Pacific Northwest Weather

[snow_wizzard]

Brennan...That next to last post was hysterical. Now that is truly FUNNY!

I will have my firewood and hot chocolate ready for July!

[snow_wizzard]

TT's microclimate is only the warmest some of the time. Other times it's one of the coldest. When the flow is onshore with a lot of moist air ramming up against the mountains, it can be much cooler and wetter than anywhere else. Also, if there is bitterly cold air in place over Eastern WA, that east wind can blow so cold and harsh that it freezes everything in its tracks. He has not been around long enough to see that very often, but some years it happens all the time. This past week is great example of the foothills being the warm spot. Warm air aloft and east wind. That can bring freakish warmth that is not representative of Western WA in general.

[R-Dub]

Here are the pics that didn't turn out very well during that intense cell late this afternoon, I will share them anyway. Note how dark it became(3:30PM), was sunny and bright 5 min before and 5 min after this cell, amazing stuff.................

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/golfer96_ ... pg&.src=ph

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/golfer96_ ... pg&.src=ph

[snow_wizzard]

R-Dub...That first pic does show it was pouring! Some of those drop looked almost like snow they were so big. Who would have thought this would capable of producing a near severe squall line?

The monthly totals for Covington are in, and I am fairly pleased with the results.

Monthly average temperature - 40.8 --- 0.8 degree BELOW normal

Average high - 52.1

Average low - 29.4 ---- lowest monthly average low since Feb 1993

Precipitation - 0.76 inch - only 1993 and 1988 had lower totals for my personal records. Does anyone remember the wild winter of 1988 - 89???Let's hope history repeats itself!

19 low temps of 32 or below --- the most since Feb 1993

The 9 consecutive lows of 25 or below was the most since Nov 1985. That's 20 years folks. Climatologically speaking...very significant!

[AnthonyC]

A steady rain just passed through. We've gotten quite a bit of rain today...I would say a quarter of an inch. The most in over three, four weeks!

24 is on tonight...it better be good. I missed last week's episode so I'm going over to a friend's house to catch up. 24 was my favorite show for awhile, but I'm starting to lose interest. Hopefully something reignites the spark!

As for the extended, a monster ridge develops late this weekend and lasts for the forseeable future...I'm pretty excited!! Sunshine with temps near 70 is perfect to me!

Anthony

[TT-SEA]

Brennan... my comments were what we old people call "sarcasm".

[snow_wizzard]

Anthony...I am quite shocked that you do want active and exciting weather. As a weather enthusiast, I just can't understand wanting boring weather at a time of year it should be active. I enjoy sunny and warm weather, but when it is supposed to happen (late May - early Sept). Other than that, give me action!


By the way...the ridge is shown to break down or retrogress in the 12 - 15 day period. It is not progged to be endless. Hopefully, that will not change.

[R-Dub]

2/28/05 LK Goodwin WA
7:45:08 PM CURRENT
Cloudy/Breezy
Temperature (ºF) 47.8
Humidity (%) 89.4
Wind (mph) S 13.7
Daily Rain (") 0.11
Pressure ("Hg) 30.01
Dew Point: 44.8 ºF

[R-Dub]

Latest PNA forecast shows it going off the charts positive, then plunging back to near neutral by the end of the period................

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/p ... _ensm.html

[R-Dub]

Looks like we will be going back to the sun and warm after a few days of showers.............

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA 830 PM PST MON FEB 28 2005

THEN HEIGHTS BUILD OVER THE NW DURING THE WEEKEND GIVING DRY AND MILD CONDITIONS INTO POSSIBLY NEXT WEEK. THIS IS SIMILAR TO THE PATTER WE JUST TEMPORARILY MOVED AWAY FROM.

[R-Dub]

RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE, WA 1030 PM PST SAT FEB 26 2005

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT STAMPEDE PASS TODAY... STAMPEDE PASS SET A NEW HIGH TEMPERATURE FOR FEBRUARY 26TH... REACHING 51 DEGREES. THE OLD RECORD FOR THIS DATE WAS 48 DEGREES BACK IN 1988.

[andycottle]

Hey all!:) I don`t think we should have to start over again for when summer comes around. I mean hey, there will still be things to talk about.
-- Andy

[andycottle]

Here are my Woodinville Weather stats for Feb. 2005.

Avg. High: 52
Avg. Low: 31
Warmest High temp: 64 (23rd)
Coldest Low temp: 25 (15th, 16th, 19th, 21st)
Days with measureable precip: 7
Monthly Precip: 1.58"

[snow_wizzard]

Well...Is everyone ready for another whacked out month? The models are increasingly clear that we are going to have more weird weather. The ridge during the 5 - 11 day period could bring some very warm weather, but it is not a slam dunk for very warm and sunny. It could range from an almost muggy, warm and partly cloudy pattern, to clear with dry air. That could mean the possibility of another round of warm days and cold nights. If the ridge axis is further east we could see well above normal highs and lows, as a humid southerly flow sets up. The thing that really interests me is what may happen after day 10. The GFS has been consistent on showing the high pressure center slowly migrating to the NW. That sets up the possibility of a northern branch southern branch confluence over our region. Those situations can bring fantastically interesting weather. In short the westerlies will undercut the upper level ridge as it moves NW and at the same time the northern branch of the jetstream will move down the eastern side of the offshore ridge. The devil is in the details on these things. Any fine details are impossible to nail down at this point, but the general pattern seems to be looking more likely. I can't wait!

This map for hour 360 shows what general theme we may be looking at.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/cwwd/models/00z ... 0_360m.htm

As I said, more weird stuff to come!

[andycottle]

Good evening all. Viewing tonights GFS, tomorrows rain makes does`nt appear to be much if anything as it weakens fairly well when coming onshore. Though the WA coast could pick up decent amount of precip...well, about .25" anyway. For us here the Seattle and surounding areas...much less precip in our rain guages can been seen. 2nd and 3rd will have more showers but in a very scattered varaity. 4th/5th may have a few sprinkles.

Ok...now the long range. 6th - 12th looks like strong high pressure will take hold to give us sunny to partly cloudy weather. However, we will reallybe close to being under a moist SW flow during this time as clouds and showers come right up along the WA coast. So it looks like it could be a toug between sunny and dry or wet and grey. In any case, 850MB temp warm to around +9C with light South to SW winds and height of 1560M. 500MB vorticity heights also pretty high and at 570 to 576DM with SW to Westerly winds of 25 to 30kts+. GEM and ECMWF also show a big ridge for the extened period.

So if we have lots of sunny weather during time...high temps could very well be in the mid 70`s, but if cloudy and rainy, we`ll probably see temps in the mid 60`s. Over all, we`ll see what side of the coin were for late this weekend into next week.

On a side note....CPC for Washington State has temps in the above normal range, with precip in the below normal catagory for March 6th - 10th. 8 to 14 day also calls for the much of the same.

-- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

I thought you guys might like to see what I discovered tonight. I started looking through years that had abnormally dry weather in Jan and or Feb, and I could not believe what I found. I further screened the comparable years by only using ones where the dry weather was not associated with very cold temperatures. Hold onto your hats for this!

Out of the 17 years that qualified, all but three of them had hard core Arctic outbreaks the following winter. That is the most conclusive correlation I have ever found in a study like this! The years are listed in order below, with amount of snow for the following winter. After 1914 the second snowfall total is for Palmer...near Ravensdale.

1869 - 19.0......... 1928 - 18.1 / 63.0

1871 - 33.5......... 1934 - 18.0 / 103.0 (wow wee)

1883 - 42.3......... 1941 - 1.0 / 18.7

1886 - 21.5......... 1942 - 18.4 / 71.8

1889 - 62.8......... 1964 - 18.2 / 82.8

1892 - 58.0......... 1977 - 3.5 / 19.0

1898 - 37.0......... 1981 - 9.0 / 30.7

1903 - 15.0......... 1988 - 14.2 / 47.3

1914 - T

I like those numbers! Even the snowfall average for the five latest years was 12.7 inches in Seattle. I am already dying to see what happens. It is intersting to note how much more common major winter dry spells were in the 1880s and 1890s...a hard core cold climate regime....

[andycottle]

Good morning all. It`s a cloudy start to the day with a few rain showers. Currently at 7:43am we have 45 degrees, humidity 100%, and baro 29.74 and steady. -- Andy

[andycottle]

Hi all. Looking at the 06z GFS, it appears that we`ll continue to see on/off showers through at least the 6th, but nothing all too heavy. 7th through about the 10th...we could see partly to mostly sunny weather due to a some what strong high pressure system, but storm systems will be just right off WA coast and really close to being a SW flow. More showers are feature in the extended forecast picture. -- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

Another reason for optimism...The PNA index for February was negative once again. The running PNA average has gone negative over the past few years, and will stay there. This winter the AO is running strongly negative. The running average for the AO may go negative for the first time in many, many years after this winter. The last time the running averages for the both the PNA and AO were negative was prior to the mid 1970s. This makes it clear it is only a matter of time before we take the plunge into much colder winters once again! We are in some kind of transition right now.

[TT-SEA]

Snow_Wizzard... very interesting stuff.

But I am VERY hesistant to draw comparisons any more. It seems that something has caused the weather patterns around the world to behave differently now. Global warming?

Proceed with caution.

In the meantime... it is so spring-like now that NOBODY can tell me about winter weather in Western Washington. It is going to get much warmer in the next week. Warm and humid it appears. I would think that most of the trees will be bursting with leaves by the end of next week.