The Samoan Islands are again within a moisture-rich airmass, as shown by the MIMIC estimates of Total Precipitable Water shown below. The MIMIC fields do not show obvious gradient that might be used to estimate when rains might be especially widespead. The airport at Pago Pago American Samoa has had a little under 2″ of rain the 24 hours ending at around 9 AM Samoa Standard Time on 9 April. Flood Warnings were posted... Read More
Parts of the Hawaiian Islands have been placed under Flood Warnings on 4 March 2024 (Link). Part of the reason for these heavy rains is unusually cold air aloft, at 500 mb. The animation above (from the CSPP Geosphere site — a direct link to the animation is here) shows a... Read More
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) showed thunderstorms that moved across Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands on 06 February 2024. These storms produced up to 4-5 inches of rainfall in parts of central Puerto Rico, with wind gusts as high as... Read More
2024 has seen several strong storms hit the U.S. West Coast delivering repeated rounds of widespread rains and mountain snow, with Southern California experiencing the heaviest rainfall totals. Total Precipitable Water imagery (MIMIC TPW) conveying data acquired by microwave sensors on polar-orbiting satellites is a key tool for meteorologists tracking atmospheric... Read More
