It took me a few mins to realize that this page is interactive. Press the "Earth" button to set time/date, move to current location, height of wind currents, overlay, etc.
Web 2.0: making the computer work so the programmer doesn't have to. You get a beautiful, interactive visualization with near-real-time data that runs on every platform (even my phone!) with a single codebase.
I don't know why people are so worried about the lack of snow at this point. There is plenty of room in the reservoirs for rain at this point. Maybe later in the season the snow will become important, but at this point I think CA can store lots of liquid water
Some reservoirs can't be filled this early as the need to leave space for flood control, but the big ones have so much extra room I imagine they can store every drop.
A few of the large California reservoirs, like the San Luis Reservoir and Lake Berryessa, get their water from storm runoff in mountains that don't typically accumulate much snow, but a large amount of the water storage in California comes from Sierra or Trinity snowpack.
Unfortunately, a lot of California storm drainage is designed to move the water to the ocean as quickly as possible, to prevent flooding. I think most of the rainfall in the Bay Area that doesn't soak into the ground will find its way to the delta or to the Bay rather than a reservoir.
It's because most of the rainwater will end up back in the sea via sewers, rivers, etc. Snow becomes snowmelt --which happens slowly so it does not become runoff but filters into aquifers, reservoirs, etc.
Don't know which was first, but it reminded me of the wind map from hint.fm, originating from 2012: http://hint.fm/wind/ . That one presents a nice black/white impression of wind conditions in the USA, whereas this visualization from Cameron displays a broad range of weather conditions around the globe with multiple visualization styles. Impressive what's possible with D3...
I recall visiting my uncle in Arizona for Thanksgiving one year. In the afternoon, it rained maybe one centimeter. It was the first thing on the evening news.
First time I was in California, it was September. I get off the plane and the recruiter picks me up in a convertible.
"See that cloud?" he points.
"Yep"
"That's the first cloud I've seen in almost three months"
I found that a strange thing to say.
A couple of months later, I get off work and go back to the apartment. I'm watching Jeoprady and they do one of these "Action News Storm Team 7" break-ins. They cut to the meterologist who's pointing out breaking news on the triple doplar jetstream radar or whatnot.
It's rain. Looks like a tiny shower, maybe 500 yards across.
The guy says "Looks like this storm will be headed across I5 very soon, so motorist should be extremely cautious"
Very pretty. But, despite what the web site shows, Silicon Valley is currently at 63F/clear/calm. The site shows wind speeds of 36km/h. Not sure where they get their wind data, but it's clearly low resolution.
Looking at the URL and having poked around the site in the past, I believe this link is a forecast model for 1:00 am PST on 12/11 (an hour from this post, and 2 or 3 hours from your post).
My understanding is that much of the visualization is based on modeling with real weather inputs, not actual current weather conditions. In other words, recent weather measurements feed into a calculation of current and near future weather conditions. I could be quite mistaken though.
The credits list the NOAA Environmental Modeling Center [1] as the source for weather data, that would be a great place to start for further clarification.
This doesn't have anything to do with the commenter above: they're looking at the wind speed for their area, not the wind in alaska. If the wind speed on the site is radically different from the speed outside their window, then coming to the conclusion that the site's wind data is low resolution is perfectly valid.
Cancelled my flight from SEA to SFO, which was supposed to land at 9AM Thursday. Pretty sure whether indefinite delays or cancellation I wasn't gonna get on that plane.
Doing the opposite; SFO to SEA, but on Friday afternoon. Should be no problem, but you never know with SFO. I've personally had good luck with that airport but delays seem SO common.
