Somewhat of an unusual weather pattern in the Bay Area recently. A cut-off low (that is, cut off from the jetstream) has been stubbornly lodged along the coast with enough over-water fetch to pump moisture in the form of rain and snow into central California. Here’s the Pacific surface analysis for today showing the location of the low.

More cold air will be heading down the west coast on Friday. Expect more precipitation which will be locally heavy in the typical wintertime orthographically-enhanced areas (e.g., the North Bay, San Lorenzo river valley, Santa Cruz mountains, etc.). The tropopause temperature map below shows this new (and bigger) blob of cold air currently off the coast of British Columbia.

And to keep your inner meteorological geek happy, here’s a snippet from today’s Area Forecast Discussion:

bq.. DIFFERENT RUNS OF SAME MODEL…SPECIFICALLY GFS…INDICATING SOME REFORMATION AND ULTIMATE RETROGRESSION OF THE CLOSED LOW CENTER TONIGHT ALONG W130. THIS WILL RESULT IN THE AFOREMENTIONED RISE IN THE FREEZING LEVEL AND CONTINUED MODERATION OF THE TEMPERATURES ALOFT INTO SATURDAY. MOISTURE CONVEYOR MOVES SLIGHTLY NORTHWARD HITTING MORE TOWARD THE CENTRAL PART OF THE FORECAST AREA…AROUND S.F.BAY LATE FRIDAY AND SATURDAY. THE CONTINUED MOIST AIRMASS ALONG WITH DYNAMICS AND OROGRAPHICS WILL ENHANCE PRECIPITATION ALONG THE SOUTHWEST SLOPES. OBSERVED PRECIPITATION AMOUNTS OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS RUNNING 3/4 TO 1.5″…AND FORECAST AMOUNTS UP TO 3-7″ MORE RAIN OVER THE NEXT 3 DAYS…HYDROLOGIC PROBLEMS ARE LIKELY FOR CENTRAL COAST STREAMS. FURTHER STATEMENTS WILL BE ISSUED LATE TODAY IN REGARD TO THE ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS.

HEAVY RAINS AND GUSTY SOUTHERLY WINDS TO CONTINUE INTO SATURDAY BEFORE THIS LOW MOVES TO THE SOUTH AND EAST. SHOWERY CONDITIONS WILL CONTINUE ACROSS THE DISTRICT THROUGH SUNDAY.

p.. Zoinger says… get an umbrella

Attention policy and political geeks. You can now consume C-SPAN video archives online “here”:1. Can you say FINALLY!! And as a BIG bonus it looks like they are phasing out the paragon of evil software (aka Real Player) in favor of less-evil highly-locked-down Flash. Embedded video? Well, you can’t have everything.

bq.. Posted on 12/13/2007 at 14:47:23

We are pleased to announce a new streaming video service on the Video Library. You will now be able to watch video directly on the site through the new C-SPAN Video Player (requires Adobe Flash Player 9). Programs which have this video available will have a button in the “Watch” box. The player also introduces a clipping feature that allows you to pick a start and stop time within a program and then link directly to the clip from any website. We hope you enjoy the new player and please let us know if you encounter any problems.

C-SPAN Archives Technical Staff

p.. Wanna go actually learn something? Try this on for size: “Discovery!: The Search for Arabian Oil”:2

Of course, those of you who like to consume information in a yummy, polemically-flavored lowest-common-denominator form factor… please don’t change your channels from CNN or Fox.

[1(C-SPAN video archive home)]http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=index

[2(C-SPAN - Discovery The Search for Arabian Oil)]http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=202659-1

“Cramer on Financials”:1*.

*Thanks to outstanding chronicler of the impending disaster “Calculated Risk”:2 for the link to the Cramer meltdown.

[1(Cramer meltdown... how bad it really is.)]http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=624755222
[2(Calculated Risk blog post - S&P: Bond Insurance Losses Likely Much Higher)]http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/01/s-bond-insurance-losses-likely-much.html

If you sell a product, any product, put some videos up of them on YouTube* would ya?! It’d be nice to have the option to “absorb”:2 information instead of consuming it.

Here’s a good “example”:1** for a Mac application called Quicksilver.

Software, hardware, laundry detergent… whatever. FAQ videos, product demos, informercials… whatever. Show your customers your products.

*Or iTunes or where ever they can easily be found by the masses.
**Video actually done by Quicksilver user who rocks on.

[1(Quicksilver how-to video)]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBvFUhTqKK4
[2(AppleTV... absorption appliance for the hyperglobalinterweb)]http://www.apple.com/appletv/

Now batting… Hasbro and Matel (re: “Facebook asked to pull Scrabulous”:1 over at the B).

Well, at least HBS will get to make a “case study”:1 out of it some day (not that that will help actually educate future MBAs).

[1(BBC - Facebook asked to pull Scrabulous)]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7191264.stm
[2(Harvard - Case Study Home)]http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/case_studies.jsp