ARkStorms AND MAGIC 8-BALLS
NWS meteorologist speculates about the upcoming winter
“Will it be Tremendously big and Tremendously wet?” was not President Trump asking about his bath. It was the title of a talk about the upcoming winter that National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Smallcomb gave on Tuesday night.
In the back of the White Mountain Research Center, in a double wide trailer—that serves as classroom—the lights were off. Smallcomb paced in front of the projector. It could have been his green screen. This wasn’t Channel 2’s evening weather chat. Smallcomb talked about ARkStorm’s, historical flood patterns, radar scan angles, and the unpredictability in forecasting the weather.
“For anything beyond four weeks from now go look at a Magic 8-Ball, read the Farmer’s Almanac, or watch the squirrels,” Smallcomb told the audience.
“I’m not implying that I know what’s going to happen this year.”
“When I don’t know something, I admit it.”
Smallcomb doesn’t know a lot about the future. He knows about the past.
Atmospheric rivers were the hot topic. They are responsible for most of the snowpack in the Eastern Sierra. The atmospheric rivers look like arms in a satellite time lapse of the Pacific Ocean.
