(The following personal account comes from Jerry Colivas, CV’s SAFELY OUT™ Advisory Team Leader.)
The El Niño conditions the weather folks have been talking about will be bringing us a little more rain this week. Not too much to worry about but there is definitely a wet pattern – some would call it conditions for a Pineapple Express. The definition for Pineapple Express is: a system is driven by a strong, southern branch of the Polar jetstream and is usually marked by the presence of a surface frontal boundary which is typically either slow or stationary, with waves of low pressure traveling along its axis. Each of these low pressure systems brings enhanced rainfall. Or as I would say, we get warmer rain from the Hawaiian Islands rather than colder rain from Alaska. Warmer rain has more moisture and also brings down the snow levels. These facts conspire to make conditions ripe for flooding. While we have been okay so far, there have been years when flooding occurred in February and in March. The last time was 1995. Get your family disaster plan out and review. If you dont have a SAFELY OUT™ Kit, make sure you get one at SAFELYOUT.org.
