Mega moisture pools in the Pacific as MAGA meteorologist references Gulf of America

It was only a matter of time. Especially after Google’s recent announcement that they would label the oily bathwater formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico as something else entirely for United States users. Eager to be the first to mention the Gulf of America during a lull of notable weather, a storm scientist set of a storm of his own Wednesday. Also — lots of rain in the western U.S. and further west than that.

Weather Watch

Winter storm in paradise. A strong low pressure area organizing near Hawaii will deliver wild weather to the state. Flood watches are up as occasional downpours become common Thursday. With an energetic jet stream overhead, there is a risk for severe thunderstorms that may include hail and tornadoes. High wind warnings for gusts to 60 mph are active on the western islands. Watches for wind are in effect elsewhere, and will likely be upgraded, including at volcano summits where 20 inches of snow is forecast amid gusts around 90 mph.

Drenching California. The firehose is about to be activated. Day after day of rain gets underway late Thursday in the Pacific Northwest and northern California. This weekend and early next week, rain could fall furiously, cause flooding and add up to widespread totals of half a foot or more. But like a rainy pattern earlier this season, Southern California may mainly sit on the outside looking in.

Close but no cigar. Phoenix got hit squarely with a light and quick-hitting shower Wednesday morning, recording 0.01 inches and ending a consecutive run with no measurable rain at 159 days. It was just one day shy of the record 160 in 1972.

Lightning links

Weather was not a factor in a plane crash overnight in the D.C. area, but the Potomac River is about mid-30s near the site.

Wildfire erupts in western North Carolina months after Helene.

Hot take Thursday

Important news hit Bluesky Wednesday: The “Gulf of America” made its way into a Storm Prediction Center discussion.

A Weather Service office made up of premier thunderstorm forecasters and researchers in a region full of them, the SPC is situated in Norman. It’s on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, a Mecca of meteorology.

Weather science tends to be more MAGA than many others — perhaps partly because the deadliest storms on earth target red states on the regular. In that sense, it’s hardly shocking a new Trumpian favorite — Gulf of America — has hit the storm outlook.

But it does bring up a number of questions we’ll be dealing with ahead.

Some are easy: Will Weather Service offices be told to use Gulf of America? Presumably.

Others are less so: Is the whole water body Gulf of America or is half Gulf of America and half Gulf of Mexico? Will a meteorologist be considered woke and get deported if they call it the Gulf of Mexico? What if renaming it doesn’t stop hurricanes from invading our land and we eventually have to look inward?

Unlike most of Trump’s plainly illegal and irrational orders, this one is mostly just irrational. No one outside the country will race to call the Gulf by its new name. And at least half of those inside the nation will automatically think unkind thoughts about any person uttering the name.

Edit: It was brought to my attention that the Weather Service in Dodge City, Kansas, was actually the first of the first to use Gulf of America. Still one of my favorite places on the planet.

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Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster that connects weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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