{"id":57072,"date":"2024-02-09T11:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=57072"},"modified":"2024-02-09T22:27:35","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T22:27:35","slug":"assessing-the-likelihood-of-rain-during-a-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/57072","title":{"rendered":"Assessing the likelihood of rain during a drought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The US Drought Monitor<\/a> for islands in the western Pacific Ocean, below, shows moderate to severe drought in some of the islands, especially those farthest from the Equator. Is there anything on the horizon that might bring rains?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Drought Monitor output for The Marianas, Micronesian and Marshall Islands, 6 February 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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MIMIC Total Precipitable Water, 1400 UTC 8 February to 1300 UTC 9 February 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MIMIC Total Precipitable Water fields, below, show mostly dry conditions over the western Pacific with the notable exception of an impulse moving westward at 5o<\/sup>N latitude from 175o<\/sup>W to 175o<\/sup>E in the animation above. It is approaching Majuro at the end of the animation above (Majuro is at 7o<\/sup>N 171o<\/sup>E). What are the chances of tropical development with that rapidly-moving system. Shear is generally low over the system, and decreasing, and a small vortex is apparent at 850 mb<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shear and Shear Tendency over the western north Pacific Ocean, 1200 UTC on 9 February 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Scatterometry (from MetopB and MetopC), can show information about low-level circulations. In this case, for example, ASCAT winds from MetopB winds at 1036 UTC — the western swath shown below — suggest a shear line, as winds shift from northeasterly to northerly around 4o<\/sup>N Latitude. In addition, at the western edge of the swath at 0845 UTC, winds shift from southeasterly to northeasterly. That is, there is surface convergence near 3o<\/sup>N, 177o<\/sup>W.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MetopB ASCAT swaths, 0843 UTC (right hand side) and 1026 UTC (left hand), 9 February 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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MetopC ASCAT swaths, 0938 UTC, 9 February 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MetopC ASCAT winds at 0938 UTC, above, show the shear line perhaps more distinctly just east of 180o<\/sup>. The stronger winds — plotted in yellow — are from the east-northeast. The weaker winds in blue from the southeast. In the western swath, winds shift gradually from northeasterly north of 6o<\/sup>N to more northerly south of about 3o<\/sup>N. You will notice that a gap in observations is apparent just west of the dateline in both MetopB and MetopC ASCAT plots. Data from HY-2C can fill in region as shown below (from this website<\/a>) shows the northeast winds curving to northerly winds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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HY-2D scatterometry winds, 0930 UTC, 9 February 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A conclusion one might draw is that a region of enhanced moisture will continue to propagate (without much further development) across the tropical Pacific with an enhanced shower threat south of 10o<\/sup>N from 170o<\/sup>E to 150o<\/sup>E over the next few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US Drought Monitor for islands in the western Pacific Ocean, below, shows moderate to severe drought in some of the islands, especially those farthest from the Equator. Is there anything on the horizon that might bring rains? MIMIC Total Precipitable Water fields, below, show mostly dry conditions over the western Pacific with the notable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":57109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,79,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metop","category-microwave","category-satellite-winds"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57072"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57113,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57072\/revisions\/57113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}