Tag Archive for: The Typhoon Rule

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This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (Oct. 25)

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Get Thee To The Ski/Snowboard Shows!

Arms of bargains at the Consumer ski/board shows!

The consumer ski shows are on! The Denver Ski and Snowboard Expo is on today!

The ski shows are a special time for all stakeholders. The resort industry gets a chance to strut its stuff, announcing new trails, lifts, amenities, and bargain price passes. Resort staff are there to answer questions, convivalize with familiar customers, gossip, and generally accentuate the positive about new and old features at the resort.

Some shows have clothing and gear retailers on site, lots of discounts in a bargain basement atmosphere. And clothing and gear manufacturers are showing their latest.

And then there’s the hodge-podge of other exhibitors who have miscellaneous products related to snow sports. Easy chair made of old skis? Check. Ski club? Check. Artisanal ski manufacturer? Yes. And publications and media companies, non-profits (museums, adaptive skiing groups), tour companies, discount ticket vendors, and many others.

For the consumer, it’s a time not unlike the coming of Labor Day is to a high school student. There’s a shift that’s been coming for a while, away from the remnants of summer activities, and toward winter, which is just around the calendar corner. Or which has already arrived in many places.

Get excited, pick up those Hersey Kisses, lollipops and free pens, trail maps, and ski magazines; every exhibitor has something to hand out. Put those in that big plastic bag and spend your evenings checking out and anticipating.

The shows are part of the rhythm of snow sports. Enjoy the official start of the season.

You can get a $3 discount if you get tickets through SeniorsSkiing.com by clicking on the banner ad in the top right of the home screen.

For a schedule of consumer ski/snowboard shows around the country, click here. Thanks to Mary Jo Tarallo of SunAndSnowAdventures.com for sharing her article.

This Week

The role of ski patrolman on monitoring out-of-control skiers and boarders has been an open question since SeniorsSkiing.com and readers have started questioning who is responsible for lifting tickets.

So, we asked Meegan Moszynski, Executive Director of the National Ski Patrol, for clarity. Click here for her response. Your thoughts?

How does a typhoon in the western Pacific ocean impact weather in the US and Canada? As with most things related to the weather, all phenomena are connected. The Skiing Weatherman Herb Stevens explains “The Typhoon Rule” which is one of the few reliable long range (two weeks) predictors of weather. Interesting stuff. Click here.

Correspondent Pat McCloskey explains how familiarity with terrain and trails can lead to confidence. Even gnarly, challenging terrain. If you could do it before, you can most likely do it again. Here’s his story.

Where?

Our Mystery Glimpse this week shows us an aerial view taken just this week of a notable resort dusted with beautiful covering of October snow. Tell us where it is. You’ll also learn where that apres-ski disco from last week is located. Here’s the picture.

Thanks again for reading SeniorsSkiing.com. Tell your friends! Remember, there are more of us every day and we aren’t going away.

Herb Stevens

The Skiing Weatherman: How Do Pacific Cyclones Dictate US Weather?

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The Typhoon Rule Can Predict Chilly Wet Air In North America.

In an age where computer models are believed to be the only viable long range weather forecasting tool, there remains a very effective technique for looking ahead a couple of weeks that had its roots in World War Two. 

It is called the “Typhoon Rule”. When the far western Pacific is active in terms of tropical disturbances, it is a great way to determine what the jet stream pattern will look like over the US with a lead time of one to two weeks. 

Military forecasters in the Pacific theatre dealt with typhoons pretty much year round, due to the persistence of water warm enough to form and sustain such storms in that part of the ocean.  One of the meteorologists noted that after a typhoon either re-curved over or east of Japan or tracked straight west into mainland Asia, a change in the weather would result in a week or two in Washington, D.C. and thus the correlations were born.  Here is how the Typhoon Rule works:

All tropical disturbances across the globe act like a cork in a stream.  They are warm systems without the warm and cold fronts that drive mid-latitude low pressure systems, and are therefore more influenced by jet stream level winds in terms of where they will move.  When a typhoon in the southwest Pacific encounters an upper ridge to the north—centered over Korea and Japan—the clockwise circulation around the ridge directs the storm westward, often through the Philippines and into Asia. 

A ridge in that position correlates with an upper level ridge and tranquil weather over central and eastern North America with a lead time of one to two weeks.  However, when the axis of the Pacific ridge is set up further east by several hundred miles or more, over the waters well east of Japan, the typhoons tend to run around the perimeter of the circulation, leading to a track that heads for Japan before turning north and then northeastward. 

This happens in a fashion similar to Atlantic storms threatening the east coast before turning around the perimeter of the Bermuda high as they head for New England and the Maritimes—when the ridge is far enough to the east, the storms miss the U.S.  A re-curving Pacific typhoon around a ridge well east of Japan correlates with a central/eastern North American trough, often leading to colder and stormy weather.

As we wait anxiously for the new season to start, the Typhoon Rule can give us a hint as to when colder air masses will be available for early season snowmaking or natural snow.  As I write this on Oct. 22, the Typhoon Rule is set up for a cold air mass to dive into the center of the country later in the week of the 28th.  The cold will also spread into the East, though in modified form.  Take a look:

This October typhoon is re-curving to the north east, transporting its heat to a trough in the Gulf of Alaska. Result: an early cold shot that will get snow guns going.

There are nuances to the rule, and one of them comes into play here.  This strong October 22 storm will not make a dramatic turn to the northeast toward the Aleutians, but it will turn north of east. This track suggests that the trough/cold shot will be centered in the middle of the country with the chilly air eventually spreading east. 

The Killington Women’s World Cup is about five weeks away, and it looks as though the snowmakers will be able to get started there around Halloween. The Typhoon Rule that an observant WWII forecaster discovered says so.