NOAA installing Pineapple Express sensors

[SurfnSnowboard]

These new sensors could help forecasts for both precip and snow levels in California and result in better/more accurate forecasts and flood warnings:

SAN FRANCISCO — Nature generally doesn't time its storms so well. A "Pineapple Express" weather system — so named because of its origins near the pineapple-rich Hawaiian Islands — dumped large amounts of rain on San Francisco and Northern California this past weekend, just ahead of the announcement of a new system for forecasting and assessing exactly that type of storm.

These storms, aptly and more technically known as atmospheric rivers, bring huge amounts of moisture across the Pacific. They are narrow bands in the atmosphere that funnel moisture from the tropics into more northerly latitudes. Over the course of several days, or even longer, the moisture in the system is dropped on a wide area and can potentially cause flooding and reservoir overflow, as has happened in some West Coast communities with the current system. That system also brought strong, hurricane-force winds to some regions and dozens of inches of snow to others.

The installation of the first of a set of four instrument arrays to monitor these storm systems was announced by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other researchers here yesterday (Dec. 3) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union during a two-day lull in the weather. More rain is expected today, and watches and warnings for floods, winter weather and high winds are in effect.


http://www.livescience.com/25240-pineap ... sting.html

The story goes on to mention that one of these events can dump more water than carried by the Colorado River in a year!

[Photoho]

Isn't it already easy to see these coming ?

[onegoodturn]

Right. How many times have we seen the "Mother of all storms" coming only to get a foot or two???

[ride395]

Pineapples have a distinct texture ... so, these sensors come on the cheap.

[SurfnSnowboard]

Isn't it already easy to see these coming ?

Yes they could see them coming but now they can sense them coming!

I think the idea is that the sensors will give forecasters a better idea of how exactly how much precipitable water is available in the AR. Maybe WeatherGuy can give us the scoop.

[SurfnSnowboard]

More info...turns out that it's a series of advanced weather stations plus soil moisture monitors to help predict when flooding will occur.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/dec ... /?sciquest

[Photoho]

Sounds like the tec that every greens keeper and farmer has been using for years. That might help in predicting runoff and flooding. That has nothing to do with predicting the actual event. I wonder what these other sensors are. Seems a little late to place these on the coast.

[2NAKLLR]

We're seeing the AR buzzword in discussions w/in 3days of an event. I would think 3 days is enough notice.

[ride395]

Where is the budgetary restraint? This is big .gov run amok, lol!

[Photoho]

^^^ Sounds like a Gov grant to me.

[oldskier]

Got to be able to justify the name change from pineapple express to AR.

[2NAKLLR]

But theoretically there can be an AR that is not a pineapple express.
I think it's Hawaii's pineapple growers that object to the negative connotation.

[xeren]

But theoretically there can be an AR that is not a pineapple express.
I think it's Hawaii's pineapple growers that object to the negative connotation.

I don't know, I would imagine they would be happy with the publicity

[CyberK]

Yuummm...

[SurfnSnowboard]

Got to be able to justify the name change from pineapple express to AR.

A "Pineapple Express" is just one type of AR event where the moisture stream ends up coming from the tropics.