It's Always the Same

09/21/2006 @ 6:44:13 - 7:58:17 PM MDT
Every day, the sun sets over the Jemez.

Late Summer Snow

09/21/2006 @ 03:56:38 PM MDT
It's still summer and yet last night it snowed. NOAA climate projections are calling for a wet winter with near normal temperatures. After last winter's lack of moisture, this is very welcome news for the flora, fauna and those of us who live to ski.

Light Hole

09/20/2006 @ 06:23:48 PM MDT
The sky opens up on a thunderstorm's rain shaft over Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Storm School

I've recently met a young meteorologist online who is happy to answer my questions about how the atmosphere works. Today she gave a quick online seminar about theta-e ridges:

Theta-e is also called potential temperature. Essentially it means if you squeezed all the moisture out of the air, (as a result you would gain latent heat energy), what would the new temperature be. If you have two air masses that are the same temperature, the one with more humidity would therefore have a higher potential temperature. Technical version here: On a skew-T log-P find the LCL and follow the moist adiabat up until the dry and moist adiabat lines are running parallel then follow the dry adiabat back down to the 1000mb line.

Theta-e maps serve two purposes. First, we can compare air masses that may be at different sea-levels. Temperatures at sea-level are obviously going to be warmer than temperatures in Denver, a mile higher. So you drop Denver down to the same level [where] you're comparing apples to apples.

The second purpose of a theta-e chart would be to show warm air advection (WAA) and cold air advection (CAA). Assuming no outside force (convection, frontal passage, etc) a parcel of air will actually follow its theta-e boundaries because essentially, theta-e is density. A less dense parcel will ride up over a more dense parcel (warm air over cold air).

So why are theta-e ridges important? Because when combined with confluence and difluence they show you where you're going to get serious convection...ie: tornadoes, snow storms, etc.

Sunset and Moonrise

09/08/2006 @ 6:44:26 - 8:23:28 PM MDT
The sun sets once again over the Jemez on what was a stormy day...


09/08/2006 @ 8:35:40 - 9:39:40 PM MDT
...and then the moon rises over the Sangre de Christos, occluded for the most part by the day's left over moisture..

Sunset Showers

09/05/2006 @ 7:08:52 - 8:11:55 PM MDT
Showers move in at sunset over the Jemez mountains behind Los Alamos, NM, in the northwest flow that's dominating our atmosphere right now.

Wet Summer Sunset

09/03/2006 @ 06:57:44 - 8:24:47 PM MDT
There's been a lot of moisture in the atmosphere this summer. Dewpoints have stayed in the 50s for much of the past few months. While it didn't rain today, the moisture in transit painted another decent sunset over the Jemez.

The Front at Sunset

09/01/2006 @ 07:29:35 - 8:41:41 PM MDT
A cold front rolls down the upper Rio Grande valley at sunset.