[conspire] [OT] weather prediction (was: Re: Electronics Flea Market 2019)

[Michael Paoli]

> From: Texx <texxgadget at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [conspire] [OT] weather prediction (was: Re:  
> Electronics Flea Market 2019)
> Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 19:46:16 -0800

> Super computing has helped alot.
> You can run multiple math models and then integrate the results.
>
> There is a weather phenomena that happens out in the San Joaquin Valley
> that incluences how much of the week and when we are foggy and when we are
> sunny.
> Parts of the year, it happens weekly, so we might have all monday & tuesday
> for 2 months as clear and the rest of the week foggy.

I don't know that it's been useful "enough" for some accurate longer-range
forecasting, but I know one Bay Area weather pattern that's often at least
seems pretty darn predictable.  Most notably during a relatively "normal"
basic dry Summer weather pattern, with generally prevailing Westernlies.
There's this slow cyclic oscillation pattern that seems to mostly pretty
regularly repeat over and over and over.  You get calm day(s), it's
Summer, each gets hotter and hotter ... for a while; the increasing
heat causes more inland updrafts, eventually pulling in more marine
air - cooler, moister, and some fog and overcast too - at least eventually,
that goes for a while, until it cools things fair bit inland ... which
kills the more massive hot/warm inland updrafts that were sucking all that
air in - so the inflow looses its steam, the marine inflows stagnate (or
greatly reduce), the overcast/fog burns off, it starts getting hotter
again - which burns off more fog/overcast, so gets yet hotter.  That
goes on some moderate while, until the hot inland updrafts start building
quite a bit, that pulls in cooler marine layer, ... lather, rinse,
repeat.  Anyway, many Summers, I'd often see that general pattern,
typically doing a full cycle like that over about ... oh, 3 to 5 days
or so, ... and then mostly just endlessly repeating that pattern ...
at least until something more "interesting" comes along in the weather
to stir it up more (like much more hot/cold/wet/... or substantial
shift in wind directions - typically from some major storm or other
events shoving a lot of air mass around a bit differently and
often mixing hot, cold, and/or wet into it).  And lesser disturbances
may just perturb the pattern a bit.