Eastern Pacific Storms

[lrak]

Rick gave S Texas a lot of rain and with all these cold fronts starting to move all the way down to the S GOM I'm wondering if there is a pattern that may persist through the season and steer moisture up the coast of Mex. and then ride the cold fronts across TX?

Thanks,

lrak AKA karl

[Ad Novoxium]

Things like this tend to kinda-sorta happen on a regular basis, but it's a kind of a once-per-season deal more than a persisting condition. For instance, I did a lot of work on old Pacific storms, and can tell you that some of the cases of this happening include Naomi of 68, Lidia of 93 (which was exceptionally bad), and Madeline of 98. They do, however, tend to also go a little further west into Arizona, which occasionally gets hammered with cyclone remains (1970's Norma and 1983's Octave, the deadliest and costliest natural disasters in Arizona respectively, both became entrained in cold fronts, and 02's Cristina moved near the Baja California Peninsula, which set the stage for a powerful thunderstorm that caused roughly $75 million in damage, most of it at the Sky Harbor airport.

However, on the meteorological edge of things, I can't say for sure, as I don't have the experience yet. But historically, there are quite a few precedents.

[lrak]

Thanks Ad Novoxium, as a super green amateur I see the WGom looking like the US East coast and maybe a Pacific storm could be sucked up like in the Atlantic sometimes a storm gets sucked up by a cold front is why I asked. Thanks for the names, I'll read up and see if any of them coincide with my memory of lots of rain.

[vbhoutex]

Currently the set up is for us to be receiving plenty of moisture just the way you described. Normally our feed is the "pineapple express" which means our moisture that comes in from the West usually comes by way of the storms coming in along the W coast/California area instead of from straight off the EPAC as they now are.

[Aslkahuna]

There's also what I call the "Banana Express" which comes up from EPAC as a big moisture plume riding a STJ ahead of a deep trough along the West Coast. The actual Pineapple Expresses tend not to get down to this latitude in the West. The Banana Expresses, the strong ones, are very much associated with ENSO warm phase conditions while the weaker ones occur more frequently. Octave in 1983 never actually came into AZ-the moisture sheared off ahead of a trough in the westerlies. My son did a study on EPAC systems into AZ and found that on average about one per year came in with a circulation of TD or less with a TD or TS intensity system about 5-10 years apart. Been 17 years since a really good TS hit SE AZ while the last TS that hit SW AZ was in 1997.

Steve

[Ad Novoxium]

There's also what I call the "Banana Express" which comes up from EPAC as a big moisture plume riding a STJ ahead of a deep trough along the West Coast. The actual Pineapple Expresses tend not to get down to this latitude in the West. The Banana Expresses, the strong ones, are very much associated with ENSO warm phase conditions while the weaker ones occur more frequently. Octave in 1983 never actually came into AZ-the moisture sheared off ahead of a trough in the westerlies. My son did a study on EPAC systems into AZ and found that on average about one per year came in with a circulation of TD or less with a TD or TS intensity system about 5-10 years apart. Been 17 years since a really good TS hit SE AZ while the last TS that hit SW AZ was in 1997.

Steve

1997...correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that the downgraded Hurricane Nora?

[HURAKAN]

Nora 1997