NWS Reno: Forecasting for the Sierra and Western Nevada Since 1905

 We have had quite a few meteorologists and staff come and go over the years, so we figured it was time to introduce you to some of the newer forecasters. Heather has been working with us at NWS Reno since mid August and is quickly familiarizing herself with the quirks of eastern Sierra and Nevada weather.  Welcome to Heather!  Heather first became interested in meteorology as a child growing up in Michigan, witnessing many storms, floods, and winter events. Her family lived along a river in a flood zone, and had three separate occasions of complete inundation of their house. Her undergraduate degree in meteorology (Central Michigan University) and Master’s degree in geography (Ball State University) allowed her to study the hydrological and meteorological relationships responsible for the flood events that led to the inundations. Heather used GIS, hydrology, and meteorology to model flood behavior for flooding related to frozen versus unfrozen soil conditions. She was successful in c

(2-3) Image source:  https://climatetoolbox.org/tool/Climate-Mapper (4) Image source: nrcs.usda.gov (5) Image source: drought.gov (6-8) Images source:  https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov (9) Image source:  https://rangelands.app/great-basin-fire (10) Image source:  https://www.ncei.noaa.gov (11) Image source:  https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/plotting/auto

We have had a number of comments on social media which mention much lower observed wind speeds locally than are in the forecast. Well, you are unlikely to know this (it is not exactly advertised!) but National Weather Service wind forecasts are for 10 meters, or almost 33 ft, above the ground. As we are about to explain, that makes all the difference in the wind between eye-level (~5-6 feet) and ~33 feet.  It is natural to wonder the purpose of a wind height forecast well above where you and I typically reside. The main reason for this is the complication in forecasting wind as one nears the ground due to frictional influence caused by the surface. Here is a diagram showing the concept of wind speeds change as one gets away from the ground.  As you can see above, there is a rapid speed reduction (gray dashed line) near the ground with a lesser change away from the surface. Note that the above diagram is generalized. How much reduction is realized depends on the nature of the surface wh

  Drought Update Report  NWS Reno  Issued: 03/19/2021  Schedule: Monthly during periods of extreme drought designation  _____________________________________________________________________  Drought conditions persist  Synopsis: Precipitation and snow accumulation in February and the first half of March were well below average for the Sierra, and pretty much closed the door on the odds of recovering snowpack and water supply conditions to near average with only a few weeks remaining in the typical snow accumulation season. Conditions were somewhat better in far northeastern CA and northwestern NV, but still well short of significant drought recovery. Mid-February storms were most beneficial to northern Nevada, but precipitation since February 1st is well below average for SNOTEL stations on the east side of the central Sierra (Figure 1). The past 30 day mountain precipitation was even worse throughout the state, but especially for the Sierra where sites ranged from ~25 to 40% of averag

Image source: Westwide Drought Tracker... https://wrcc.dri.edu/wwdt/ Red X = approximate location of Reno-Sparks. Percentile: 100th percentile (darker green) would mean an area had their wettest precipitation period as compared with past October-December or December periods in the climate record. 0th percentile (dark brown) would be the driest. Therefore, for the October - December period, most areas in eastern CA and western NV received precipitation in the lowest 1/3rd of other October-December periods in the climate record.

Gusty Ridges, Calm Valleys.  We have gotten a lot of questions lately about why it's so windy up in the mountains and why there are  no winds down in the valleys, so we figured we would write up a quick blog post about it. Let's talk  observations...these are just a spattering of observations from an event we had this week  (Dec 6-8, 2020). Notice the big difference between the ridges and the valley locations.  Let's not get stuck on the actual numbers at the ridges, since some of those sensors can get a little 'off' once wind speeds really pick up, the more important thing to note is the large differences in the wind  gusts from ridges to foothills to valleys. (note obviously Peavine was having a bit of trouble too)  We want to dig into how this occurs and why it happens! So if you're brave and ready for some science,  then continue onward. General Weather Setup  It is a well known set up and similar to previous events, but the magnitude of the event this week