Let The Prognosticating Begin!

August 25, 2013
I'm scanning the Sunday Chronicle online, and on the Entertainment Tab (Think Pink Section), I found a story about the '2014 Farmer's Almanac' which publishes Monday August 26th, 2013.

Last week I blogged about the Fire Weather. KirkVallus quizzed me: "no snow news? but you cover all the rest that I need to know, thanks Dave...."

Even my Sainted Mother has been asking about 'the signs'...wooly worms and such, that help make those folksy winter weather predictions...

Truth? I haven't given it any thought lately...oh, the one weathergeek who I respect (for his accurate forecasts going out three weeks) @TahoeWeather tweeted: "Some Winter hints... http://www.opensnow.com/dailysnow/tahoe" on August 13th.

Tahoe-based snow forecaster, Bryan Allegretto was checking in early with some thoughts on our upcoming winter...when KirkVallus quizzed me and I gave the coming winter a bit of thought, I came up with the same data points as @TahoeWeather... ENSO Neutral, PDO Negative. I keep an eye on the Sun's behavior too, and it's still quiet...too quiet.

In his August 13th Blog, @TahoeWeather demurs from offering a forecast this far out.
  
October 15, 2013
I tried to view the Climate Prediction Center's website, to view the September 90 Day climate Outlook Discussion, but the site is unavailable to civilians due the the incremental Government "Shutdown". Shutting down 17% of our $3.8 Trillion+ Government is hardly a shutdown...even the furloughed "Non-Essential" bureaucrats will get paid when all is said and done (think extra paid vacation) 

October 20, 2013
OK, the "Shutdown" is over, and Government websites are open to Citizens again. The CPC's 90 Day Outlook published October 17, 2013, says ENSO Neutral through the 2013-2014 Winter. No El Niño, no La Niña. The PDO is still negative too...in short the "Signs" look about like last year.

The Siskiyou Wing of the family was here at the Ancestral Digs for a long weekend telling tales of near-suicidal squirrels braving traffic to collect as many sugar pine nuts as possible before winter sets in.

Here, hundreds of miles south, Indian Summer holds sway. There's a notable dearth of yellowjackets, and this isn't wooly worm country. There's a slight cooling trend forecast for this week, roughly 1°F cooler each day through the weekend, so we'll still be in the high 70s. There was a 'nip' in the air overnight. The mercury fell to 43°F between 6-7AM this morning.

The Reno NWS Forecast Office put a photo of the famous "Blocking Ridge" up on Facebook.

This was the culprit that kept us dry last winter.

It's eleven days until Halloween. A quick look at Boreal's webcam shows one snowmaking fan sitting forlornly near the bottom of their hill. The forecast says no snowmaking weather up there this week. They're gonna need a modicum of luck to blow enough snow to sell lift tickets for Halloween, in my humble opinion...

OK, so what about my winter forecast? I'm waffling still. In 30+ years on My Mountain, we've never had three below normal winters in a row (read dry winters) so the odds say normal or above precipitation. Why am I not sold on the wet winter forecast? Too many cold signs so far.

By cold I mean the Negative PDO, the sun is still hibernating even though we're at or near the Solar Maximum for Cycle 24, plus another weak Atlantic Hurricane Season. (Last year's Hurricane Sandy, that slammed New York and New Jersey was the second named system that made landfall on the United States during the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season)

Sandy came ashore as a Category 1 hurricane, but did massive damage to the Jersey Shore and coastal areas of New York City as it came ashore at high tide and was 'funneled' into Lower Manhattan by the shoreline topography. Beachfront developements were especially hard hit.

With under two months of the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season left, there's been only eleven named systems, of which two have become hurricanes. Hurricane Season ends November 30th. No hurricanes have made landfall on The States yet this year. Pretty quiet overall.

Gotta say...I've got a bad feeling about this...

Stay tuned...

Snow Forecaster Bryan Allegretto

Snow Forecaster Bryan Allegretto

Snow Forecaster Bryan Allegretto

ENSO

So El Niño looks like a fading memory for 2012/2013 according to the Climate Prediction Center's October 90 Day Outlook Discussion published today.

I'm guessing we'll have another slow start to Ski Season...call it a hunch.

Wednesday we had widespread Red Flag Warnings for the Sacramento Valley, Inland Valleys, and Bay Area ridgetops.

Here in the Inland Valley our nights are cooling rapidly, but the forecast is for warming through the weekend. There is some buzz about "pattern change" on the horizon, but the jury's still out on that one. It's time for the local TV weathermen to get antsy...they've gotta be bored to death with the same ol', same ol' summer forecast regime...

Back to the Drawing Board:
My San Francisco Giants will fight to get back on track this evening in St Louis. Tim Lincecum makes the start, and looks like 2010's "I've Got This" Lincecum in the post season.

Also going backwards back on San Francisco Bay, TeamOracleUSA pitch-polled their new AC72 catamaran America's Cup racing catamaran. They dug both hulls while bearing away in 25 knot winds into the biggest ebbtide currents of the season. The fast current swept the overturned cat out under the Golden Gate Bridge and four and a half miles out to sea!

Fortunately all hands are accounted for and no major injuries to the crew were reported. It took most of the night to tow the cat back to TeamOralceUSA's Pier 80 base.

Upside down at Pier 80

I'm no expert...but it looks like a total loss to my eyes...News reports place the value variously at $8-$10 million...the wing sail is a total loss, and the teams next AC72 won't splash until early next year. Ouch!

No forecast necessary here...this is a big setback for the Home Team

It's In the Air

When I crested the hill above Blue Canyon Monday, I could see the pall of smoke from the Chips Fire hanging to the North.

While not really watching "Mornings on 2" KTVU2's 7-9AM news, I caught a teaser citing this fire season as "the worst fire season since 2006" This evening I went to KTVU's site and found the story.

There's still a third of Fire Season ahead of us. Lightning strikes continue to bedevil fire crews up and down California, as well as the rest of the West. "While the number of fires is down from the 10-year average of 54,209 as of Aug. 22, the acreage was well above the average of 5.4 million acres, said Don Smurthwaite, a NIFC spokesman. "NIFC is the National Interagency Fire Center.

"Let's be careful out there" only goes so far...tonight I was enjoying the San Francisco Giants game on TV. They were playing the arch rival Los Angeles Dodgers in LA. You could see huge thunderheads growing east of the San Gabriels...just the kind that start lightning fires...

All this dry winter/bad fire season stuff reminded me to check on the ENSO discussion. Last month the Climate Prediction Center was saying an El Niño-style winter was likely...this month they say it's even money either way. I thought the El Niño call was a little premature because the Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies were way west...Mid-Pacific, not off coastal South/Central America. We'll see, most of the other temp cycles are still on their cold sides.

Oh yeah...the Giants swept the Dodgers...at their house! True, the Dodgers did it to us at our house last month...but we're Number One (for now)! We lead the NL West by 2 1/2 games.

Good night...SturgeUrge and I are gonna be on San Francisco Bay Thursday...Salmon and halibut are the quarry...America's Cup Racing is the distraction!

Cycles Again

Like a scene from STAR WARS, there was a disturbance in the Force this weekend. In the midst of the much reported and tweeted Mid-Atlantic Heat Wave, a huge Derecho caused widespread power outages across several eastern states taking down internet servers, which in turn made several internet services unavailable for several hours.

Instagram the popular photo sharing site, Pinterest, and mighty Netflix all were down for several hours. Now I don't use any of these sights directly, but I did notice the absence of Instagram when several "TwitPics" wouldn't display on Twitter.

Saturday afternoon I saw @ExJon tweet:
"El Niños & Derechos are doing the damage American storms won't do."

Though snarky like I like it, the tweet made me wonder what the state of ENSO was, as I haven't kept track since my ski season ended way back in February. I went to the Climate Prediction Center's 90 Day Outlook Discussion, and waddya know? A weak El Niño is trying to build in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific. Curiously, the Central Pacific is still trending cold like a La Niña...a yin and yang thing I don't remember seeing before.

The Outlook Discussion's High Points:

THE OUTLOOK FOR July/August/Sept 2012 TEMPERATURE INDICATES ENHANCED ODDS FOR ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES FOR MUCH OF THE CONTINENTAL U.S., EXCEPT FOR PARTS OF THE NORTHEAST, THE NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS, AND ALONG MUCH OF THE WEST COAST.  ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES ARE FAVORED IN NORTHERN ALASKA, WITH THE CHANCES OF BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES ENHANCED IN COASTAL REGIONS OF SOUTHWESTERN AND SOUTHERN ALASKA.

THE PRECIPITATION OUTLOOK FOR July/August/Sept 2012 SHOWS AN ENHANCED LIKELIHOOD FOR BELOW-MEDIAN TOTAL SEASONAL PRECIPITATION FOR PARTS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST AND NORTHERN ROCKIES.  ABOVE MEDIAN PRECIPITATION AMOUNTS ARE FAVORED FOR FLORIDA AND PARTS OF ADJACENT STATES.

Alas, it looks likely that the Central Rockies are in for a "Long Hot Summer" while Florida floods...steady as she goes, I guess...

Head Scratching Time Begins

A couple of things came streaming through my social sites today...more precisely, I noticed them today...

KCRA3's @MarkFinan's tweet touting his "La Niña Explainer" on the  KCRA 3 Weather Facebook Page

I didn't know Finan had a weather page on facebook, so I searched and liked it. Here it is...it's a good thumbnail sketch of a seriously complex system:

    "For those of you that didn't see my explanation of La Nina on the news last night, let me explain here. First the basics... La Nina refers to a period of cooler than average water in the equatorial Pacific. The cooler than average water can set or alter weather patterns for extended periods of time, like for a season. 
    Based on past episodes, there are tendencies that you can see when we have a La Nina in place. For some parts of the country, like the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest, those tendencies are pretty well defined. The Northwest has a very good chance of having a cool, wet winter. For our area the signals are very mixed. 
    Last year was a La Nina year and the water year was very impressive in NorCal. Sacramento finished with about 125% of average rain and the Sierra had about 200% average precipitation. 
    Not all years are like that for us. Some years come in pretty average and some come in very dry. 1975-76 was a La Nina season and was one of the driest years we have ever seen. Sacramento only picked up about 7 inches of rain that season, about 36% of average. 
    The problem is that there are more forces at work that [effect] the equatorial Pacific. There is the Arctic Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the MJO, the PDO etc. All of these have some influence on our weather patterns at any given time. Research into these is ongoing so seasonal forecasting is still pretty iffy. 
    So the bottom line is we don't know what sort of Winter we'll have here in NorCal."

Our climate is like an onion in that there are many layers of driving forces that influence the climate in the long term and weather in the short term. You could call these drivers the "Alphabet Soup"...they are all acronyms: AO, ENSO, PDO, MJO, NAO for a start.

ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) is like the onion's skin. It's on the surface and it's the first oscillation that casual observers discover, and it's the shortest period oscillation we've discovered. ENSO is home to El Niño and La Niña.

Mr Finan is right about the forecasting being "iffy", most of the dedevelopment of the computer forecasting models took place in the last 30 years or so...about the same time that the PDO was in the Positive Phase (read warm phase). Now that the PDO has crossed into negative territory, the models will have accuracy problems.

Clearly meteorologists haven't yet found the mechanism that drives Central California Precipitation during La Niña Winters.

Notice all the acronyms end with an "O" for oscillation. These are all cycles of temperature trends for different oceans or regions of oceans. Oceans are where the lion's share of Earth's heat is stored. Most of Earth's heat comes from the Sun, while a fraction comes from the Earth's molten iron core via vulcanism...see deep ocean vents for example.

The Sun has cycles too, though I'd wager we haven't discovered most of these yet. The most familiar cycle is the Sunspot Cycle. It's the first one we noticed. The earliest surviving record of sunspot observation dates from 364BC , based on comments by Chinese astronomer Gan De in a star catalog. The first clear mention of a sunspot in Western literature, around 300 BC, was by Theophrastus, a student of Plato and Aristotle.

I was 50 years old when I saw my first sun spot. I was on The New Seeker a "party boat", off the beach at Pacifica fishing for salmon. The marine layer was just the right thickness to reveal the disc of the Sun which was sporting a huge sunspot several times the size of the Earth.

Solar observers say the Sun is being very quiet, just another monkey wrench in the forecaster's bailiwick to complicate their job.

Transition Time

Last week at this hour, it was snowing in Truckee. Today was shorts and T-shirt weather all the way.

I traveled to Reno for my annual haircut. I fleshed out the trip with provisioning. I had the A/C running the whole time. It was 75°F out, but the telltale signs of Autumn were everywhere to be seen on my way back up the Truckee River canyon.

In the lowering afternoon sun, all the alder and aspens were lit up like beacons against the mountainsides. Bright yellow puffballs against the evergreens and gray volcanic soils. A pall of smoke from a downwind controlled burn gave the light an extra warm tint. I really wanted to pull over and take a few photos, but the best scenes were right at the end of miles of CalTrans repaving work, and I didn't want to be another traffic hazard for hurried motorists to contend with.

My season starts Thursday. We're going to a Prinoth Operator training session, and Employee Orientation at My Mountain. Much better to get it all in before the season starts...I hated fighting to stay awake during these things after working all night and killing an hour in the morning waiting for the show to begin.

Thursday NOAA's Climate Prediction Center issues their monthly 90 Day Climate Outlook Discussion. I'm looking for confirmation of a "Deep La Niña" to begin the season. I have seen some background noise about an El Niño forming once La Niña scoots along...it's getting close to about time to "call" the upcoming winter weather...I'll make my call by November 1st.

I'm assuming that the World Series will be wrapped up by then

Foot Dragging?

It's a funny thing...I'm way late writing this installment of CorduroyPlanet. I'm not dragging my feet exactly, I just got hyper busy all of a sudden, and nothing was burning a hole in my pocket so to speak, and when I did catch up, I had San Francisco Giants baseball and Formula 1 practice and qualifying to keep me distracted. Before I knew it, it was 0400 and my eyelids slammed shut.

Oh yeah, my alarm was set to go off at 0500...       Planning FAIL

So I did wake up at 0800.

That's when I saw the Tweet @wattsupwiththat put up a link to a study that looks to me like a possible indicator to refine Winter-Long forecasts for North America...Talk about right in my wheelhouse!

Yesterday's CorduroyPlanet Blog was my 500th post since I began my daily screeds back on August 9th, 2009.

...Whoops...missed...I wouldn't feel right blowin' my own horn too much when I screwed up and failed to post my Saturday blog on time...and now here I am...twelve hours past due...

So the study, by the University of Georgia, Athens: "Northern Eurasian Snowpack Could Be an Important Predictor of Winter Weather in U. S." really aroused my curiosity. If I can find some reliable reporting stations in the areas of the snowpack study, this discovery could become my most powerful prediction tool when it comes to sussing out a season long trend. Wet or dry, colder or not so cold...it's all golden...should it bear out.

To wit:
 "It turns out that snow piling up over a band of frozen tundra from Siberia to far-northern Europe may have as much effect on the climate of the U.S. as the much-better-known El Niño and La Niña."

Let me clarify (italics are mine):
"It turns out that snow piling up in October and November over a band of frozen tundra from Siberia to far-northern Europe, all the way to Northern Scandinavia, may have as much effect on the climate of the U.S. as the much-better-known El Niño and La Niña do for the ensuing winter season"

This is huge! After a long protracted cool spring, we had a three day "mini-heat wave" earlier in the week, and now we've returned to cooler-than-normal weather for what's forecast to be yet another week of below average temperatures...it's getting to be like a stuck record again.

Last week, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center published their monthly 90 Day Climate Outlook Discussion wherein they announced the end of the La Niña regime:

"SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES (SSTS) ARE NOW VERY CLOSE TO LONG TERM AVERAGES ALONG THE EQUATOR IN THE EAST-CENTRAL PACIFIC OCEAN.  SOME WEAK LARGE SCALE ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION ANOMALIES ASSOCIATED WITH LAST WINTER'S LA NINA CONTINUE TO PERSIST OVER THE TROPICAL PACIFIC, BUT THESE HAVE DIMINISHED IN RECENT WEEKS.  THESE OBSERVATIONS INDICATE THAT LAST WINTER'S LA NINA HAS ENDED AND ENSO HAS ENTERED A NEUTRAL PHASE."

Well, there we are. The new toy has arrived just in time to keep my attention as we drift towards next season...cool!

What's Ahead This Winter?

Watts Up With That? has been a goldmine this week. The Truth be told? I'm procrastinating on the heavy-lifting plumbing project back in the Ancestral Diggins. It's easier to dilly-dally when there's fascinating weather and climate news to ponder!

Today's distraction is: Global Sea Surface Temperature Cooling Continues. In the Comments, I found a new Climate Acronym: AMO is the newly discovered (or newly postulated, I'm not sure which yet) Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. The Atlantic's version of the Pacific's PDO, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

The AMO is so new, that there hasn't been enough time to compile it's footprints going back into the historical record. This makes any models highly volatile going forward...for the near term, anyway...

It's going to be interesting to follow this new cyclic climate variation as it becomes better understood. Time will tell if this new data set will evolve scientifically, or does become politicized? All the better to beat the fast-fading Human Caused Global Warming Drums!

I can't wait to see the AMO, plotted over 2000 years overlaid with the same plot for the PDO. Do you suppose that the All-Time Record Temps might coincide with the alignment of these cycles at their combined peaks? How long between these alignments...I wonder. What about Atlantic Hurricane Activity, or Intensity. ENSO/El Niño/La Niña, and the Sunspot Cycles all get to play here.

Related comments cited the rapid "rise" of the new La Niña (rise could be confusing, the Pacific is cooling into the La Niña state, and cooling rapidly) Couple the effects of the new La Niña with the PDO getting farther into the Negative (read cool) Phase and we're looking at Winters trending cooler for the next decade or two.

La Niña often results in drought for many regions...usually the American Southwest, and the Southeastern States. The Pacific Northwest gets drenched, and in Central California, it can go either way. Fortunately for My Mountain, La Niña's lower temps are good for snowmaking, in case a dry winter does visit.

What might be shaping up in the years ahead, is the possibility of a big El Niño coming into play to coincide with the forecast Solar Maximum in 2015. If the Sun cooperates, (and that's far from a certainty, given the Sun's capricious nature of late) That El Niño could rival 1998's strong El Niño, that brought all kinds of exotic tropical gamefish into our NorCal waters. There were Striped Marlin taken as far North as Westport off Washington State!

Marlin, Yellowfin Tuna, and Dorado were taken off the San Francisco coast during the 1998 El Niño, and the associated warm water currents brought the White Sea Bass back to Bay Area waters, where they are seen increasingly seen in catch reports every season.

Though still an incidental catch in Bay Area waters. White Sea Bass (WSB) nicknamed "The Grey Ghost" are highly prized for their fighting skills and they make excellent table fare. I can't wait until I catch one. The California State Record WSB is 78 pounds, it was taken in 2002 in Monterey Bay... unverified reports have WSB going to 90 pounds.

Gagging On Jargon

Every endeavor has it's own lexicon. It seems the more scientific the pursuit, the more jargon it generates. Meteorology is loaded with big words and arcane acronyms. Government bureaucracies seem tireless in their penchant for pumping out reams and reams of jargon. They've raised acronym creation to a Dark Artform that usually makes my head spin when I hear any of it.

AFD, ENSO, PDO, El Niño, La Niña, La La Land...let me up!

I'm an old SnoCat jockey who geeks out on all things weather, and I'm a first class offender, jargon-wise...each of those Government-Speak acronyms come out of my mouth from time to time...(well not La La Land)

Meteorologists and climatologists have all these wonderful new computer models and data sets that all get new names at an ever-increasing rate. I have a good memory that catalogs and stores all kinds of fun facts, so I forget sometimes, that not everyone else in my world is conversant with all the same stuff that fills my days and daydreams.

Therefore, as a Public Service...I will start a Glossary of these densely arcane bits of meteo-jargon. I'll stack it over in the Sidebar with the Toolboxes and Labels.

After my late night of pseudo-toil building the Jargon Glossary, I set the alarm for the last hour of the LIVE Tour de France broadcast, and went off to dreamland.

I woke up a couple of hours before the alarm chimed in, so I watched most of the Tour's Stage 10.

After yesterday's total Grinder, the peloton looked like they were loafing! The contenders and their teams didn't try to reel in the morning's breakaway...I think recovery was Job One today...because it's still very hot in France. Yet another early crash! Two of Team CorduroyPlanet racers hit the deck...road rash...nothing orthopedic reported!

Unfortunately, my Fantasy Teams took the day off too...of the 16 riders I have left on my two teams, exactly one rider scored points today. Team CorduroyPlanet scored 35 big points today. A perfect score is 645 points! You need to score all of the top 9 places in the stage, and have the GC Leader, the Sprint Points Leader, and the King of the Mountains Leader.

Team CorduroyPlanet will bounce back Thursday. The Tour leaves the Alps, and races over fairly flat roads that favor a bunch sprint at the finish line. Four of Team CorduroyPlanet's remaining seven riders are sprinters! I have the Green Jersey (Sprint Points Leader) too (5 of today's 35 points)

In The Bag

I had a fun and productive weekend here in the Inland Valley. KirkVallus was in town and we spent some time working on SturgeUrge's boat Friday afternoon. Saturday, KV was off to the Big Valley for a Dog Race called "Lure Coursing" where he plays with his whippet Rose...or as KirkVallus told me with a straight face..."Rose, it's short for Rosy"

KirkVallus told me that his sister read my blog from time to time, and said: "I don't get it...he's always writing about the weather" and stuff. I looked at KV and said: "Well, duh..." We went back to riffin' and laughin'...

We always have a lot of laughs when we get together...we've earned the title: "The Kirk and Dave Show" over the years from our closest friends...so it came as no surprise Sunday evening, when we laughed ourselves into tears over at SturgeUrge's house. SturgeUrge is in sales, so he knows a joke or two as well...suffice it to say, hilarity ensued...in spades.

In a little lull in the laugh-track, I queried the boys on the phrase "Baggy Trough" Nothing but crickets...then back to the wholesale hijinx. KirkVallus was anxious to get home to work, so he was going to miss our Monday halibut trip. SturgeUrge and I decided we'd pass on Monday too, and go up to Tomales Bay for crab and halibut hunting on Friday instead.

I've been digging in the garden early...until the heat causes me to retreat. Today I called it a morning in time to catch the weather on the Noon News. While waiting for the weather segment to air, I scanned the 'Net for fishing reports, Marine Weather Forecasts, and I went back to the Reno AFD from last Friday to look again at the "Baggy Trough" reference. Still puzzled, I ran through the AFD Archive to see if I could get a clear idea of just what a baggy trough is. No such luck. I clicked on YellowPages.com and searched National Weather Service near Reno, NV and gave 'em a call.

After a fairly short computer phone triage, I pushed zero and got a human on the line.

I explained that I worked in the Ski Industry, and that I was a regular reader of their Area Forecast Discussion, and I was wondering what a Baggy Ridge was.

The guy on the phone was one of the forecasters, and was just like my Dad (and every engineer I've ever met) all business. He explained haltingly that a baggy trough was an elongated trough that wasn't well organized as opposed to a closed low which is an actual storm system. "Kinda like a Slacker Trough?" I asked...well, he allowed...maybe..."Sloppy?" I asked...yeah, kinda, let's just say it's weak and disorganized. Sounds like Slacker to me, I thought.

Once I recognized that I was "workin' a tough room", I started thanking him for his office's level-headed forecast work, especially in contrast to the Sacramento Office and their Chamber of Commerce style. I told him that I thought of the Reno guys as cowboys...not out to pasture, but realists, conservative with their forecasts, and thanked him for missing the snowfall predictions to the light side. He said: "We try to hit it right on the button"..."I know you do" I replied, and said you guys are conservative, not Pollyanna types. I told him that every time the Sacramento Office forecast the "End of the drought" for the weekend, and it turned out to be nice, it costs us a quarter million bucks. I could hear him smile when he volunteered that Sacramento has a "different threshold for warning criteria"

I reminded him that Sacramento posted a Winter Storm Warning the Friday night of Memorial Weekend, that it did snow, but the mess on the Interstate was due more to unsuspecting revelers caught in winter weather and chain controls for the first time, and not from copious snowfall. I said a Winter Storm Watch was more like it, and he said "We'd call an Advisory"

I smiled hearing the Engineer-Speak, and thanked him again, and asked: "how's the weather in Reno today?" Cheerfully he told me, and said it was the kind of day he'd rather be outside. In passing, I whined about the Spring-long North Wind Regime's effect on my fishing plans, and asked if it would return to normal any time soon. He said the winds should become onshore by this weekend!

We chatted about the Bay Area, the "Natural Air Conditioner" (they must have a chapter on Weather Cliches in meteorology school) and the prevailing coastal winds and their effect on upwelling. I tried to pry some La Niña intel from him, but he didn't have any other than the quick exit of El Niño conditions. I thanked him once more and told him to "keep up the good work" I could hear him smile as I hung up. I smiled too, knowing my opinion of the culture in the NWS Reno Office was spot-on.

I always smile when the World is spinning in greased grooves...

Evidence

Regular readers (If there's any left) know that I've been whining about the lingering "Rainy Season" for a couple of months now. Forgive me.

I have proof however that said whining wasn't just puffery. There's genuine data out there!

The USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service issued their June
Snow-Precipitation Update, listing the snowpack measurements from June 1st. No real surprises, given the robust El Niño that's been holding sway over our weather this past Winter.

Average Snowpack numbers are over 100% in most Western states:

California: 176%
Idaho: 129%
Montana: 114%
Nevada: 186%
Oregon: 154%
Utah: 107%
Washington: 112%
Wyoming: 116%

The Desert Southwest underperformed:

Arizona: 9%
New Mexico: 36%

Colorado is the Outlier at 54%

We're looking at the Textbook Fingerprint of El Niño, though I haven't the foggiest idea of what happened in Colorado.

Interestingly, Alaska's snowpack was only 79% of normal, while the Arctic Sea Ice Pack continued it's four year increase, both in total area and thickness. Polar Bears can all smile and sell Coca-Cola on TV again.

While I was looking into the recent past, I chanced upon NOAA's Atlantic Hurricane Season Prediction from last week. They're predicting another Active Hurricane Season. They also said the Eastern Pacific should be quieter than average due to cooling Sea Surface Temps across the Equatorial Pacific. At the time of their announcement, NOAA was predicting ENSO neutral conditions, however a LaNiña Event looks more likely every day to this observer.

If, as seems likely, we do have a LaNiña year, the Pacific Northwest will be especially soggy. Already above average this year, a LaNiña-fueled winter usually means torrential rains in Oregon and Washington, drier than normal weather for Northern and Central California, and heavy precipitation for SoCal and the Southwest. God help us...

Back in the Western Atlantic, SSTs are falling quickly now too..This is where Atlantic Hurricanes are born. Usually, when we have a LaNiña Event, hurricane activity over the Atlantic increases. I have my doubts that the 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season will live up to NOAA's prediction this time around exactly because of the SSTs speedy decline in the Equatorial Atlantic. It's hard to birth a hurricane over cool water.

Oops, there I went and made another Weather Prediction! Damn! You can't just ignore these things once they're in print...even if it's only on your computer screen.

Whatever Gets You Through the Night

OK, I'll admit it right here, right now. I'm a captive to the weather. Call me a Weather Hostage.

@CorduroyPlanet follows Anthony Watts' excellent Climate Blog, Watts Up With That? This morning @WUWT tweeted: "WUWT at the top of the heap?" I went to WUWT, and the Blog is The Number One Science Blog online!

I read the post, then scrolled down to see what else Was Up. It seems the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) issued a La Niña Watch Thursday:

•A transition from El Niño to ENSO-neutral is underway.
•Sea surface temperatures are decreasing across much of the Pacific Ocean and have recently become below-average in portions of the eastern half of the basin.
•Although many models predict ENSO-neutral conditions, there is a growing possibility of La Niña developing during the second half of 2010.

This is bad news for yours truly. (Like I need a reason to obsess over the weather) I guess I'll just resign myself to a Summer of Paying Attention.

The CPC issues an Expert Discussion/Assessment every week.
This Product, in .pdf form is 30 pages long this week, and packed with images and data. It's quite the tome for WeatherGeeks, and it's loaded with tangents to investigate.

While reveling in all things ENSO, I had the TV tuned to 24/7News, who were tracking the launch of SpaceX's commercial rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

When did we quit calling it Cape Kennedy? Why?

As always, "busy" Government bureaucrats put too fine a point on the name...officially, it's now "The Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral"

After some short delays for "Sensor Anomalies", the Falcon 9 rocket blasted off in picture-perfect fashion, carrying a dummy Dragon Capsule. SpaceX has been awarded a $1.6 billion contract for up to 12 operational logistics flights to the International Space Station.

"Operational Logistics Flights" is NASA-speak for hauling freight up to the ISS.

Buoyed by today's apparent "Bullseye" performance of the Falcon 9, SpaceX want's to take ISS Cargo to the Station on their next flight, foregoing an extra mission to prove out the cargo ship's rendezvous capabilities.

SpaceX contends the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule could be ready for human passengers by 2013, if NASA awards a contract for the work this year.

All this seems very ambitious to me, given NASA'a stately and deliberately paced flight test history. SpaceX is a Contractor in NASA's employ, and the customer calls the shots, so to speak.

SpaceX isn't the only Commercial Launch Outfit on the scene. More established companies like United Launch Alliance, which oversees Atlas and Delta rocket flights, and Orbital Sciences Corp., SpaceX's main competitor in the market for cargo services to the space station are part of Manned Spaceflight's Future in the Post-Space Shuttle universe.

Back on Earth, a quick look at the forecasts and radar images shows today's event staying far enough to the North to keep the Inland Valley dry. That looks like it for the foreseeable future. Back to the Diggins!

Fire Weather

It's kinda muggy in the Inland Valley today. I did errands all afternoon, and on my way home, I crested a hill that gave me an awesome view of Mt Diablo looming over the Inland Valley. Out past the big mountain, over the Central Valley, I could see building cumulus clouds typical of Summer afternoon thunderstorm buildup. Back at the Ancestral Digs, I logged on and looked at Reno's and Sacramento's AFDs. No mention of thunderstorms.

Many NWS Forecast Offices have a forecast product named "Fire Weather"

Fire Weather is a specialized forecast, tailored to Firefighting Planners and Wildland Fire Managers. This product delves a little deeper into Local Observations, reporting values like Fuel Moisture, Upslope and Downslope Winds, above and beyond the usual temps, rainfall, wind speed and direction. Fire Weather forecasts local winds, humidity, chances of Wetting Rain, and Lightning, for several times during the day.

During active Wildland Fire Season at the DaveCave and environs, I usually have my Police Scanner on 24/7. Every morning the Local Fire Stations broadcast their morning reports, and Grass Valley Dispatch reads the Fire Weather Forecast, so I know the Product is utilized by our Wildland Firefighters.

Beyond the Morning Reports, the scanner gets quite active during Fire Weather. Sure you hear all the Fire Dispatch Calls, but when there's active weather locally, you hear the Fire Lookouts calling in Smokes, and Grass Valley calling the Fire Lookouts for help confirming Smokes or Fires reported by the Cell Phone wielding Public. This can be very compelling listening, especially in late Summer and Fall!

At the risk of making another Seasonal Prediction, I've been wondering just what effect our lingering wet regime will have on Fire Season. It all depends on whether Summer gets hot, and the Heat Spell lasts. There's a video of the 150 days of 2010 Pacific Ocean Sea Surface Temps posted on Anthony Watts' Site that shows the ocean cooling that could herald the change of the guard Sea Surface Temperature-wise. El Niño seems to be turning into La Niña at breakneck speed. I wonder what the likelihood of a Long, Hot Summer is, given the likely La Niña...on top of the PDO in it's cooling phase?

With all the cool conditions extending the grass growing season, you can expect some nice fat deer this season. Should there be a Hot Indian Summer (not likely), and a Dry Fall (more likely, thank you La Niña!) we could see some Severe Fire Conditions. Still, four to six months out...conjecture is conjecture.

We'll have a better idea in four or five months. That's a Prediction I can make...without reservations.

Dispatch from the DaveCave

I rolled up the hill today. I've been at the Ancestral Digs for two weeks, and I needed to pick up my Absentee Ballot (and the rest of the mail before the Post Office starts jack hammering the new mail into my PO Box!)

I'm registered as DS, "Decline To State", and while I was totally focused on my BodyClock Reset War, I missed the deadline to pick a Party Affiliation for June's Primary Election by mail...I called my County Registrar Of Voters, and spoke with a lovely woman with a charming English accent, who gave me the answer I was looking for, so tomorrow on my way down the hill, I'll stop by her office, register with the party of my choice (for this election) and be on my way with a new Ballot!

After I finish being a good citizen tomorrow, I get to stop at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in Grass Valley to pick up a few things for the gardens at the Ancestral Digs. Then I hit my favorite nursery in Auburn, my favorite foothill health food emporium, and my favorite tackle shop.

Just so you know, Jeweler is doing fine. He messaged me on Facebook:
"Thanks for the shout TD it came at a good time. Been having those El Niño Blues. Not working isn't helping. But I think that'll be changing soon. So the fishing hasn't been great but it's been nice if ya known what I mean. Going out towards Prosser inlet in a bit. Fished the Little Truckee and the inlet to Stampede to no avail. Had a great day though."

I'm sure Jeweler had a wonderful afternoon fishing or not. It's a nice Spring day in the High Sierra, lot's of dirt showing on South slopes compared to when I left town. Now the Sacramento WeatherDude just said: four days of showers out of the next seven days...Summer will come eventually, and the longer it takes getting here, the more we'll appreciate it!

Weather Phenomena or Public Health Emergency?

Late Tuesday (early Wednesday!)
I wanted to give a Shout Out to Jeweler, who posted this to my Facebook Wall today: "Yep Dave. It snowed all of Monday. It looks like there is a giant sucker hole over the summit today though."

That was his answer to my earlier comment on Jeweler's Status Update. Jeweler: "Depression hurts everyone. I want winter to end" he posted. I commented: "is it still snowing up there? That's three Mondays in a row!"

Tuesday, Jeweler posted this Status Update: "I heard the fishing is good close to me. If the rain stops, I'll get there this evening." When my blog posts Thursday, I'll put the links to my last two posts on Jeweler's wall.

Everyone forgets to "think outside the box" once in a while...even more so when El Niño is holding sway, and gray Winter-like weather persists deep into spring. For Hard Core Groomers, it's much worse. We suffer the Double Whammy...lousy weather and not being able to get into our tractors and deal with it! The old saw says: "An idle mind is the Devil's playground" That goes in spades for us groomers on Summer Hiatus!

Looking at the Climate Prediction Center's 90 Day Outlook Discussion, there isn't a whole lot for Jeweler to hang his hat on short term. Eventually, Spring will come, El Niño is in decline now. The CPC says there a better than even chance that we'll be having a hot Summer...once it gets here!

I remember the last round of Strong El Niño influence on the High Sierra Spring and Summer...It had to be late May or even early June. Winter had already hung on way too long! I was standing in the Check-Out line at the Albertson's with a half dozen other Truckee Locals. Everyone was looking down at their shoes or the floor...there was a lot of fidgeting about, it was creepy quiet, and nobody wanted to make eye contact. They especially didn't want to gaze out the front windows at the falling snow! I remember realizing right then that this was much more than a weather annoyance...it was becoming a Mental Health Emergency!

Truckee finally emerged like an animal awakening from hibernation to enjoy yet another fine High Sierra Summer.

That October, SturgeUrge and I were widening our horizons in Southern Baja. We visited Rancho Leonero on Baja's East Cape for the first time. The Ranch is one of the venerable "Old Baja" style fishing resorts scattered along the rural East Cape. The warm Mexican hospitality of the sleepy fishing villages around these resorts make for good times, and subtly civilize even the most grizzled traveling anglers.

When we arrived at the Ranch, after the three hour jitney ride from Cabo's International Airport, we stepped into the warm, lurid tropical afternoon. A brisk wind was blowing out of the North. We settled into our room, and enjoyed a few cervesas while we unpacked and started rigging our tackle. Tackle Ho-ing is a great way to spend a sultry tropical afternoon...winding down from a long day of travel with a frosty Pacifico...putting the diamond file to big game hooks can be very relaxing...setting the drag on a Big Game Reel with a 50lb hand scale always helps melt away the hustle and bustle of International Travel.

On our way down to the Dining Room, we noticed the wind had freshened. The Sea of Cortez looked like San Francisco Bay at 3PM in the dead of Summer...the sheep were in the meadow...Big Time! After a couple of hours of getting to know our fellow anglers in the cantina, we retired back to our room, and the winds were still howling.

At breakfast the next morning, the whitecaps were everywhere on the usually calm Cortez. We've learned over the years to never fish the day after we travel...we're too good at outsmarting ourselves on the water to add travel fatigue to our quarry's list of allies!

After watching the fleet head out for the day, we returned to our room to finish rigging. After lunch we took our light tackle down to the beach to do some shore fishing. The wind was still blowing out of the North. There was serious surf! Normally this far up the Cortez, there's no surf to speak of. Today, there were so many combers that we couldn't cast far enough to get past them!

When the anglers who did get out told their stories over dinner we realized we were the butt of Mother Nature's cruelest practical joke...not only had her Grande El Niño run Winter almost to the Summer Solstice, but down here in North America's Tropics, El Niño was now bringing Winter's steady Northerlies to the East Cape six weeks early! Our first trip to the fabled waters of the East Cape was scuttled by these winds.

The folks at Rancho Leonero were more than gracious. They refunded the rest of our week, arranged lodging and a boat charter in Cabo, and had their handyman/jitney driver drive us into Cabo where we had a great time catching Yellowfin Tuna, Dorado and some Sierra Mackeral. The cab ride was epic...SturgeUrge and I will never forget that ride, and coupled with a magic time in Cabo, we had our best Baja Adventure to date...but that's a story for another day!

Springing Forward Again

First Night
It's Sunday night...I woke up sans alarm clock at 4PM. I didn't fret over getting a few more winks, because I don't have to work another Graveyard Shift until the 2010/2011 Ski Season begins.

On tap this week is Jerry Otto's Fish Camp. SturgeUrge and I are joining Jerry and the boys for his annual Camp-Out Kickoff near Markleeville, on the Eastern Side of the High Sierra. Typical of an El Niño year, a late Winter Storm is forecast to plague us through the week.

The inclement weather won't amount to anything compared to my battle to reset my Body Clock! Twice a year, I throw caution to the wind and voluntarily reset my body's internal clock when I opt to become a Graveyard Groomer every Winter, and a normal person every Spring. Bad weather may have us cooped up in our tents, but catching up on my reading won't be all bad...though it's just gonna be more procrastinating...

You see, resetting my body clock is easy in the Fall...go to work at midnight, and you come home and collapse...instant reset. Spring's reset has always been more dodgy...

Tuesday 0300
I was up all day Monday once the alarm got me up at 0600! I spent the day Spring Cleaning the DaveCave...I've got company coming Tuesday night, so I'm finally making time to clean up a year's worth of clutter! The DaveCave has become my "Closet Away From Home" since I've been summering at the Ancestral Digs...so easy to let stuff pile up...add a new Laundry Center Project (halfway completed) and suddenly I'm a Hoarding Reality Show on DiscoveryHealth!

I laid down with the internet and a cocktail around 7:30PM and woke up at 0130 when the wind associated with the oncoming snowstorm rattled everything on the front porch. I poured out the melted drink, and I threw on some long pants and shoes and scurried upstairs to put the pickup into the garage before the precip started. It's an hour and a half since I got up and the winds are really starting to thrash out there.

Are they ever! The top of Slide Mountain El.9650, is showing 90 gusting to 120, while the top of Squaw El.8700, shows 60 with gusts to 100+ Wild and woolly, yet still dry...aaaand this brings me to "the moral of the story" as the old cartoon chestnut used to say. It's now 0320 and I'm wide awake...alert even...

So begins my annual "Battle of the Body Clock" wherein I usually surrender going in...muddling about in my newly earned freedom, sleeping "on demand" and taking a month or so to "normalize" my sleep schedule, chalking it up to: "I earned it"

Jerry's Fish Camp starts Wednesday for us, It could be just the ticket for this BodyClock reset dealio...stay tuned.

11:30AM Tuesday
SturgeUrge called, he was just off the phone with Jerry. Wiser Heads prevailed, Jerry has been at Fish Camp all week, and has been doing tons of fishing...and zero catching, so he suggested that we come over for the week of the 9th to the 12th. I heartily agreed (anything to drag out the Spring Clean Up! I told SturgeUrge that I wouldn't be surprised to see the next El Niño -fueled winter storm to blow in about then!

Still In Trouble

I'm awake now...it's only 6PM...I've banked five hours of sleep...I'm gonna be needing a couple more hours before I head off for work tonight.

The burnout from last night's debacle notwithstanding, I'll be earning it again tonight...I logged onto the Reno AFD when I woke up, and looked at the remote sensors and saw the Hero Snow making a hasty retreat. Until the next system arrives next week, we'll be doing Spring-Like temperatures. Today's High Temp topped out at 20F above freezing, and 16F higher that yesterday's High. Highest of the last seven days, I'm surprised I haven't heard the Cheeseburger Birds calling yet.

Still, the lingering winter-style show kept the interest of our guests...they've been coming up in droves! We've been doing Land Office Business this month...most seasons, my Mountain is more like my Ghost Town by mid-April. Thanks to El Niño, this surprise bonus has everyone smiling big wide grins.

This season hasn't turned out to be a Drought Buster, but it's moved us in the right direction. So far, so good.

This Is Trouble

Wednesday Night 8:28PM

I'm back up the hill, layin' in bed, in the DaveCave...eyes are wide open...still...

Damn, I did everything right this weekend...especially last night! I fought to keep the peepers open...I made it 'till 3AM, and dutifully answered the alarm clock at 0558! Out of the sack at 0800, I filed the taxes, printed Wednesday's blog for my Mom, and the blog where I mentioned my friend Dave's passing. Throw in a trip to the Post Office, and a Doctor visit, before driving across the Big Valley and up the hill, I was sure I had the right recipe for a solid 4-5 hour snooze...FAIL!

The trip was largely uneventful, the scenery the best of the season to date, and I even ran into a nice snow squall crossing the Summit! My return trip was drama-free compared to my downhill journey!

That's all folks! I gotta try to get a few winks before midnight! Drama? I've got your drama right heeeer!

I'll finish up in the AM...g'night!

Thursday 9:54AM

A few winks wasn't enough! I suffered for my damn art all night!

It could have been way worse though...the snow was excellent! Still dry and squeaky...just like I like it.

Skiers and riders like it too...we've been averaging around a thousand guests daily this week! Thanks El Niño for a lingering shot of Winter Snow !

Good Night!

The Other Opening Day

That would be the Salmon Season off California's Coast. Saturday April 3rd was the Opener...the first after California endured a closed season in 2008,and a barely open, truncated season in 2009.

Judging from internet reports, it was a rough one. Most who ventured out turned around and sought shelter inshore. Some salmon were caught out of Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Half Moon Bay. The further North the bigger the swell. Outside the Golden Gate, seas were 15-20ft at 15 seconds...that's a roller coaster! Mal de Mer guaranteed! No thanks!

SturgeUrge and I plan on fishing next Monday...provided the fleet find the fish first! We'll be watching the buoy reports too...we're too soft for big swells!

Looking ahead to the Long Range Models, we might be in for some weather Monday. The Monterey/San Francisco Marine AFD doesn't mention Swells, but it does allow that wind will be ramping up along with the chances of precipitation...wind is the engine that drives swell formation...stay tuned.

About Last Night
My Monday was kinda rough...even though I slept through the Giants game, I didn't log enough winks, so I did some suffering. The snow was good, and we had a good crowd Monday. We started behind the 8-Ball due to a huge to-do list for the upcoming weekend that's chock-full of racing events all over the Mountain...new start bumps, Pro Jumps and more ate up Swing Shift's time.

I did the slash and burn edit of the Work Orders, the fleet held together, and we made the proverbial Silk Purse in the end.

Looking at the sensor data, temps were up 10F over yesterday, so the Hero's outta town now. We've got double the talent on swing tonight, but the Springlike Conditions will eat most of the advantage gained by front loading our effort.

There's Hope
While updating, I viewed two 6 o'clock Weather Reports...both show colder temps and showers beginning Sat/Sun..."Chalk it up to El Niño" quipped Sacramento's WeatherWag, "El Niño often pushes cooler winter weather deeper into Spring" I'm down with that, even if it keeps us off the water next week. Under two weeks to the end of ski season, mostly we've avoided too much hard grooming. Hero Snow might make an encore appearance for the Home Stretch...

Keep your fingers crossed.

Buzz-Thrills

Anticipation
With a tip of my hat to Carly Simon...

It's started again...that anticipating/wishing/hoping/praying/buzzing in the skiing/snowboarding/big wave surfing/weather-geeking universes!

According to all the AFD's up and down the West Coast, the next big chance for Pattern Change is on it's way towards the forecast area. Friday morning's Reno ADF called the coming events: "the perfect recipe for snow"...how welcome is that news? Pretty darn...

Here I am, still cooling my heels at the Ancestral Digs, gathering online intel day in, day out, doing the myriad chores and projects to fill my days of waiting.

The Bay Area TV News folks are practically gushing in anticipation of this storm coming to town. Breathlessly they run through their forecast sound bites, and weave in their hoped-for announcement of the 2009/2010 Maverick's Surf Contest. Fifty foot waves are possible by Tuesday at Mavericks they gush. Good gosh, what a way to kick off Winter! Thanks are in order for all the Mountain Folk who've been doing their Snow Dances! Here's hoping those aligning models trumpet the arrival of a real El Niño Style Winter Season!

Getting Ready
Thursday afternoon, the FedEx Guy stopped by the Ancestral Digs to deliver my new Handheld Device. After hours of online research, trips to Geek Emporiums, and the local Verizon Wireless Store, I decided on an iPod Touch for my mobile internet solution.

The Touch is the Apple iPhone...sans the phone. Verizon, my carrier released the Motorola Droid last month, and driven by Google's Android Operating System, this Smartphone will remake the Smartphone Playing Field. This device was my number one choice, but I opted to wait to jump into a Smartphone Plan until the impact of Google's arrival on the Mobile Landscape plays out. To get all the cool advantages of Smartphones, you've got to get a Data Plan in addition to your monthly Cell Phone Plan. I'm too cheap to commit to doubling my monthly phone bill, especially since I don't really need Mobile Internet except during Grooming Season.

I spent all of my Thursday night (and a good portion into Friday morning) loading the Touch with handy "Aps", and synchronizing it with my computer. Even across platforms this was all enjoyable, not the giant cluster of hassles of a few years ago. Apple's Ap Store boasts 100,000 applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch today. Dozens and dozens of Weather Aps are available, with more choices coming online weekly.

In the coming weeks, as I become more adept at operating this little handheld computer that plays tunes, I'll be able to communicate right from the operator's throne of my Snowcat! That's the bonus, fun side of this device. Looking at Real-Time Weather Radar and Satellite Images on the Mountain will be invaluable! Getting up to the second intel about what's coming our way...without having to get off my Mountain to get in front of a Mountain network computer, is going to be Golden! Massaging the Back-Up Plan will become proactive, instead of reactive. This is going to save hours of grief, and make my crew even more effective.

One night this season, I expect my cat will go down...just a hydraulic hose or fitting, or maybe a relay will sideline me for an hour or so while the Graveyard Mechanic works on the problem to get me going again. If I'm in range of the Mountain's WiFi, I will write this blog from my broken cat!

If you're following @CorduroyPlanet on Twitter, expect an occasional Tweet from the seat of my cat as well...this is going to be too much fun!

More Lost Time
From the "It happens every Fall Division"...
So I'm playing with the iPod, while not watching the NewsFeed from FoxNews on the TV,and scrolling through my freshly imported Bookmarks, I clicked on my link to the Half Moon Bay Buoy from the NDBC (National Data Buoy Center) to see if Surf Contest Conditions were brewing. In an instant the page loads and says: "The page you requested is not found" I should have expected this...I looked at all my Buoy Pages just a month ago in preparation for Crab Season...all six were good to go.

I end up whining about this practice the Government goes through every Fall. I thought they change these pages because they have excess time on their hands, but as I started to revise my Bookmarks, I noticed that Google is now a major part of the NDBC Product.

All the Buoys are on Google Maps now. Typically, you zoom in on the World Map until you can resolve the little piece of ocean you want, and hover the cursor over the colorful specks representing the different Stations (read buoys) until the buoy you're looking for is displayed...click on it's link and you get to the Buoy's Page where the data is displayed...Whew!

I must have stumbled onto the NDBC's Annual Revision Festival half way through the process...of my six Bookmarked Buoys, four are the new-style Google-fied feeds: Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, San Francisco, and Half Moon Bay...just in time for the Big Surf Contest. All told, I shot 30 minutes resetting my Buoy Bookmarks...not as bad as I feared...side note: Bodega Bay's Station 46013 Buoy has been down since October, and the Coast Guard is working to get it into their Buoy Maintenance Schedule, and back online.

A quick look at the Buoy Data shows seas between 9 and 10ft this Friday 12/4/09. The Local TV WeatherGushers, are all abuzz about the Big Swell forecast to arrive Tuesday, and the possible call to arms of the 25 World's Greatest Big Wave Surfers. The Mavericks Surf Contest Window has been open since November 1st. When the Organizers decide the swell is huge enough, the call goes out to the 25, and they have 24 hours to get to Half Moon Bay for the Big Show.

It could be the Epic Kickoff to a Big Winter...Lord knows drought stricken California could use the water!