[californiadisasters] NWS San Diego Spotter and Skywarn News

Spotter and Skywarn News

We are in the process of updating our weather spotter database and appreciate all the updated information you have provided. However, there are over 150 weather spotters that had invalid information. For the spotters that we can not con-tact, we will be removing them from the database in favor of new spotters that have signed up.

We have recently provided four residential weather spotter trainings in Apple Valley, Wrightwood, Lake Arrowhead and Chino Hills. We plan to provide additional training in Orange and San Diego County this spring and into the summer months.
Please contact the regional Skywarn coordinators or Alex Tardy for details on upcoming training sessions.

To report significant weather please click on "submit re-port" from weather.gov/sandiego, which will take you to this external link: http://swskywarn.org/ReportWeather.php

A Little Advanced Monsoon Training

Have you wondered why thunderstorms form in particular locations of our mountains or are more persistent in some areas? Below is a map of our region's terrain and a composite of various wind flows (5,000 to 15,000 feet) and how it interacts with the daily wind flows that are generated across our complex terrain. The process only results in cumulus clouds and thunderstorms if moisture (water vapor) and instability is sufficient and the forced air can reach an altitude into the atmosphere where it reaches a level of buoyancy (warmer than its surroundings so that it can rise freely). When a level for condensation (which varies day to day) is reached, we first see it as a small cumulus cloud and if sufficient instability (rapid cooling with altitude) is present it will grow into a cumulonimbus cloud. When the thunderstorm forms it then can develop its own new boundary (outflow) which can be a new convective cumulus location depending on where the next collision occurs (e.g., with a sea breeze or opposing mountain flow). The convergence zones on the map are one of the favored locations if other conditions are met.

Monsoon reports include:
 Thunderstorms
 Rainfall amount and rain dura-tion, but avoid rainfall rates from automated systems
 Hail (any size)
 Strong winds exceeding 40 mph
 Wind damage (trees, objects)
 Lowering cloud base or low level cloud signatures
 Overshooting thunderstorm tops
 Flooding (flash flooding or pond-ing of water)
 Unusually intense lightning (more than just visible)
 Fire starts from lightning
 Debris flows from runoff or dry creek flows

Source: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sgx/newsletter/current-newsletter.pdf
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