Fall Classic

[AP Photo / Gene J. Puskar]

What a convergence of the Fall Classic in sports with a fall classic in weather!

From an FAQ on mlb.com:

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During the regular season, the decision to start a game rests with the home team, and once play begins, the decision to continue or halt play is shifted to the umpire crew chief. This is not the case during the postseason, when the decision to start play rests with Commissioner Selig, who met before the game with the general managers and managers of both clubs and head groundskeeper Mike Boekholder.

"We had the forecast and all the information was there, and it didn't work out," Maddon said. "For me, I have no problem with it. I was a part of it, I was there, Charlie was there. We were all good with going forward. It just did not work out."

"We agreed on starting the game because the weather report was going to be a very light drizzle, similar to what was already going on," Manuel said. "It wasn't supposed to be a consistent rain. It was supposed to be very light, and there was a good chance that we could definitely get the whole game in."
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Not sure exactly what went on in the decision-making process, but in any event this was the evolution of the rainfall pattern on radar from the start of the game Monday evening to when it was suspended, showing a dramatic increase in a north-south band across southeastern Pennsylvania and the western part of New Jersey:

That was a sign of intensification of the storm system with both a lot of "upward motion" in the atmosphere and cooling aloft, that would lead to not only the first-ever suspension of this type for a World Series game but also a memorable October snowstorm on the same date as when in 1991 the Perfect Storm kicked into high gear and the Andrea Gail and its crew were lost.

The culprit: a very sharp, deep, and potent upper-level trough which begat a strong surface low pressure system.

[Image source: Wright-Weather]

Accumulating snow fell as far south as central New Jersey (a very unusual occurrence for October) including in my hometown, and the suburbs of Philadelphia. The storm was also a classic elevation-based one, as often happens early and late in the season, with the heaviest falling in the Poconos, Catskills, and Adirondacks. Also, the pressure in the cyclone dropped to around 980 millibars, or just below 29", and the resulting pressure "gradient" produced strong gusts of wind.

This was also a case of lending itself to this sort of reaction: "Global warming?? Ha! It snowed in October in New Jersey! Record low temperatures for the whole month were set in Florida!"

[AP Photo / New Jersey Herald, Amy Paterson, Frankford, N.J.]

Actually, though, this was very consistent with the type of topsy-turvy anomalies we've seen a lot of recently in which exceptionally strong ridges of warm high pressure occur in mid and high latitudes and they force the development of adjacent feisty troughs. In this case the ridge was over and near Greenland. It was the key to the whole evolution of the storm and entailed one of the most extreme departures from average of all the cases I've examined at during the past few years.

[Image source: raleighwx.easternuswx.com]

There was also a strong ridge over the western U.S. on Tuesday, and it resulted in record high temperatures in some places from Los Angeles to Montana; that ridge will expand and lead to above-average temperatures across most of the country by Halloween.

As for the World Series, well, the team I root for -- the Red Sox -- got eliminated on a bases-loaded called third strike which IMHO was really a ball. At least after growing up with the horror of the Game 7s in 1967 and 1975 and Bucky Dent in 1978 and Bill Buckner in 1986 (although too much blame was put on him -- the whole team self-destructed that inning), I got the thrill of experiencing 2004 and 2007. My heart goes out to Cubs fans.

But I digress. In the wake of the big storm are some major-league lake-effect snowbands near Lake Ontario, but only a few leftover rain showers and snow flurries in eastern PA, and the game should be able to be played this evening although it'll be mighty chilly.