The radioactive revenger has visited the U.S. in many forms during past year, including Godzilla El Nino and Snowzilla. But starting on Sunday, the fearsome monster will morph into a terrifying RIDGEZILLA, a weather phenomenon of amazing strength and persistence.
Sunday morning at 8 AM? Huge ridge of high pressure over the U.S. (this upper level map is for 500hPa)
8 AM Monday? Still here and even stronger.
Tuesday at 8 AM? You guessed it.
A view on Monday at 1 PM shows that there are troughs on both sides of the ridge. The result is ann an
omega block, since it looks like the greek letter omega, and is very stable and hard to change.
This is a very dry pattern for the West Coast, so that once a front moves through on Saturday morning, we will rapidly dry out and stay dry. But the eastern U.S. will become very cold as strong northerly flow moves arctic air southward.
If we get some offshore flow on Monday and Tuesday and don't fog out, temperatures could climb to 60F and above, particularly over the southern portion of WA. With the strengthening sun, it will feel like spring.
To illustrate, here are the temperatures at 1 PM Monday. 70s in California and southwest Oregon. Sixties getting into southwest WA.
Clearly, Ridgezilla has a hot breath!
No comments:
Post a Comment