Maximum Winter High Tides


 

The high tide of 8.0 ft at the Golden Gate on Oct 27th, exceeded the published value of 6.7', due to thermal expansion of the eastern Pacific and El Niño-induced height rises. The published max values for Nov-Jan are about half a foot higher than Oct, portending the likelihood of even greater and more widespread impacts in areas subject to tidal flooding. Additionally, storm surge from incoming storms and/or runoff from recent events could exacerbate these impacts. 

NOAA Tide Tables:  https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/noaatidepredictions.html?id=9414290

Jan Null, CCM
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Email: jnull@ggweather.com
Web: http://ggweather.com
Posted

Storm - A Must Read

Storm - A Must Read

“STORM” by George R. Stewart should be REQUIRED READING if you are a meteorologist, a meteorology student, deal with or communicate California weather, anyone whose day-to-day activities in California are impacted by the weather, or just a weather enthusiast. I have just finished rereading it for probably the 5th time.

I first read “Storm” when I was an NWS meteorologist intern in 1974 and identified with one of the characters in the book, the Junior Meteorologist (JM) at the Weather Bureau in San Francisco. Over the years, I have given or loaned copies to over a dozen friends and colleagues, and even though it was written in 1941, the meteorology is still sound and incredibly insightful. Likewise, the impact of a storm across California for 12 days in the middle of winter. Interwoven throughout the book are the interactions between the weather, the utilities, railroads, commerce, airlines, and the people, in a way that is just as relevant today as it was 85 years ago.

It’s available in hardback, paperback, e-book, and audiobook. Stewart also wrote “Fire,” a follow-up looking at a large wildfire in California, and also his classic apocalyptic novel “Earth Abides”.

Jan Null, CCM
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Email: jnull@ggweather.com
Web: http://ggweather.com

 






 

Posted

Bad Science? Winter Heat Deaths?


Bad science? https://impactlab.org/research/451000-at-risk/
This study has been a headline on many major sites this morning. Maybe it's a slow news day about El Niño, but it's an example of only looking at model data and not thinking about the real world. The study predicts 3500 hundred additonal heat-related deaths in the US between Sept 2026 and Feb 2027, and 1000 of those in California. Hey folks, this is winter and the number of heat-related deaths (with the possible exception of Sept.) from Oct-Feb is negligible, and an additional +2°F is not going to change that. The study's numbers in the Southern Hemisphere, where it will be summer, may have more validity, but caveat emptor.

Jan Null, CCM
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Email: jnull@ggweather.com
Web: http://ggweather.com




 

 

Posted

El Niño Myths and Misconceptions

Things I hear almost daily:
- El Niño will soon arrive in California
- El Niños and its impacts are the same
- El Niño and La Niña are storms
- El Niño equates to a rainy winter in California and Elsewhere
- El Niño means disastrous flooding for California
Here's a look at these all-too-prevalent El Niño Misconceptions:
https://ggweather.com/enso/enso_myths.htm

Jan Null, CCM
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Email: jnull@ggweather.com
Web: http://ggweather.com





 

Posted

El Niño and California Flooding

El Niño does NOT automatically mean catastrophic flooding in California! A case in point is the Very Strong El Niño of 1997-1998, which saw many locales with twice their normal seasonal rainfall, but it doesn’t rank among the top 10 costliest flood years because that rain was spread out over nearly twice the normal number of rainy days. El Niño can be an overall influence, but many other non-El Niño-related factors like successive storms, saturated conditions, reservoir releases, and extreme tides are the real driving forces for California flooding, whether or not there’s an El Niño. (https://ggweather.com/enso/calif_flood.htm)


Jan Null, CCM
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Email: jnull@ggweather.com
Web: http://ggweather.com



 



Posted

Mid-August SST Anomalies - Most Like 1997



This year's mid-August SST Anomalies are continuing to track most closely with the Very Strong El Niño of 1997. But there are still too many variables to say how this will play out in terms of California precipitation and related hazards.

Jan Null, CCM
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Email: jnull@ggweather.com
Web: http://ggweather.com


 






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Posted

Big Storms and El Niño


It does NOT need to be an El Niño year for there to be big storms in the Bay Area. Using the Bay Area Storm Index ( [https://ggweather.com/basi.htm](https://ggweather.com/basi.htm) ) as a metric, only 4 of the 17 biggest events (i.e., BASI ≥ 9.0 ) occured during El Niño; with 7 during La Niña and 6 during Neutral years.

Jan Null, CCM
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Email: jnull@ggweather.com
Web: http://ggweather.com


 






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Posted

Not all Warm Water is El Niño!

Not all Warm Water is El Niño!

There has been recent media attention to warm-water species of marine life being caught along the California coast, and being attributed to the developing El Niño, which is in the eastern tropical Pacific about 2500 miles away. But this much warmer than normal water predated the development of El Niño and was actually in place at the end of last winter's La Niña.


Jan Null, CCM
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Golden Gate Weather Services
Email: jnull@ggweather.com
Web: http://ggweather.com






 

Posted