[FRIAM] The Jet Stream

[Nicholas Thompson]

Steve,
Thanks for your (as always) gracious and interesting commentary.

I didn't know the number was as large as six.

I am told we are about to have a a big weather event in the Pacific NW.  I
havent had time to look into it yet.

NIck

On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 12:37 PM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> Nick -
>
> a sub-anecdote from my last missive which I failed (deliberately) to
> include was the time my father brought home a weather balloon one of the
> ranchers had found on his grazing permit (USFS).   He had already sent the
> guts of the recording device to the appropriate authorities (US weather
> service) but I fiddled with the (latex) balloon itself and the shroud
> cables and the weatherproof box housing the electronics (or was it entirely
> mechanical  like the Fu-Go you reference?).
>
> I was on a 8 week "walkabout" in 2014 and just leaving the small town of
> Thermopolis Wyoming where the first such (Japanese incendiary) device was
> discovered when the NPR station I was listening to gave a history of those
> events including referencing the small town (hot springs location) I was
> just leaving.  My final destination was Portland/Seattle/Tacoma so I
> included visits to the general location of the other landings in that area
> which included Gearhart Mtn OR where 6 people died... the only injuries
> from all those (order 10k?) launches.   Sobering.
>
> Last time I was at the ABQ balloon museum they had an exhibit on these
> bomb-balloons including the mulberry-paper envelope...  all the envelopes
> and mechanical "logic" were hand-built apparently, drawing on the rich
> Japanese craft traditions .
>
> I hope your "weather book" is not OBE  with the AMOC weakening/collapse?
> Has your personal observation over decades in New England included an
> experience of the presumed 10-20% weakening over that time?   I have lived
> in roughly 3 areas of the southwest in my adult life (so AZ, no AZ, no NM)
> which undermines my long-term direct apprehension of weather patterns.
> Your reports on the "dry line" made me aware that we here in no NM are on
> the edge of an interesting variable phenomena and I'd guess that New
> England is yet more subject to weather fluctuations?
>
> - Steve
>
>
> On 11/19/24 11:58 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> As a part of my plan to revise my weather book, I have been working on a
> chapter on the jet stream.  I am thinking of using the passage below as a
> kind of epigraph.  I am sending it along because it brings together two of
> the salient concerns of Our Glorious Leader.  Comments, fact checks, grumpy
> comments always welcome.
>
> *During the winter of 1944-5, in the last desperate days of World War II,
> the Japanese military launched hundreds of incendiary balloons into the jet
> stream, hoping to ignite fires in American forests.  This ingenious scheme
> worked.  Many balloons made the 5,000 mile trip and some even started small
> fires. However, the plan ultimately failed. For a large fire to be kindled
> by one of these devices, the ground had to be had to be dry, the
> temperature high, the humidity  low, the water table depleted, all
> conditions that often occur during summer droughts.   Winter, however, is
> the wet season in the American west. The same jet stream that brought in
> the balloons, also brought in waves of pacific moisture that soaked the
> ground and covered the high mountains in deep banks of snow.   *
>
> *This bit of military history illustrates the relationship between the jet
> stream and the weather we all experience, day by day.  The jet stream can
> initiate severe weather, can spark it, one might say, but only where
> conditions below have been primed.  Its seeds can only flourish where the
> ground has been prepared.  *
>
> --
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
> nthompson at clarku.edu
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
>
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-- 
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
nthompson at clarku.edu
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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