Some gloom, but sun can be found

WEATHER TIDBITS

Last week’s total lunar eclipse was a dandy!

The skies cooperated and remained cloudless during the entire

event.

When totality occurred, the moon got all pink and red; it was

quite a sight to behold.

Ready or not, ol’ mister “gloom” has arrived at your favorite

beach.

At noon, Monday, it’s gray, with a ceiling of 300 feet, meaning a

tight inversion layer, the visibility is 1/4 to 1/2 miles. The air

temperature is only 62 degrees and the humidity is 100% making the

dew point also at 62 degrees.

But its sunny and 74 degrees out here near Big Bend where I’m

writing this week’s Tidbits on a friend’s sunny porch outside his art

studio.

It’s nice out here -- that’s why your Tidbitter rode his mountain

bike out here and out of the “gloom room.”

Our ocean temps are still reluctant to break the 60-degree

barrier. It’s at 58 degrees today. On this date in 1996 and 1997 it was 74 degrees.

The inversion layer that just recently formed was just waiting for

the deserts to heat up to the century mark.

Coupled with chilly ocean temps and a shallow but condensed marine

layer, and a broad ridge of high pressure both at the surface and

aloft as well as a 45-degree temperature gradient between inland and

sea, we’ll call it May gray.

In actuality, May ’03 has had quite a few nice days with 13 of the

first 18 being mostly sunny.

That’s well above the norm of six to eight nice days up to this

point (Monday).

Looking through some past Tidbitter records, on several occasions

we’ve had sub 60-, even sub 55-degree water temps as late as May,

only to have those levels climb into the low to mid 70s by the end of

July or early August, like in 1980 when it was 54 degrees on May 20

and 73 degrees on July 20!

Or in ’85 when it was 56 degrees on the 15th of May and 72 degrees

on June 30, when we had the Brooks Street contest in 6- to

8-foot-waves caused by hurricane Dolores with a 92-degree heat wave

in full swing.

1985 was a banner summer for Southern hemi swells and numerous

Baja swells.

Notable swells from Mexico storms were Dolores, Eric, Fernando,

Gil, Henriette, Jimena, Marty, Olaf and Terri.

Those were the biggest ones, but we also got waves to some degree

from all the others too, right up to “Waldo” in late October!

One thing that’s been missing since ’96 and ’97 is mountain

activity, better known as the “summer monsoon” season.

The high cell has been pretty much absent over the four corners

area.

So normal southeast to northwest traveling moist maritime air from

the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t have that clockwise moving air to suck up

the moisture from the southeast and east, hence, the “dry line” is

way over in Central Arizona and even Arizona has been subpar rain

wise in July and August, their prime monsoon period.

I feel all that will change this summer of 2003. Expect ample

moisture both in our mountains and deserts, but Arizona too!

Stay tuned.

* DENNIS McTIGHE is a Laguna Beach resident. He earned a

bachelor’s in earth sciences from UCSD and was a U.S. Air Force

weather forecaster at Hickman Air Force Base, Hawaii.