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For earlier materials see Table of Contents

January 4th

Drought in PR?

So what happened to Rainy Rupert?

Ice crystals forming from moist maritime air meeting Arctic air

 

And the vandalism continues – broken window on 3rd Avenue

 

At one time several other ‘weather stations’ in PR and all would come up with different yearly precipitation totals depending on location --- and even on same day could differ markedly because of localized showers --- thus the blue arrow above shows a couple days >55mm rainfall ---- summarising: 2009 had a relatively dry spring and fall

2009 was from 25-30% drier than ‘normal’ using reported precipitation from PR airport weather station (YPR)

Yes there are problems with the data (many days are missing + not clear what ‘normal’ is (average 1970- 2000 is 150 mm more than what is used left, etc)

 

So how much has it changed compared to ‘average’ 1970-2000?

Look at 2009 for the scary part – used to get this much rain in October as came in 3 months this year (4th quarter) --- plus there was more rain in October 2007 than Q4 in 2009 --- Below I will look at October over last 5 years where daily data available online

 

 

 

Note there are both fewer rainy days in 2009 October – and fewer days where precipitation more than 20mm. Thus approximately 5 in 2007 and 7 in 2005

 

YPR past weather data:

Monthly totals PR January 2008

Here I am using October for comparisons – as I find it to be the most ‘significant’ from an ecological perspective

 

So what is happening? –
In December 2009 ‘our rain’ seems to be coming ashore to the south of us – perhaps SST has changed?

 

 

Another ‘supposed driver’ of North Coast weather is El Nino (red arrows left) and La Nina cycles (blue arrows) Figure is from NOAA – exact link to PDF here

Note the very strong El Nino of 1998 then a series of El Ninos in 2003, 2005, 2007 with aberrant La Nina in 2008 which by the way is the ‘explanation’ of our good pink salmon run this year which found excellent marine feed in 2008 

 

 

Plus a long look at SQCRD

More Later

See my last years comparison etc of Decembers past and especially the link to earlier precipitation in December – where serendipitously I mention the SQCRD election and Mayor Mussallem’s then threat to sell the building --- serendipitously because I am told the discussion was held again this December by SQCRD (in camera of course)

Created by LG on 3/1/2010

Last updated on Monday, January 04, 2010