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| Noontime smog yesterday, looking southwest from the Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah |
So far, the pollution buildup has been modest. Because the center of the ridge has been along the Pacific Coast, we've been on the downstream side, temperatures aloft have been cool, and the inversion relatively weak and elevated. This has enabled some vertical mixing of pollutants through a decent portion of the valley atmosphere. As a result, the increase in pollution has been gradual and we've been fluctuating between good and moderate air quality.
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| Source: Utah Division of Air Quality |
However, Heartbreak Ridge is sliding eastward and the inversion is strengthening, as can be seen in the soundings from yesterday afternoon (top panel below) and this morning (bottom panel below).
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| Source: University of Wyoming |
The NAM sounding loop below (note: this is a skew-t diagram, not directly comparable to the diagrams above) shows further warming aloft over next two days, with temperatures aloft warming an additional 5ºC.
Thus, the inversion will be strengthening and lowering through the weekend. It appears we will be in the grips of the inversion at least through the next work week, unless a system stronger than presently advertised slides down the back side of the ridge and gives it a stir.
Model Products Information
We have been having some problems with the server that hosts weather.utah.edu and it has been down intermittently the past two days. Behind the scenes (and unrelated to the outages), I've been updating some of our products. Options for the GFS now include global and regional plots from the 0.25 degree latitude-longitude grid (we've been using the old 0.5 degree grids), higher frequency (every 3-h to 240 hours), more regional sectors (e.g., Intermountain, Northwest, Southwest), and time-height section options that match the time period of the NAM for comparison. Some little used plots are gone, such as the Indian Ocean sector.
www.weatherwest.com/archives/5982 had an interesting article on the causes/predictability of the west coast death ridge.
ReplyDeleteThe 0.25 GFS is bringing what looks like a decent storm into Utah at the end of next week, Sunday Dec 17. You'll believe it when you see it? Ten days out is too far, once we get closer, you'll take it more seriously? Grasping at straws here ... it would be nice if this forecast contained some signal as to the end of heartbreak ridge.
ReplyDeleteThere's a range of possibilities across the various ensemble members. Thus, that far out remains uncertain. I stick with my usual view that one needs to be cautious when they peer into and beyond the 7-10 day forecast window. A single model produces physically realistic, alluring result, but one run does not capture the full range of possible outcomes.
DeleteJim