ENERGY, MOISTURE & CIRCULATION ANIMATIONS
Animations by Susan Taunton

All maps constructed at the Visualize NCEP Date Reanalysis site: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/DataMenus.pl?stat=mon.mean&dataset=NCEP

Variable:  Longterm Monthly Means (Jaunary thru December)

NOTE:  Animations require Quicktime plugin

	Air Temperature Sequence		Surface Sea Level Pressure Sequence
	Surface Wind Vector Sequence E-Atlas Discuss of Surface Winds (from Toby) (MS Word file)		Surface Precipitable Water Vapor Sequence Discussion of Precipitable Water (from Susan)

Surface Precipitable Water Over the North American Continent

 Based on the results of this animation, the driest month in general for the entire North American continent appears to be February, and the wettest month in general for the entire continent appears to be August.  As summer approaches, moisture moves polewards to impact the larger continental region, particularly the Midwest and eastern U.S.  This may be attributed to maritime tropical air masses, which originate over the two gulf regions.  It is easy to see that the source of the moisture for the southwestern summer monsoon is not crystal clear to climatologists; precipitable water increases similarly in the Gulf of California and Gulf of Mexico in summer months