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katosandog
Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 95
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 Posted: Fri May 22, 2015 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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| isobars wrote: | | But who is he, and what does he know that the forecasters and government and private water-monitoring agencies do not? |
A quick Google search would have found this:
Cliff Mass: Biographical Sketch
Cliff Mass went to Cornell University for his undergraduate education where he majored in physics. During that time we worked with Astronomer Carl Sagan on a model of the Martian atmosphere and was active in the Cornell University Senate.
After Cornell he entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Washington. During the first few summers he worked with climatologist Stephen Schneider on the influence of volcanic eruptions, solar variations, and CO2 on climate. Although his Ph.D. was on African wave disturbances, the forerunners of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic, he caught the Northwest weather bug as a graduate student and began gathering information on the Puget Sound convergence zone and other local weather features.
Leaving the UW, he joined the faculty of the Meteorology Department at the University of Maryland, where he taught synoptic meteorology and weather prediction and worked on a variety of research topics, from Northwest weather circulations and high-resolution modeling, to the climatic implications of the Mount St. Helens eruption.
When an opening became available at the University of Washington, he moved back to Seattle as an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. During the next few decades, Cliff and his students have systematically studied the weather of the western U.S., completing over seventy papers on West Coast phenomena as varied as orographic precipitation, coastal surges, the Catalina Eddy, and the Puget Sound convergence zone, to onshore pushes, downslope windstorms, and various local gap winds. His group has written numerous papers on storm and frontal structure and evolution across the U.S., including the application of high-resolution modeling. Numerical simulation has been a key tool for his group, which now runs the most extensive local high-resolution prediction system in the United States. For a number of years he has been chief scientist of the Northwest Modeling Consortium, a group that facilitates state-of-the-art prediction over the U.S., and is active in improving the Weather, Research, and Forecasting (WRF) model. Based on a strong interest in improving operational weather prediction, he has written a number of papers examining the strengths and weaknesses of the National Weather Service.
Cliff has been involved in a number of other initiatives, including the acquisition of coastal radar on the Washington coast, improving the infrastructure of the National Weather Service, the use of smartphone pressure observations for weather prediction, and the improvement of K-12 math education. He is the author of the 2008 book ÒThe Weather of the Pacific NorthwestÓ and broadcasts a weekly weather information segment on KPLU, a local public radio station.
Now a full professor at the UW, he is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, has been an editor of a number of meteorological journals,is a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, and has served as a member of a number of National Academy committees. He is currently a member of the WRF Research Applications Board and a cochair of the AMS Board on Communication.
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merriam2
Joined: 25 Oct 2013
Posts: 33
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| Posted: Fri May 22, 2015 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="katosandog"][quote="riv2511"]
That might not be the case. I think the river is low because as much storage as possible is being filled, but Cliff Mass out of Seattle notes this recently:
"And keep in mind that Columbia River flows, draining off the higher terrain of British Columbia, which had a better snowpack AND more precipitation, will only be slightly below normal. "
If "as much storage as possible is being filled" why aren't the the dam pools above normal levels? Where are they storing the water?
The headwaters of the Columbia are in the higher elevations of British Columbia but the majority of the drainage basin in the NW have very low historic snowpack. Also, NOAA predicts 120 day flowrate to be 65% of normal, not "slightly below normal." http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/rfc/ |
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katosandog
Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 95
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| Posted: Fri May 22, 2015 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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| I should have said "I don't have a clue what will happen but I have followed Cliff Mass for a number of years and he's been right more than wrong. He's made reference to irrigation operators filling their systems early and he thinks the Columbia flows won't be as low as us watersports enthusiasts fear they could be." |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
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| Posted: Fri May 22, 2015 4:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks. His credentials are impressive, alright. I look forward to taking the time to read his global warming articles. |
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WMP
Joined: 30 May 2000
Posts: 671
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| Posted: Fri May 22, 2015 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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Too many mysteries here to calculate precisely what is going on and what our future might hold. However, it's good entertainment to gather the theories from those educated crew members who "know" something. All I know is that it was a blast to get up close and personal with the Wells Island sandbar.... it was a fun bar to visit.  |
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gmclean
Joined: 08 Mar 2001
Posts: 91
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| Posted: Fri May 22, 2015 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Water level at Bonneville forebay is is supposed to rise 3 to 4 next weekend according to a friend that works for the corps of engineers. |
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jota
Joined: 28 Feb 2001
Posts: 205
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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| "3 to 4" what, George? |
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uwindsurf
Joined: 18 Aug 2012
Posts: 968
Location: Classified
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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| jota wrote: | | "3 to 4" what, George? |
3-4 Parsecs |
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puzz
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Still a fair bit of snow at the source . The water will be there soon.maybe. |
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gmclean
Joined: 08 Mar 2001
Posts: 91
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2015 9:39 am Post subject: |
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| Sorry, I meant to say 3 to 4 feet above current levels. |
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