Pacific Northwest Weather

[TT-SEA]

It will be interesting to see if the GFS is right about its persistent forecast of rain. Even the ETA (NAM) is getting wetter.

I doubt the NWS can ignore this for much longer.

I think you can say that every winter is close!! That is the story of living in Western Washington. Places 15 miles to the east of my house get 400+ inches of snow on average each winter and routinely get bitterly cold.

1993-94 saw less than an inch in Bellingham!! Come on. Thats not close. Most lowland spots had 2-3 inches for the entire winter.

Add another degree or two on average to that winter and you have nothing.

I do think it is funny that you have all the winters memorized!! I laughed out loud at that one.

[TT-SEA]

Nice to see a temperature of 60 degrees at 8 p.m.!!

Should be a warmer night with clouds around.

[andycottle]

Snow wizzard. You said you saw some Mammatus clouds today. While that does show the airmass being unstable, it generaly means that storm is ending and what ever air is rising, is now sinking due to cooler air being pulled down from the much higher cloud bases. Thus the storm being in it`s disapating stage.

-- Andy

[andycottle]

Tim...I`m not too far behind ya. My current temp at 8:53pm is 58 with humidity 64% and DP at 46. -- Andy

[TT-SEA]

No reply from Brennan.

He comes on here saying the school sites are bogus and the weather today did not support a high of 70 degrees.

And then Bellevue comes in with an OFFICIAL high of 70 degrees!!

Essentially validating all the schools sites around Bellevue that were slightly COOLER in the upper 60's (and the few that actually made it to 70).

And validating Andy's high of 70 degrees!!

[andycottle]

Here`s some pics I took of tonights sunset. The high and mid level clouds made for a nice sunset! -- Andy
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ajc192004 ... .dir=/6657

[andycottle]

Looking at the lastest run of the GFS and NAM...it appears that a good threat of showers are still in the picture for sunday afternoon. Along with those showers could be the possibility of thunder storms as MRF has lifted indicies around -1, -2. MOS has a high of 62 for sunday afternoon along with a 24% T-Storm POP. Also.... looks light there`s a light on shore flow at the 850 and 700MB level, with South to SSW winds of 20 - 30kts at 500MB. So over all, at least tonight anyway, a threat of t-storms does exist.
-- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

It certainly looks like our whacky weahter patterns are going to continue indefinitely! The evolution the pattern is supposed to undergo over the next week to 10 days is almost like the twilight zone. The messy block pattern is supposed to drift off to the NW, reassemble, amplify, and eventually put us into a high amplitude northerly flow from NW Territories. Not your typical late April pattern! I would be ignoring this except for the fact the GFS has shown it for three consecutive runs and yesterdays ecmwf also showed it.

I am betting that this entire year will feature highly irregular weather patterns and many surprises!

[snow_wizzard]

I absolutley love the forecast discussion! He claims there will be very low confidence with this flaky pattern! Boy, ain't that the truth.

The pattern progged for this weekend is an ABSOLUTE MESS. Canadian air flowing into the northern part of the state, a cold upperlevel low tracking over southern BC, a moist and unstable SE flow aloft over western WA, one surface low to our SE and another surface low to our SW. If this all comes together just right, it could produce a thunderstorm that will not soon be forgotten!

The latest GFS shows that Saturday afternoon and evening could be quite a show. I am amazed the NWS is not mentioning lightning...

[TT-SEA]

Gonna be pretty warm for awhile... at least another week.

Great show tonight about global warming and the effect on climate and weather patterns.

When they talked about the PDO... they said that the cycles still occur but are all trending warmer.

Also... the PDO cold phase bottomed out for the entire 1950's at unusually cold levels. That explains the drama around here back then.

Even if global warming was not happening... the chances are this next cold phase would be much less dramatic.

[snow_wizzard]

TT...I am still betting on cool for Sunday and Monday. The latest GFS shows 850mb temps dropping to 3 by Saturday evening and staying between 1 and 3 through Monday night. That is a decently cool airmass. Add that to the showers expected on Sunday and you could be looking at mid 50s for a high.

I will say that with a pattern this convoluted, nothing is etched in stone.

I looked at a temperature list that some climatologists assembled for the northern hemispere for the past 1000 years and saw something shocking. It seems that the warmest year from 1000 to 1991 was way back in 1158. Hmmmm. The list only went to 1991, but at least till then nothing was warmer. By the way...as dramatic as the 1950s were we had even better weather in the 1880s and 1890s, so it was not that unusual. Let's face it, only time will tell who is right about this. NOBODY KNOWS FOR SURE.

[TT-SEA]

Although this pattern may look odd... it is quite normal with blocking patterns in the spring.

That is to say... the westerly flow fading and cut-off lows meandering around underneath the blocking high pressure.

It just looks different than the usual pattern.

Don Sutherland said that since 1950... there have been 29 years with a blocking pattern at the end of April. Not really that unusual.

I was looking through some old upper air charts and found some wacky patterns in April and May... even within the last 5 years.

[TT-SEA]

1158 was in the medieval warm period.

No doubt the Earth has been through cycles. And if Earth started a natural warming cycle in the 1980's you can expect it to end sometime in the 24th century!!

Yes... I know there can be cool periods. But face it... you are at least 50 years to late dude.

[snow_wizzard]

This is the most atypical pattern I have seen since I began looking at the models about 8 years ago. I know that cutoff lows and all of that are not that rare, but the details of this are remarkable. This is the kind of pattern that makes the folks at the NWS pull their hair out! If you look at the number of weather systems that are going to be in play on Saturday, it is pretty impressive. The million dollar question is whether the models will be right about how this pattern evolves.

Do you have access to daily upper air maps or just a composite of longer periods of time? I am trying to find a source for the daily ones.

[TT-SEA]

This site has historical charts going back a few years...

http://www.weather.unisys.com

Check out the archives.

[snow_wizzard]

The list of yearly anomolies that I looked at made it quite clear that below normal and above normal years come in groups. We have had about 30 years of above normal. Historically speaking we could be due for about 30 below normal. I wish we knew the mechanisms for the oscillation from above to below normal. The fact remains that such flip flops do occur. Even the little ice age had brief periods of warming. Nobody knows why!

[snow_wizzard]

Thanks TT...That's a start. I now have about 1001 weather links!

[Guest]

TT you understood me all wrong...I said that you shouldn't be supporting the school temps above 70 over Snowwizz's temp of 65 because the overall pattern doesn't support anything above 70 degrees. NOT AT 70 degrees. Make sure you directly quote me if you are going to misunderstand me like that... And i didn't mean the pattern and stuff doesn't support 1 or 2 70 degree readings, what i kinda meant is that it didn't support all of the 70's that you posted from the school nets... And i have been busy all night that's why i was not on here...

And no if you said we were suppose to get a cold and snowy winter last year it wouldn't phase my judgement a bit... You can say whatever you want and it won't phase me.

[TT-SEA]

Brennan... that was a Bill Clinton move there!!

The weather yesterday supported 70 degrees but not ABOVE 70 degrees. So any school site that had 71 degrees is wrong. And if there are too many school sites (even though many are clustered within a couple miles) right at 70 degrees they are wrong. Yet right in the middle... Bellevue had an official high of 70 degrees!!

Wow. Sorry I misunderstood that very precise point of yours.

Talk about back-tracking!!!!

[Guest]

TT you are being rediculous... I said it didn't support temps over 70. Sure, a school net observation showed 71 or 72 BIG DEAL. 1 or 2 degrees above... I think the highest official temperature recording yesturday for western washington was actually 70. Your school net observations are crap.