Cal Poly, in the Chorro Valley. Some other information may come from the SLO regional Airport in the Edna Valley.

Our main weather station location in the Irish Hills along the side of the Los Osos Valley means that when the storms come from the south or southwest, orographic enhancement causes more rain to fall here. The south/southwest winds push the clouds higher into cooler, thinner air, which causes more water to precipitate out. In the past, I’ve checked a line of 3 gauges spaced about 2 miles apart that stretch from here to the intersection of Tank Farm and the railroad tracks. Compared to the SLOweather station, the gauge 2 miles a away could be about half, and the one 2 more miles away was half that, or a quarter the amount of rain that SLOweather recorded.

Just for today, SLOweather is at 0.28″, and the Tank Farm area gauge is 0.11″.

You’ll notice in the local rainfall results that Santa Margarita is almost always higher than SLO, for the same reason, orographic enhancement over Cuesta Ridge. That’s probably why the Corps of Engineers chose that location for Salinas Dam.

On days like today, the National Weather Service Precip Forecast link on SLOweather shows this effect pretty graphically for the Coast Range and Cuesta ridge. The spot in the light blue area toward the top left, marked with the “0.31″ is Santa Margarita:

We were able to go down in our woods this afternoon, for the first time in a couple of weeks. It was a little windy, but very refreshing to hear the creek noises as the hills continue to release the water collected from the rains of the last couple of weeks.

I spotted this evidence of another visitor next to a pool…

I received this in email today from the SLOweather contact page (posted with permission):
—
Your WEB site has so many links that I am still learning all that there is to see and read. Keep it going, so I can enjoy it and the blogs.

Mentioning blogs. Your recent photo of the double rainbow captured my American Airlines jet flight into SLO; returning home from business trip. The views from that arriving flight are the most amazing I have ever seen in my “flying” lifetime.

The “incomplete” double rainbow you mention was full and complete for us on board the plane. It arched over the airport runway, and we literally flew into the rainbow. It was so awesome, and I wished I had a camera with me, but now I have a partial picture of it thanks to you.

The flight began in LA with buckets of rain, bumped passengers due to overweight, and departure delay due to weather conditions. So to arrive back home to a rainbow made for a reminder of our paradise.

Thank you!!

—Scott—

I’m amazed that someone that was on that plane saw that picture.

We’ve finally caught up and even passed normal rainfall amounts here in SLO. Normal for the season (July 1-June 30) is 23.5″. As of this morning, here at the SLOweather station, we’ve had 24.89″ so far.

March helped a lot toward that total. March average is 3.8″ and this year we received 6.5″. April is well over the top as well, with 4.23″ falling so far in the first 4 1/3 days of the month, against a 30-year average for the entire month of 1.6″.