Sunday, May 17, 2009

Muddy River

The river is running muddy this morning, and it's up a few inches. This means that yesterday evening's thunderstorm really amounted to something, and some of the arroyos ran upstream.

We could see the anvil top to our northwest, and could hear distant thunder, but got no rain. I checked the internet, and sure enough, the Weather Service had posted a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. They said the storm was nearly stationary, in the Hatch-Rincon area, which is about 15 miles from us. Said it was dropping an inch of rain an hour -- rather sedate as such things go. But early, too. May 16 is very early for monsoonal activity, but not unheard-of.

The prognosticators are predicting that this summer will be hotter than normal, and wetter than normal. Oh goody, I can hardly wait. Hotter means more energy, which can mean higher winds, more powerful convection, more intense storms. Maybe there's really something to this global warming business, you reckon?

This is in line with the correlation I've noticed -- dry in Texas equals wet in New Mexico, and vice versa. They're having a drought in Texas this year.

They'll be updating their prediction on May 21. I'll digest their info and have more to say then.

Side note: why is it that all the good monsoon info comes out of Tucson? Do we not have a monsoon in New Mexico as well? At any rate, here's the key link. Use the blue menu bar on the left side, and click on "09 monsoon otlk."

And I had sorta been hoping for a dry monsoon this year.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Jacques Conejo said...

Valuable observations.... Whether you realize it or not, your close study of our climate is really valuable and your willingness to share it is more valuable yet.

Thanks...


Jacques

8:59 AM  

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