Pacific Northwest Weather

[W13]

Wow, the temperature has dropped quite a bit. Down to 42F after being at 47 less than a half hour ago.

Yep, it dropped from 46 to 39 here a little while ago.

[andycottle]

Viewing tonights GFS....this weekend through next work week still looking to remain cool and unsetteled with maybe a break come Tuesday the 5th. Mondays system could be pretty wet as the WA coast could recieve over an inch of rain per 24 precip totals....with about .50" for rest of inland areas. Weather systems, weak to moderate in nature...appear to come in about every day or so.

-- Andy

[R-Dub]

WOW, we had quite the squall move through about a half hr ago. West winds of 30MPH plus, heavy rain, and Hail. Here are some pics I took just a bit ago, enjoy!

This was about 45 min ago, things were looking ominous but still dry......

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

This was taken just as the rain started to fall..........

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

This is when the hail started, notice how dark it got............

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

Then just I was running down to the store, I got these awesome sunset pics while it was still raining and hailing.........

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

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

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

Current temp as of 7:00PM is 38 degrees!!!!

[andycottle]

Preaty neat pics there, Randy! Hope you were able to see my pics also.
What kind of weather station do you have, Randy? Just thought I would ask since you said you had gusty winds of 30mph.

-- Andy

[W13]

Wow, those pictures are absolutely breath-taking, especially the sunset ones.

[snow_wizzard]

I really like how this is shaping up! Nothing but one cold trough after another, and the snow keeps piling up in the mountains. Sunday looks really interesting, as it will have a lower lifted index, and lower thinkness than today. This should spell awsome snow for all of the passes and hail / thundershowers in the lowlands. This has a fighting chance of being the snowiest April 1 - 15 period ever recorded in the mountains!

I would say there is a good chance that our precip totals could be above normal for the entire month by Wednesday of next week. Another great thing is that our temperatures will be solidly below normal for quite some time. Cold April's figure prominently into our cold winter periods...

[snow_wizzard]

March Weather for Covington:

Avg. High: 57.1
Avg. Low: 38.0
Total precip: 4.33
Highest Temp: 68 - 8th
Lowest Temp: 28 - 22nd

[W13]

Currently 36 F and still dropping with a moderate rain. 0.36" of rain is in the rain gauge for today, so far. The winds have really died down from the past couple hours, now becoming almost non-existant.

[andycottle]

Overcast skies here with a temp of 41 at 9pm. -- Andy

[andycottle]

As snow-wizzard stated....should see some thunder showers for sunday. Best chance looks like late afternoon into evening hours as that will be the prime time for them to happen per MM5 models. That`s also when the CAPE appears to be near 200 to 300 J/KG and lifted index of -2. At the upper layers.... 850MB temps near -4C with heights of around 1320M and South to SSW winds of 30 - 40kts. And 500MB vorticity heights are right around 534DM with SW winds of 25 to 30kts and temp of -30C to -32C. At the surface, winds look mainly light and out of the SW. GFS-MOS for Seattle has a high of 47 with a low of 43. So thunder showers should be scattered except in and where the PSCZ forms.

-- Andy

[TT-SEA]

The 00Z run of the GFS creates a problem for our current zonal flow pattern and progressive storms.

The latest GFS run creates a huge cut-off upper level low pressure over the Great Lakes and the Northeast by mid-week. This causes the whole pattern to become blocked and allows a ridge to build up in the Western U.S.

This causes the mid-week system to come in very slowly and actually SPLIT with some energy going north and some south in California.

This would be a HUGE change and would represent a pattern like we saw all winter long.

Lets hope its completely wrong.

Otherwise the end of beautifully active weather may be just a few days away!!

[TT-SEA]

I had not noticed until now... but this morning's run of the ECMWF shows signs of this split flow as well.

Its not as dramatic... but this is a BAD trend.

[snow_wizzard]

Well...The trend is somewhat disappointing, but still not a disaster. The 0z GFS still shows a lot of active weather over the next two weeks, but it does make me a tad nervous to see that ridge trying to build just to the east of us. We can only hope the next few runs, back off on that trend a little bit.

[snow_wizzard]

Andy...this is the site I use for the lifted index.

http://itg1.meteor.wisc.edu/wxp_images/ ... ia_h48.gif

This shows it should be pretty low on Sunday.

The 0z Canadian and GFS do seem to show a period where it could get fairly warm and quiet for a few days. At this time it would appear that days 4 - 8 have the best chance of being mild. The good news, is that both models and the Canadian ensemble show a deep trough will dominate beyond days 8 or 9. At any rate things still look great for the next two or three days.

[snow_wizzard]

A very interesting note about March...

In Covington the first half of the month averaged 50.6 and the second half 45.0. That means the second half of the month averaged 5.6 degrees LOWER than the first half. In a normal year the second half of March would average 2 degrees HIGHER than the first half. That equals a whopping 7.6 degree deviation from the normal trend!

Talk about a whacked out year!

[TT-SEA]

The new ECMWF continues the trend of a ridge just to our east by Tuesday and a resulting split flow.

There is a deep trough over the West Coast by Friday... but all the action is down in California.

I do not like this at all.

[snow_wizzard]

This makes me feel a bit better about our prospects for staying cool and wet for a while! This is a graph of the MJO index for the past several months. It was just updated today.

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

You can clearly see how the MJO flipped to a negative phase in mid March, and is now strongly negative. Also note how the MJO was in a negative phase just before the January cold spell. Judging by where the MJO is right now, we should have at least a couple of weeks of good stuff left to go. There is noramlly a lag time between an MJO flip and the resultant change in our weather. So, when it changes back to positive (which it is not even close to doing) we will still have about a week before the weather changes. I feel that any mild period we may see next week will be short lived!

[andycottle]

Good morning folks. Latest GFS this morning is showing our cool and unsetteled weather continuing through next weekend with a possible lull/break on the 5th and 7th. However, could see some interesting weather tomorrow as lifted index comes down to -2 and 850MB heights lowering to 1320M. 500MB heights also lowerin to near 528DM. So if we some decent instability and sunbreaks tomorrow....should see some scattered thunder showers with some small hail mixed in. -- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

A agree with Andy...The numbers look good for some fun stuff tomorrow.

Looking at the web cams on the Pass is quite a sight this morning. Fresh snow and lots of skiers showing up. What an amazing comeback for winter! In fact...we had rain and 38 last night! That is just was just a few degrees too warm snow down here.

The 12z run looks quite a bit better that the 0z. The 12z shows less of a blocking period. In fact it looks like 2 - 3 days of active weather followed by just a couple of days with a stalled front, and then very troughy again. As I said before, the MJO being in this strong negative phase bodes very well for the fun to continue!

[AnthonyC]

To start, NOBODY SEE SIN CITY!! That was the stupidest, most boring movie I have ever seen!!

Back to weather...the extended models introduce some disagreement starting the middle of this upcoming week. Some models are introducing another split flow...similar to this entire Winter...while other keeps a significant zonal pattern. At this point, I do agree that we need another three, four weeks of solid zonal flow to reinforce the mountain snow and fill up our low reservoirs.

The GFS seems to hit the split pattern pretty hard...which is usually the case. But, in fairness, the GFS has been fairly accurate when it comes to the split flow for the entire Winter. I'm not gonna buy it right now, but if model trends continue we'll have to take notice. One thing is for sure...temperatures begin a slow moderation trend this week, ending the heavy mountain snow.

Anthony