10/11/26 Sunday 3:30 am
Famous last words…
“Now we just need to wait and see which model delivers! I will be back in the morning.”
So far, none of them! Tropical Storm Rachel made landfall at approximately 9:45 pm last night.
When you wake up expecting precipitation, and there is none, or not as much as the models showed, you have to wait for a complete model reset. This model miss is called poor initialization. It happens a lot for our area.
This is why I always stress the “right for the wrong reasons” theory. Meaning, often with a large winter storm or a recurve, the models get the day-to-day amounts wrong, but are much closer if you spread it out over the event’s duration.
If I beleive all the models that have so far gotten things wrong, there is still rain and some mountain snow on the way. Last night’s European is still trying to use low pressure to try to tap into late-week moisture from Simon and deliver it on Friday and Saturday. No other model shows this occurrence.
Potentially good news? I have been coordinating the activity I see on the radar with weather stations. As impressive as the radar looks in spots, not much is happening. Three areas look very active: Cedar City, Utah; Flagstaff; and Las Vegas. But when I look at the weather stations, most are reporting less than 0.30″. Accumulations are slightly higher near Palm Springs and southwest of there.
The latest surface map was just released. This was as of 3 am (they always lag a couple of hours).
Number one, I challenge their positioning of Rachel. But the real big story is that none of the other players are getting involved, yet. I marked them on the map; only the majors, none of the shortwaves or other minor perturbations.
6 am Update
Hopefully more good news. The overnight European rapid update model did initialize well. It shows a very similar forecast for today, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, as it has been showing for the last few days. It also still shows respectable totals through Wednesday night.
Today
Dewpoints are right where forecast. It looks like a mix of clouds and sun this morning. A slight chance of light rain. Showers developing late this afternoon and evening.
I am going to stop here for now. The new Euro will be out in about 5 1/2 hours. The new GFS and Canadian will be out in under 4 hours. I want to see those before I get married to this latest European run.