It’s Raining Pineapples!

Strange but even this former meteorologist is really tired of seeing rain! A bit of a break for most of yesterday and some of today and the rain is back this evening. On average most places around Phoenix end up with somewhere between 8 and 10 inches of rain a year with the suburbs getting closer to 10 inches for various reasons (terrain, less of the urban heat island, etc). Around me personal weather stations are registering nearly 7 inches for the year already. I would have an exact idea on my location if my weather station was up but laziness has put it out of order for quite awhile.

The unofficial term for these storm systems is the Pineapple Express given that they are warm wet Pacific systems that stretch from Hawaii to British Columbia and meteorologists have to give things colorful names to make up for the not so colorful stuff (Navier-Stokes Equation, Quasi-Geostrophic Winds, Pseudo-Adiabatic Diagrams, etc.). Sometimes they will help keep Southern California and Arizona wet as well. Unfortunately because they are warm systems, the snowpack does not build up and the rain goes to closing bridges and creating lots of green stuff around, including weeds.

I think I am going to be busy for several weekends in March/April as it is, but I need my exercise anyhow, right? At this point I am honestly not sure if I live in Arizona or in the Midwest as everything looks grassland like and the only reminder is the mountains and the rather out of place looking cacti. Just thought I would ramble on about the rain today since there appears to be a bit of a break in it finally.

There are a few systems still out in the Pacific that do not appear to follow the Pineapple Express path but are still going to help out my weed garden anyhow. Oh well. Now, I am off to plant my pineapple tree!