Our navy pilots have been busy this weekend, with two extra shootdowns of objects floating into U.S. airspace from the west.
The primary shootdown occurred close to the northern Alaska coast late Friday evening (0645 UTC 11 February), with the article (a smaller balloon) at round 40,000 ft (12000 m) above sea stage.
As described in my earlier weblog, I ran the NOAA Hysplit trajectory mannequin, to calculate the again trajectory over the previous few days of air ending at 40,000 ft (12,000 m), in addition to 8000 and 16,000 m (proven under).
these trajectories, one worries that this is perhaps a Russian balloon!
The trajectory ending at 40,000 ft began over western Russia, and the trajectory above it originated over Russia as properly. The decrease trajectory may have handed over far northern China, however that may assume that the balloon was in a position to transfer up and down by command.
Possibly there’s a purpose that our navy is being comparatively quiet about this one.
I do know that a lot of you might be nervous about lowland and mountain snows on Monday and Tuesday, so let me provide the newest.
The brand new mannequin runs are in line with a wholesome snow dump over the Cascades, however solely a dusting over parts of the western Washington lowlands.
Beneath is the forecast whole snowfall (snow depth is LESS) from the UW WRF mannequin for the interval ending 4 AM Tuesday, after which there can be little precipitation.
As much as a foot within the Cascades and a dusting over the jap facet of Puget Sound. However a number of inches round Portland.
The bigger view (once more snowfall whole ending 4 AM Tuesday) exhibits notable snow over the southern Willamette Valley.
I’ll replace the forecast throughout my podcast tomorrow. And remember the upcoming chilly temperatures….with below-freezing temperatures on Tuesday morning
