Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Revised Paper on Sierra Effects on Intermountain Cold Fronts

Source: West and Steenburgh (2011)
After a long and arduous rewrite, my paper with Greg West on the Influence of the Sierra Nevada on Intermountain cold-front evolution has finally been accepted by Monthly Weather Review.  If you are an aficionado of Intermountain weather, this is a must read as it will probably cause you to think differently about how the Sierra influence cold fronts as they move across the Intermountain West.

The paper may be downloaded by clicking here.  Comments appreciated of course.

2 comments:

  1. Very interesting paper. Looks like tomorrow (June 1) may offer an interesting example of this.

    One comment I had, is that in many cases I have noticed a pronounced split of the upper-level trough around the higher Sierra, with the southern portion often continuing south over the San Joaquin Valley and eventually emerging near Las Vegas. In a few cases there is even a complete vertical split where the upper-level portion of the trough continues east into NV, while a lower to mid-level cyclonic circulation gets stuck over central CA and eventually dissipates there.

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  2. Jim, again, thanks for your informative, downright inspiring blog... from seiches to whatever. With respect to the role of the Sierra and Intermountain weather... is it crazy to think that topographic changes due to glaciers, ice caps, etc of Ice Ages (late Pleistocene thoughts and Lake Bonneville) might be sufficient to split the difference of NOSIERRA to LESSSIERRA or at least CHANGEDSIERRA (all else being equal which of courese it was not).
    Anyhow thanks for posting the paper and adding evidence of why strong winds cross GSL from the south.

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