Bright, glaring sunshine this early Monday on California’s north coast, and way-warm, too — feels weird.
Beautiful, though, and highly regarded, so feel the burn — we could get above 70 today.
Supposedly, there’s a strong ridge of high pressure over the western US, keeping El Niño at bay, creating off-season conditions — Steve Anderson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, explains: ‘“We’re seeing a weather pattern more typical of fall, what people refer to as ‘Indian Summer.’
“This high pressure ridge creates an offshore flow and turns off the sea breeze so you end up with higher temperatures along the beaches and at the coast than you get inland.”‘
And winter of the weird continues
(Illustration: Tessa Hunt-Woodland‘s ‘Solar Flare,’ found here).
Odd the weather, of course, with the fabled El Niño influence, coupled with our ‘new-normally’ over-heating planet, and you get a lot of weird.
In this regard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced last week, in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), of an intensive, full-court press on gathering more information on the actual impact of El Niño on our environment.
The double-team study will include an estimated 20 research flights in the central Pacific from late January to early March; use of drones equipped with specialized sensors; data gathered by weather balloons; and the use of all kinds of scientific instruments all over the Pacific Rim.
Termed the El Niño Rapid Response Field Campaign, details via Phys.org, and Craig McLean, assistant NOAA administrator for NOAA Research:
“The rapid response field campaign will give us an unprecedented look at how the warm ocean is influencing the atmosphere at the heart of this very strong El Niño.
“This research will help us understand the first link in the chain that produces, among many other weather impacts, extreme precipitation events on the West Coast.”
Back in the right-now, we expect pretty-clear weather at least into next week, but temperatures are supposed to float back down to the ‘normal’ range after today.
And seasons get confused…