AUGUST 2000 WX REVIEW
Record cold/rain at the end of month! A usually quiet month, early August certainly lived up to it's typical, and boring, pattern of F&LCATCNM ...until the last 3 days, when an very unusual combination of sub tropical moisture swinging around a vigorous cutoff low off the SCent Calif. coast merged with a deep, cool trough digging south from GOA. Officially, Pacifica received only .09" for the month, however many records were set on the 30th through Sept.1 for both daily precip and daily lo/highs throughout Cent and No. Calif. Both Santa Rosa and San Jose, at the northern and southern extremities of the Bay Area had record lo/highs, 62 and 64 respectively...a full 20 degrees below normal. Some scattered convection was noted in southern Monterey County on the 30th, and also in the Cent Valley on Sept. 1. As the northern trough rapidly dug south off the coast, snow level in the northern Sierra dropped to 6,500' on 9/01, prompting a special adisary from the NWS. Snow levels in the Cent Sierra near Tahoe was 7,500'. It was unusual but not unheard of for snow this time of year...I personally encountered 7 inches of snow at Caples Lake (elv. 7,8200') in the Cent Sierra in late August of 1968, with snow in decent accumulation down to 7,000'. Record lows near the coast were set by a combination of an unusually deep and cold trough digging from the north, and our below average Sea Surface Temps, which consistantly were below 60F north of Point Concepcion and only 53-55F locally. Due to the almost constant onshore flows, the largest anomolies were nearest the coast (as expected) and as much as 4 degrees below normal for this time of year. Despite the overall cold water data, the ocean remains offcolor from plankton (red tide) growth. The cause is interesting....while the overall SST is below normal, there has been a persistant trend for "relatively" shallow warmer layer (54F on the top and 53 belowF) to cap upwelling. Hence water clarity dramitically improves, and allows deeper light penetration into the sea. Increased light means extra plankton growth...hence the red tide explosion. UNFORTUNATELY, the red tide has also clobbered our local striper fishing, which was virtually none-existant all month.
MONTHLY CLIMATOLOGICAL SUMMARY for AUG. 2000
NAME: HOME CITY: Pacifica STATE: Ca ELEV: 540' LAT: 37.36'N LONG: 122.27'W
TEMPERATURE (°F), RAIN (in), WIND SPEED (mph)
HEAT COOL AVG
MEAN DEG DEG WIND DOM
DAY TEMP HIGH TIME LOW TIME DAYS DAYS RAIN SPEED HIGH TIME DIR
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1 63.2 76.0 3:45p 54.7 6:15a 0.0 0.3 0.00 1.5 11.0 2:30p SSW
2 66.7 83.3 3:00p 52.9 5:45a 0.0 3.1 0.00 2.4 26.0 1:45p SW
3 61.8 67.8 3:45p 56.9 5:30a 2.6 0.0 0.00 6.9 27.0 1:00p S
4 62.5 72.2 11:00a 56.7 11:15p 0.6 0.0 0.00 4.1 24.0 6:00a SSE
5 57.3 63.3 4:00p 53.2 5:30a 6.8 0.0 0.00 2.4 10.0 1:00p SSW
6 56.2 59.1 2:45p 54.1 7:30a 8.4 0.0 0.01 4.9 17.0 5:45p SSW
7 57.8 62.6 2:45p 55.0 7:15a 6.2 0.0 0.03 5.6 21.0 10:45a S
8 58.9 63.7 2:30p 55.7 5:00a 5.3 0.0 0.01 3.1 16.0 4:45p SSW
9 60.7 66.8 11:45a 56.7 4:45a 3.3 0.0 0.00 3.6 16.0 5:30p SSW
10 62.0 69.0 2:45p 57.9 11:30p 1.5 0.0 0.00 3.4 15.0 3:00p SSW
11 62.8 74.3 3:00p 52.6 7:00a 1.5 0.0 0.00 2.5 10.0 3:15p SSW
12 59.2 71.3 12:00p 51.5 7:00a 3.6 0.0 0.00 2.2 14.0 6:30p NW
13 60.5 71.4 10:00a 52.9 4:15a 2.8 0.0 0.00 2.0 14.0 5:30p W
14 60.3 70.5 9:45a 51.8 5:45a 3.8 0.0 0.00 2.8 14.0 5:00p E
15 60.0 69.8 2:15p 51.5 7:00a 4.3 0.0 0.00 2.1 10.0 2:15p SE
16 60.1 73.0 2:45p 49.5 5:30a 3.8 0.0 0.00 2.4 11.0 4:30p SSW
17 59.3 69.0 2:15p 50.8 5:45a 5.1 0.0 0.01 2.8 19.0 4:30p S
18 59.2 67.5 1:30p 52.9 5:30a 4.8 0.0 0.00 5.3 25.0 9:15p S
19 57.7 64.9 2:15p 54.1 6:00a 5.5 0.0 0.01 5.1 20.0 6:45p S
20 60.1 69.4 12:15p 53.0 7:00a 3.8 0.0 0.00 3.3 15.0 5:00p SSW
21 61.0 73.8 1:15p 51.1 7:15a 2.5 0.0 0.00 2.2 13.0 7:00p NNW
22 60.8 69.4 2:45p 53.4 4:30a 3.6 0.0 0.00 4.0 20.0 1:15p S
23 60.4 66.8 2:30p 55.2 5:15a 4.0 0.0 0.00 4.7 19.0 12:15p S
24 62.5 70.5 12:30p 55.5 10:15p 2.0 0.0 0.00 2.9 11.0 1:30a SSW
25 60.7 71.2 12:45p 52.4 6:30a 3.2 0.0 0.00 2.8 14.0 5:30p SSW
26 60.3 71.7 2:00p 54.7 10:45p 1.8 0.0 0.02 2.7 14.0 2:15a W
27 60.4 75.1 1:15p 51.7 7:15a 1.6 0.0 0.00 1.8 12.0 2:45p W
28 60.7 72.8 1:45p 52.8 3:15a 2.2 0.0 0.00 2.5 14.0 9:00a N
29 58.3 61.2 1:00p 55.6 7:00a 6.6 0.0 0.00 2.0 15.0 12:00p SSW
30 61.9 69.0 2:15p 58.0 1:15a 1.5 0.0 0.00 3.2 13.0 2:00p S
31 62.1 69.7 10:00a 57.4 3:45a 1.5 0.0 0.00 3.6 15.0 4:15p S
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60.5 83.3 2 49.5 16 104.3 3.5 0.09 3.3 27.0 3 SSW
Max >= 90.0: 0
Max <= 32.0: 0
Min <= 32.0: 0
Min <= 0.0: 0
Max Rain: 0.03 ON 8/07/00
Days of Rain: 2 (>.01 in) 0 (>.1 in) 0 (>1 in)
Heat Base: 65.0 Cool Base: 65.0 Method: (High + Low) / 2