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Climatic Perspective on the fall/winter of 2004-2005

Climatic Perspective on the fall/winter of 2004-2005. Nathan Mantua, Ph.D. University of Washington Climate Impacts Group http://cses.washington.edu/cig April 6, 2005 -- CIG Seminar. The good news. The winter of 2004-05 has finally ended! It’s been snowing in the Cascades.

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Climatic Perspective on the fall/winter of 2004-2005

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  1. Climatic Perspective on the fall/winter of 2004-2005 Nathan Mantua, Ph.D. University of Washington Climate Impacts Group http://cses.washington.edu/cig April 6, 2005 -- CIG Seminar

  2. The good news • The winter of 2004-05 has finally ended! • It’s been snowing in the Cascades From the Mt Baker ski area web-cam (10 am, Sunday March 20th)

  3. Western SnowpackMarch 1st • Northwest snowpack situation was bleak on March 1st http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov

  4. Western SnowpackApril 1st • The NW snowpack situation has “improved” (as of April 5th)- yet still extremely poor by historical averages

  5. How did we get here? • the low snowpack occurred largely because of warm temperatures during the periods when most of our precipitation occurred: December 6-10 and January 17-19

  6. 52% • Fall and winter storms have generally been too warm to develop this year’s snowpack 22%

  7. 85% (as of April 6, 2005) • White-Green-Puyallup: swe-38%, pcp 61% • Cedar-Snoqualmie-Skykomish Tolt: swe-29%, pcp 70% • Baker-Skagit-Nooksack: swe-45%, pcp 85% 33%

  8. seasonal averages of precipitation and temperature are not exceptional. Most locations in Washington have received 65-80% of normal precipitation since October 1. This is considerably more than in 1977 or 2001. Temperatures also have been only about 1F above normal. Precip % of normal since Oct 1

  9. Precipitation and Snow-water-equivalent for Seattle City Light’s key watersheds: the Skagit and Pond Oreillehttp://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/ctracks.html

  10. Snowpack update for Seattle’s Water Supply Basins http://www.seattle.gov/util/About_SPU/Water_System/Water_Supply/

  11. Seattle Public Utilities Water Supply Update

  12. Jet stream wind patterns Why? R • The proximate cause was a large number of days with a split jet stream around a blocking ridge located over the NW region • Was it El Niño? • Definitely not “typical” of past El Niño events Ocean temperature anomalies

  13. Oct 2004-Feb 2005 200mb ht anomalies The tropical atmosphere has been warm!

  14. Are we in a situation like the early 1990s with multiyear warmth in the western eq. Pacific?

  15. Oct-Mar 91-95 200mb ht anoms Oct-Mar 02-05 200mb ht anoms

  16. Oct-Mar 91-95 SST anoms Oct-Mar 2002-05 SST anoms

  17. \ From NCDC’s 2004 Annual Climate Report http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov

  18. SST anomalies for the past month

  19. summary • It has been a warm and dry winter, but not of “record” extremes in either temperature or precipitation • The tropics have been very warm, yet not in a “classic” El Niño pattern • part of longer term and broader scale atmospheric warming? • Official CPC forecast calls for increased odds for a warm spring

  20. CPC forecast for July-August-September 2005 Temperature Precipitation

  21. SeaTac’s precipitation

  22. Daily temperatures at Sea Tac

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