Amazing how long we went without complaining about the weather in 2020

[classicdrogn]

But now the most horrible time of the year has arrived, with the intersection of summer heat and the tail end of spring pollen. SO. MUCH. POLLEN. It's like it's a Greenpeace sponsored bukkake flick and I'm the schoolgirl getting hosed down with tree semen.

Seriously, this.

[Star Ranger4]

Yeah.... on the one hand it was like we had bigger concerns than something like that, but also day before yesterday I was ruminating about how nice the weather had been so far during this whole thing.

Then yesterday the house got up to like 80 before I looked and found something had borked the thermostat settings.

[NifT]

Yeah.... on the one hand it was like we had bigger concerns than something like that, but also day before yesterday I was ruminating about how nice the weather had been so far during this whole thing.

Then yesterday the house got up to like 80 before I looked and found something had borked the thermostat settings.

Tell me about it. My AC is just borked, so my house has been hitting mid-90 to 100 for a week.

[Bob Schroeck]

We just came out of pollen season here. The table on the patio out back -- which is under a pergola that has a fabric covering atop it -- went from its reddish-brown color to yellow-green. Literally. Our deep blue car was also bright green for a while...

[robkelk]

Don't forget the thunderstorms... ("Severe thunderstorm watch" here today.)

---

... which is under a pergola that has a fabric covering atop it...

Better be careful of that pergola - you don't want it evolving into a gazebo.

[Norgarth]

Don't forget the thunderstorms... ("Severe thunderstorm watch" here today.)

---

... which is under a pergola that has a fabric covering atop it...

Better be careful of that pergola - you don't want it evolving into a gazebo.

[DHBirr]

According to the computer, the current temperature in Ypsilanti, outside Festung Birr, is 91° F.  And it's predicted (take it with a grain of salt, kids!) that the high for the next two days will be down in the mid-70's ... and then 65° on Saturday.  Yo-yoing all over the place.

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I'm a very forgiving person ... on Lord Vader's terms.  "Apology accepted, Captain."

[hazard]

The weather of 2020 has been pretty well behaved so far in the Netherlands. A couple of high temperature days (25+C), but mostly sunny with daytime temperatures around 20, or cloudy with daytime temperature between 10 and 20.

Which... is kind of a problem. Like last year, we're not getting enough rain.

[Star Ranger4]

Don't forget the thunderstorms... ("Severe thunderstorm watch" here today.)

---

... which is under a pergola that has a fabric covering atop it...

Better be careful of that pergola - you don't want it evolving into a gazebo.

DUN DUN DUN DUN, indeed!!!

[Kilroy]

Major derecho in the Mid-West yesterday. Damage across Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana.
https://weather.com/news/news/2020-08-11...ge-impacts

[Labster]

Things were pretty good, nice moderate weather this summer, until August.  And then... the fire tornado:


NWS Reno issued the first ever tornado warning for a tornado outside a rainstorm. Thanks, 2020.

Locally for me down in SoCal, the air pollution levels quadrupled in three hours, and everything smells like smoke. People really should wear a mask when they go outside. Most of these fires were natural -- which is to say caused by lightning -- and that's something of a change from the usual.

[Rajvik]

looks like inside the next seven to ten days we will have a new record of two hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. predictions have one hitting texas and the other anywhere from Panama City to New Orleans. Personally i think both are going to go a bit further east than even their cones of uncertainty are currently showing

[Bob Schroeck]

And while not exactly the correct thread for this, it's still sort of relevant...

Oh, great: NASA says an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day.

TL;DR: It's about six and a half feet wide, and has less than half of one percent chance of actually hitting the planet.

[Labster]

Meteors count toward meteorology. We're normally mostly concerned with hydrometeors, but tend to end up in roles where we serve as general ambassadors to the public for Earth and space science.

[Norgarth]

And while not exactly the correct thread for this, it's still sort of relevant...

Oh, great: NASA says an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day.

TL;DR:  It's about six and a half feet wide, and has less than half of one percent chance of actually hitting the planet.

I posted a link about this in the 'Oddities in the news' thread

[Rajvik]

well Marco has made landfall, they are predicting it to go west, i disagree, but i've only lived on the coast for 42 years and have paid attention to them since 1985, so i don't know diddly shite

[Star Ranger4]

Not sure I agree Labster... *I* think you are over estimating the level of Idiocy in LA, OC and Ventura Counties.

[Labster]

Wait, which comment are you referring to?

[Labster]

I think the weather can be best explained with a small snippet of the area forecast discussion:

Weak offshore flow will combine with an inversion that tops out at
a brutal 104 degrees at 1400 ft will make for an extraordinarily
warm night. Min temps south of Pt Conception will mostly be 15 to
20 degrees above normal but the foothills (especially around 1400
ft elevations) will be up to 30 degrees above normal with some
lows remaining in the 90s.

So yes, a short 400m above me the air is 35 degrees F hotter.  Offshore wind here is means that temperatures will start increasing around midnight.  That part isn't unusual in September -- the steep inversion and moist conditions at the surface are.  The nearest weather station to me is what I'm feeling right now -- 67°.  The next nearest is up the hill, at 94°.  At 2:30 AM.  Those nineties should be down to my level by midday tomorrow.

But at least it's calm.  Don't worry, by tomorrow the wind will blow it all out and we'll have dry, windy fire weather conditions everywhere.

[Labster]

It's a little disconcerting that Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and the Moon all decided to be Mars-colored tonight.  I'm pretty sure I saw this in one of the end-season episodes of Sailor Moon.  Oh, and incidentally, no stars are visible, not even Vega.  Lots of smoke aloft.  But because of that inversion layer, very little of it is dropping into the bottom layer right by the ocean (boundary layer) where I can breathe it.  Still seeing absurd things like temperature varying 30 degrees (~15°C) across my own mid-sized city, depending on if you go up in the hills a 1000ft or so or stay near the beach.

Let's just take a look at this thing, based on the weather balloon data (radiosonde):
   
This is called a skew-T log-p diagram, because the temperature goes the right on the blue lines (isotherms), and the pressure roughly corresponds to height.  The red line is the actual temperature observed, while the green line is the dewpoint.  It's from Vandenburg, where they launch the rockets, which is the closest station to LA.  That jag to the right is pretty massive.  And then it follows the green line (dry adiabatic lapse rate), which basically means everything from about 5 km down is sinking in a giant warm layer.  Fun times. Oh, and you can also see the 500mb level is at 596dm (~6km!), that's probably also a record high pressure.

What this ended up doing is setting an all-time record high for not just LA County, but the entire forecast area (should I say "the quad-counties?") of 121° at the edge of the San Fernando Valley.  This wasn't an isolated area, downtown LA hit 111°. So you know, a giant city with temperatures roughly like Death Valley.  Slight offshore winds (LAX-DAG gradient of -1.5mb) just to keep the warm air in place and give it a little downslope support.  Basically, the perfect heat wave hit Southern California.

Naturally, a few fires started.  Luckily, not enough wind to spread them quickly.

So, everyone went to the coast, where it was much cooler.  Just like there were major spikes in coronavirus infections in the weeks following Memorial Day and Independence Day, it's pretty obvious to forecast that the deaths from this heat wave will mostly be on a one-month delay.

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, and we get to look forward to the opposite here in Denver, albeit with one HELL of a swing in temperature:

   

Yes, that's over 50 degrees in shift overnight. The jet stream is expected to start bending this evening, bringing cooler weather from up north. The models have been consistent about it for days. And note that it's not unknown for this to happen here, but this is really early to get it.

[hazard]

That's what, 30 Celsius difference? Or at least from nice and comfortable 25+ Celsius to freezing?

Glad we don't get down here in the Netherlands. Aside the rain we've been having a pretty good late August early September, with plenty of sun and daytime temperatures just shy of or around 20 C. Night time... no lower than 10 C off the top of my head.

[LynnInDenver]

Down below freezing Tuesday night, actually. So from shorts weather to firm tights and slacks weather.

[robkelk]

All I've got is rain on a three-day weekend.

I'd just go home now, but thanks to physical distancing, I am home now...

[Labster]

We've had something like snow fall in California, except the fresh powder is gray and made of ash.  The expected Santa Ana event didn't materialize -- the inversion layer is too strong for a weaker-than-expected pressure gradient to push through.  So all of the smoke is just blowing over the top of us.

In San Francisco, the sky has been oranger than the Golden Gate Bridge.  Here too, the inversion is keeping the smoke aloft and the air breathable at the surface. Here's a quick picture of life on Mars (gallery here).  It was taken at 10 AM.