Fall Continues!

Looks like around 2AM this morning we had a major burst of rain. The same wasn’t recorded at the Harbour Quay station, but it looks like it’s having problems as we have had 16mm and they have had 1mm recorded today. Nicks weather station looks to have recorded a similar event up where he is in Cameron Heights (i think?). We haven’t had a rain event that strong since August last year and November 2006 when we had the major flooding. Thankfully this one only lasted for a matter of minutes rather than hours.

Was anybody up, or awakened, by a major downpour overnight? Would be great to get confirmation. Either way though, it’s going to stay wet all day. Should dry up for tomorrow and Monday/Tuesday before another system comes in Wednesday and Thursday.

UPDATE: Me have da bad gramar and fat fingers today. I fix all up now.

UPDATE 2: Wow. This doesn’t happen often, so definitely worth an update.. especially if you have friends or family in Mexico. No danger for Baja yet, but Manzanillo, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta will all be getting some weather from this.

Hurricane RIck off the Pacific coast of Mexico has intensified into a “Spectacular”, 155knot (288kph) Category 5 Hurricane.

From the NOAA:

the satellite presentation of Hurricane Rick can be expressed in one word…spectacular. The eye is quite distinct and is surrounded by very deep convection. On the last available visible images one could see the sunlight reflecting off the eastern side of the eyewall and the stadium effect that is typical of intense hurricanes.

Here’s that Visible satellite shot: (Click for large)

Based on these data..the initial intensity has been increased to 155 knots. This makes Rick the second strongest hurricane on record in the eastern Pacific after Linda in 1997.
There is an opportunity for Rick to gather a little more strength tonight or early Sunday…

Here’s another shot, infrared this time from wunderground. (Click image for large)

Wow.

Today is Blog Action Day. This is a annual event held throughout the blogosphere where each year blogs take up one topic of world importance and blog about it only to raise awareness.

With the Copenhagen summit coming up in December, world leaders are right now deciding how best to approach a new climate pact to replace Kyoto. The Canadian diplomatic stance has already caused a walkout of developing countries from the meeting during talks this week.

But aside from that, I wanted to talk about Climate Change that is affecting us directly here in the Alberni Valley.

• – As I’ve posted before, if you look back at our temperature records for the past 100 years, there is an upward trend in temperatures since the 1950s. It has started later than other records I have seen, but this past week I read a paper published from UVic that studied receding glaciers and they mentioned that for all of the Pacific North West region, the “little ice age” that ended around the mid-to-late 1800s actually ended a little later for this part of the world, around the 1900s. So this matches well with the temperature record.
• – Speaking of glaciers. If you’ve lived here for more than 20 years you will no doubt have noticed the receding of the Comox Glacier, I know I have. The report I mentioned above studies a small glacier just North of the Comox Glacier and has found that since first being recorded in 1931, it has been receding by up to 10 meters a year. 10x the rate from before 1931.
• – The majority of summer temperature records in the Alberni Valley have been set in the past 15 years.
• – Water has become a real issue in places like Tofino, not only because of the rapid increase in development, but because they simply haven’t had as much water in the system as they had in the past
• – The storms during the winter of 2006/2007 were nothing short of unprecedented in this region. Whole swathes of trees laid flat. The flooding in Port Alberni was the worst since the Tsunami in 1967. Was that due to climate change? Hard to put your finger on it now, but other regions of the world have seen increases in intensity from Typhoons and Hurricanes, why would we be different?

Those are just some of the indicators I have seen. What have you seen that makes you think maybe we are seeing a change?

It was supposed to be sunny today, but I have a feeling we might not see any sun in the Valley. Looks like a pretty heavy cover, and there is some moisture on the radar as well.

It’s all getting us ready for next week, when fall is going to hit us. It was previously forecast that the remains of Typhoon Melor would come through our neck of the woods Tuesday and Wednesday (actually crossing into Oregon and Northern California). But that looks to be only half true. The low pressure center from Melor has now gone up into Alaska, delivering very heavy satellite returns (dark brown) for rain up there.

So that means we might not get a whole lot of wind from the system this week (sorry Eve!) but we will still be getting plenty of rain. The GFS is predicting 8mm on Tuesday and 90mm through Saturday. The extra-long GFS prediction has us getting another 100mm into the week after with some more fronts moving in. There is a possibility for wind as well with pressures going down to 990mb… but as with this time last week, that forecast could easily moderate by the time we get there.

UPDATE: Happy Thanksgiving! I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy thanksgiving and also let you all know that I’ve fixed a few lingering bugs on the website. If you click on the Graph images now they will all go to a proper page for each and give you the ability to download a giant zoomed-in version of the graph. It also works for the Custom Graphs created in the “Search Previous Weather Data” section of the Almanac.

I’ve also updated the Full Size webcam page (click on the alberniweather webcam in the current conditions) so that it’s formatted properly. If you see anything else that is out of place, just let me know.

So tomorrow morning, Oct 9, there will be a spectacular show for anyone with a clear sky and a pair of binoculars (or telescope of course).

The LCROSS lunar probe will be completing its mission… to blow a chunk off the moon! Ok, not really a chunk, but it has been aimed at the souther rim of the disc of the moon so that when it impacts, the dust should fly “out” from the moon and be visible against the backdrop of the black night! Cool!

You can get details on how and when to see it here. You will have two chances to see an impact, but you’re going to have to get up early! The first impact, of the booster rocket, is 4:31:19AM PST, yes, that’s down to the second, the 2nd impact is 4:35:45AM.

There are links to Facebook and Twitter pages on the link above to refine the time and synchronize your watches!

I might just try to catch it. Early to bed tonight!

Oh ya, weather :)… it should be a nice Thanksgiving… on Tuesday and Wednesday though, watch out… the rains are still coming, just a little late, 50mm of rain on the way up until next Friday and another 100mm after that.

(Edited for updated GFS long range forecast)

We had a windchill below 0C this morning. BRR!

That said, it’s shaping up to be another wonderful week of sunny warm fall weather. At or near 20C everyday from now through Saturday. After Saturday, as Bill pointed out this morning in the comments… and as I’ve seen mentioned in other blogs, things are going to change!

The Long Long range forecast (next Sunday to next Friday) calls for 130mm of rain and bottoming out at 993mb pressure which could mean some wind too.

We’ll see, the same model is apparently predicting snow for West Virginia around the same time as a big Arctic high builds into the middle of the continent.

Enjoy the sun!