Arizona Storm

It's one strange storm that's eager to please. It's moving more slowly than I expected, and it seems to be bigger than I expected too.

The cutoff low that the GFS model said would help deliver a punch into the Sierras exists as predicted off the southern CA coast (I thought it would be so far south and west that it might become part of the tropical easterlies instead), and the low is deeper than I thought. One consequence is that it's overcast today here in Sacramento (I thought the storm would be too small and fast-moving to have a pronounced effect here).

But the storm wants to please the NOGAPS model too, so it sent a split punch up the Colorado River Valley (raining pretty heavily in Las Vegas) and sent at least two punches into Sonora, with maybe more coming. But does that mean not enough rain in the AZ deserts? No, the storm is lingering long enough to get them too. Can't forget the Kaibab Plateau! So, lots of precipitation up there too. Something for everyone!

Both computer models *worked*, after a fashion, but the jet stream must be a bit sluggish, because everything is so SLOW and BIG. There isn't a lot of meteorological information gathered from over the eastern Pacific so the models may have been initialized poorly (kinda-garbage-in, kinda-garbage-out). So, reality has more fine structure, and it's much more interesting, really, than the model predictions.