Pacific Northwest Weather

[andycottle]

Randy... my high today reach 64 after a morning low of 54. Cloudy skies all day too, and just a few sunbreaks earlier this evening. -- Andy

PS: If it wasn`t for these marine clouds this evening... I think there would be some pretty nice views of the T-Storms currently going on over the central and north cascades area.

[andycottle]

WARM spell toward middle of June? Or just a hicup?

Good evening folks. Latest GFS tonight keeps the continued cool and somewhat showery weather over us with a nearly zonal flow right on through the 10th/11th of June and an embedded trough here/there with in the flow. In the extened outlook models.... could we possibly see another WARM spell like had the past three days? The Longer range...around the 15th.. GFS, GEM, ECMWF, and UKMET models all point to some sort of high pressure building just not too far of the Central California coast line. If this is correct, 850MB temps are very high and 500MB hights at 582DM or a tad higher....could certainly mean surface temps in the mid-upper 80`s again.

Will have to see how this pans out. But for now, this next forecasted warm spell is porbably just a hicup. -- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

TT...Those articles are interesting, but I am not conviced yet. Climatologically speaking we are due for another cold climate phase. We will see how everything pans out over the next few years. I was surprised that they mentinoned 1996 - 97 in the same breath as some of those other winters. There have been many worse than that one.

It is interesting to note there is recent evidence that global warming (which I do believe is just a natural cycle) is actually causing it snow more in Antarctica. Could this be natures way of compensating? If the heavier snows continue down there, the ice will begin to thicken and we will all be happy!

As for the hoopla about our mountains getting far less snow in the future. I simply do not believe it. The winters 96 - 97, and 98 - 99 are a real hard problem for the doom sayers to explain. This last winter was an oddball, and we have had ones like that before. I am betting that 10 years from now all of this talk will be proven wrong. Only time will tell.

Tomorrow, I will tell you guys about the amazing thunderstorm I saw near Blewett Pass today.

[invisible]

What a quiet day for this forum.

We had partly cloudy today with a high of 68 F. The weather for today was the same as yesterday.

We are supposed to get some period rain tomorrow. I hate it. We need it for the summer anyway.

I think Andy is right about the next warm spell because almost all models are still considering about it.

I predict that we will have a lot of heat wave this summer because the temperature has been swinging since January. It went to a warm pattern then down to colder one.

I think snow_wizzard's message about the thunderstorm will be interesting.

[andycottle]

Sunbreaks anyone?

That is our current weather right now at just a little after 6pm. Some what partly cloudy skies and temp of 64. A nice day over all, in terms of temps. But the cloudy skies...welll, I would much rather see total sunshine and clear blue skies. But then again, I also enjoy seeing t-storms! My high today was 66 with a low of 56. How did every one eleses temps come along today?

-- Andy

[AnthonyC]

Lake Chelan was beautiful all weekend...granted VERY crowded...but awesome! Amazing what those mountains can do...blocks the marine influence. As for temperatures, it was 92F on Saturday and 96F on Sunday...as you can tell, the thermal trough passed east of the cascades.

As for the weekend west of the cascades, it all depended on the strength/timing of the thermal trough. Some models were indicating it would shift east of the cascades Saturday evening, meaning Saturday could have been 85F+...but once the trough moved east, things went downhill as is the case will all thermal troughs. Also, the marine influence was alot stronger than models indicated...the GFS had NO marine influence once the trough passed east of the cascades, which is very odd.

As for this week, nothing too exciting...but a big change from last week. A few showers, seasonal temperatures and not as much sunshine.

Anthony

[andycottle]

Good evening folks...and hope your having a great rest of the holiday weekend doing something fun.

Ok...now on to the models.

Getting a good look at all the models this evening.... the GFS, NAM, GEM, ECMWF, and the UKMET model... all show a decent trough moving over our area for very late tuesday into Wednesday June 1st. This trough will also be very showery in nature and with a moderately unstable airmass in place. One thought comes to mind when viewing this type of weather. Scattered T-Storm showers! Thoes will most likely be in the PSCZ if any do develope. At best, NGM model showing lifted indicies of -2C with MM5 having CAPE in the 300 J/KG at the highest for Wednesday afternoon/evening. 850MB heights at this time are 1470M with temp of +3C. And up at the 500MB level....heights look to be running at 552DM with a rather and very chilly temp of -24C. So for now...will say that there is at least a low chance at seeing some sort of scattered thunder storm activity.

For the rest of this week and into the longer range outlook, this week should feature some showers and more cooler temps...though still seasonabel. And second week of June looks a bit more showery and another bit more organized trough or two coming through our region to spread numorus showers. Am not seeing any kind of large high pressure systems building up anytime soon.

-- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

To say the least the 12z and 18z GFS are showing some insane rainfall amounts for the 6 - 10 day period! They both show somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 inches in that time. That almost has to be overdone, but I would not bet on anything this year! I think it is nearly inevitable that the Puget Sound area will see thunderstorms at times over the next 10 days. One thing that is really catching my eye is the UNSEASONABLY cold airmass the models are showing for Wednesday. That in combination with ridiculously strong onshore flow could spell some remarkably low daytime temps in places. If it does not clear out some low to mid 50s could be recorded. If we do get clearing, thundershowers would be quite possible.

The thunderstorm I saw yesterday was truly INCREDIBLE. It began to form over south central Chelan County and moved southward through Kittitas County. This is the only time I have ever wintnessed a thunderstorm of this magnitude moving from the north! Anyway the sky turned pitch black, and soon after that frequent, but not terribly intense lightning flashes began. After that some rain about about the size of 50 cent pieces began to fall. Those rain drops were so large that it sounded like hail hitting the car! From there on it just got nastier and nastier. At the peak of the storm it was raining so insanely hard that streams of water bordering on being small creeks were running down the road, and wicked bolts of lightning were flashing every 5 - 10 seconds...no exaggeration. I am talking about the kind of lightning that crackles, snaps, and explodes with deafening volume! For a brief period the rain was SO heavy that I noticed a group of trees about 300 feet away were almost hard to see. The final glory of the storm was a period of hail, where the stones were between nickel and quarter sized.

When I finally got past the storm and looked at the clouds, I saw what would have been a great picture. There was a pitch black anvil cloud that must have had a top of at about 50,000 feet, with a nice billowing cumulonimbus underneath it. Unfortunately, I had no camera. I thought about bringing one, but just barely did not bother...A few minutes later the whole scene was framed inside of an intense full rainbow. That would have been an award winning pic!

I lived over there for two years, and have frequently visited the area since, and have never seen a storm like that one.

The storm was caused by a strong cool west wind meeting warm moisture rotating around the back of a low centered over Montana. The low was held in that position by the unusually negative NAO that has been the hallmark of this year. Now I know what happens when Pacific air meets a continental low! The last noteworthy thing I witnessed was an amazing wave of low clouds coming over the Cascades. The onshore flow was so strong that a huge pile of stratus formed just east of the crest and actually almost made it Cle Elum. How rare to see benign Pacific stratus and a severe thunderstorm (two completely different airmasses) only 20 miles apart.

[TT-SEA]

I have EXTENSIVELY studied similar patterns to what is predicted this coming week using the historical 500mb maps back to 1948.

Two things are very likely... it will not be as cold as you are claiming (Sea-Tac should reach 60 degrees on most days) and the rainfall is WAY overdone.

Looking at the other models... they have the same basic pattern but without so much drama.

This week will be slightly cooler and slightly wetter than normal.

There could be some marginal thundershowers... but pretty weak.

[cswitwer]

Hi, all. I've recently relocated from South Carolina and lived in Texas before that. I've watched this forum and the Winter forum for a long time, and just wanted to say hello & thanks for posting to this thread. I intend to check in often and learn a lot about the weather here (which is COMPLETELY foreign to me).

Thanks for maintaining such an active thread. I'm sure I'll learn a lot from you guys. And the description of that storm last night was awesome! I saw some of the clouds from a high spot in Tukwila, but it was just a lot of dark blue from here.

And I am SO thankful I got here before the Atlantic hurricane season! Rainy, cool weather sounds good to me! Though I'm nervous about a summer without an air conditioner.

[TT-SEA]

Welcome

[snow_wizzard]

Welcome cswitwer!

The storm I saw was about 35 miles east of the Cascade crest. It is a completley different climate over there. That is why there was nothing like that in our neck of the woods. On the other hand...we may see some pretty good stuff here over the next 10 days.

You will probably learn that our climate is somewhat less exciting than some others, but perhaps more interesting. You will figure that seeming paradox out soon enough.

[snow_wizzard]

Wow! The GFS seems to be locking in on 3, count them 3, seperate troughs in the next 12 days. This could be a wild period coming up!

The second one is shown to bring our heights down to 546. That would be about 220 meters below normal. Put that together with the low center moving inland about 200 miles south of here and you get thunderstorms! It is already looking like the wet June I want could be in the making.


By the way...do not worry about having no air conditioning. Even our hot summers usually have really dry air. Some summers don't get hot all.

[andycottle]

Welcome aboard, cswitwer! Feel free to jump right into to all of our weather talk. Not sure if you closely look at weather maps to see the weather days ahead, but just bare with us, as some of the weather map talk might seem a little confusing to you.

-- Andy

[andycottle]

And adding to what snow wizzard said.... you don`t need to be overly concerned about it getting REALLY hot here. The hottest it gets during the summer....or that I have seen anyway....is temps in the lower to mid 90`s. And even a few upper 90`s. But it rarely if ever happens do reach the 100 degrees mark.

-- Andy

[cswitwer]

Thanks everybody! I've been trying to figure out how to read weather maps for a while, and do pretty well at it-- but the models are still a mystery to me. Still, I was able to track one of the Atlantic canes for a while last year just from watching other folks do it. So I'll be trying to learn from you guys. The maps and model talk is good for me! I may periodically ask for explainations of abbreviations, though. And I have no idea where anything is. I think I'm facing north and I'm not...

In Texas, the water was down, or south.

In SC, the water was to the left, or east.

Here, it's everywhere! Oh, and Rainer disappears for no apparent reason. (I know, in time I'll figure out when he's "in" versus "out".)

[snow_wizzard]

Upon closely examining the progs for the next three days. I am OFFICIALLY IMPRESSED. These are some of the coldest and wettest maps I have seen for this time of year. At face value, we could be looking at one or two of the next three days not even making 55. A combination of NNW flow eventually becoming NNE with lots of moisture, strong onshore flow, and very low 850mb temps it will seem very much like April.

The precip amounts being shown are very impressive, with the likelihood of the entire central Sound area being in the C Zone at some point. The zone should start in it's normal area tomorrow evening and then eventually work its way down to at least extreme northern Pierce County. The really exciting thing is that this trough could be small potatoes compared to the next one!

[andycottle]

Actually, we refer to Rainier as a 'she'. Or at least I do anyway. And for the waters... it does seem to be every where, but here, the pacific ocean is off to the west. -- Andy

[cswitwer]

Oops. I'm really gonna show my ignorance for a while. SHE is amazing! The first three days we were here, I kept looking for her & thought that the hype had been just that-- you can't see that volcano from Seattle! Then the next morning, I came around a curve on the highway and had to immediately pull over. Awe struck.

Yes, water is west. But I've "cheated" my whole life, and learned directions by where the water is. I'm a waterbaby I guess. So now I have to learn west some other way. Maybe the sun is a good start, but it looks so different here. It sets near the doorway of my hotel.

[cswitwer]

I do have a question that I'd value anyone's opinion on. (Seattle area)

In Texas, I lived just below Tornado Alley-- but close enough to have to be cautious. I was only 30 miles from the Jarrel F5 in '87. So I learned which local mets acted which ways in certain weather.

Jim was the guy who would say "tornado" before NWS posted the warning, just to safe. He also was the first to have Future Radar, and it worked. Troy was the safety guy but didn't do anything the NWS hadn't first sanctioned. Mark was slow on the uptake, but if you came in late to the game he summarized the situation often. And the other guy was a jerk who said you could see what was happening out your window so he was going to give the viewers what they wanted, good news for the next day. Useless in a storm, really.

So here, any take on how the various local mets are? With weather as mild as it has been for the past few days, they seem pretty interchangeable, although the younger gentleman on Fox 13 news likes to give a lot of numbers, records, etc. He's interesting so far.

Thanks!
chris