Pacific Northwest Weather

[snow_wizzard]

It looks like all of the passes have either changed to snow are in the process of changing over. I am looking forward to this being one of the coldest and wettest April's on record! We have certainly gotten a good start. After a very cool and wet day, it looks like the lows tonight will be solidly below normal. Lot's of cool and wet weather on the horizon. Once again, I need to remind some people that very cool weather in April is good for the BIG picture. We cannot expect to have cold winters if we can't get some colder than normal months in here during the spring, summer, and fall! The best is a very cool spring, warm summer, and a cold fall.

[Guest]

Well I was up at baker and it didn't stop snowing from to early morning until we left about 5PM when it began snowing as hard as it had the whole time we were up there. It was a steady snow, small flakes, but it came down a lot at a time... the snow was amazing up there. I jumped off a small ledge and landed in snow up to my NECK... YES MY NECK... The snow all in all was about 7 or 8 feet to the ground. The 9-10 feet had been packed down a little from all the weight, and that was in untouched places. I STILL CAN'T GET OVER HOW MUCH SNOW THERE WAS UP THERE. When we would be just regularly walking along in the powder it was up to our waists and sometime's we'd step in a burried tree whole and fall up to our chest. I have a few pictures of the cave we built and the beautiful snow scenery up there that i will try to post them as soon as i can. I hear a lot of you are begging for the warm and sunny weather now, if you were where i was today, you would probably change your mind because all i want now is snow up there which means we have to get rain down here. KEEP THE ACTIVE WEATHER COMING. THe up coming week and beyond looks great for the mountains, specifically MT. BAKER

[andycottle]

Randy....check out the Seattle Radar! at 7:45a.m Looks like your area it about to get with heavy RAIN! Looking at radar, the I-5 area up Everett area is really getting pounded! -- Andy

[andycottle]

Here`s what the current radar is looking at almost 8a.m. -- Andy

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ajc192004 ... .dir=/94c1

[snow_wizzard]

What a chilly morning! After lows in the 30s at most locations the temperatures are struggling to get out of the low 40s, as of 10:00am. A convergence zone in north King / south Snohomish county is keeping everything from Everett to Tacoma socked in with clouds. With 850mb temps of -4 today, some places could struggle to reach 50 degrees. So far my wish to see an outstandingly cold April is on track! We still have a long way to go though.

The GFS and other models continue to show a very cool zonal flow and eventually a deep cold trough will dominate our weather or the 3 - 10 day period. Wow! Awsome!

If the GFS is correct we should see some frozen precip (hail, graupel, wet snow) in the lowlands sometime late this week through early next week. It is safe to say the NWS predictions for possible 60 degree readings at the end of the week are utter fantasy. The only days that even have a chance of that would be either tomorrow or Wednesday

[snow_wizzard]

Where is everyone today? I know there is some weather out there. We actually had some snow pellets (graupel) in Covington today. Right now the sun is shing and it's only 47 degrees. The thing that intrigues me is we have an east wind at 12 while it is blowing out of the SW just 10 miles so from here. This could be a very interesting day for all of King County!

[AnthonyC]

A very COLD day for the beginning of April...currently 44F with mostly cloudy conditions.

This morning was very interesting...we had HEAVY rain that occasionally mixed with wet snow. The temperature was 37F. That's pretty cold for this time of year.

As for the extended, the basic theme of lowland rain/mountain snow continues...although it shouldn't be quite as cold as the past 10 days.

Anthony

[R-Dub]

We had a half inch of rain fall in about an hour span this morning! Very heavy stuff, then the temp dropped around 7:30AM down to 36 degrees and we got a good shot of hail that covered the ground slightly at work. I also heard that Darrington got 2" of snow this morning!!

Currently Mostly Cloudy with a temp of 45 degrees at 2:15PM

[R-Dub]

SHORT TERM FORECAST
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
200 PM PDT MON APR 4 2005

WAZ004>011-050000-
ADMIRALTY INLET AREA-CENTRAL CASCADE FOOTHILLS-EVERETT AND VICINITY-
HOOD CANAL/KITSAP PENINSULA-NORTHWEST INTERIOR-
SEATTLE METROPOLITAN AREA-SOUTHWEST INTERIOR-TACOMA AREA-
200 PM PDT MON APR 4 2005

.NOW..
SCATTERED SHOWERS AND ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS WILL OCCUR OVER THE AREA
THIS AFTERNOON. SOME OF THE THUNDERSTORMS WILL PRODUCE BRIEF HEAVY
RAIN AND SMALL HAIL.

&&

AT 2 PM PDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR SHOWED THE
HEAVIEST SHOWERS OVER WHIDBEY ISLAND. A THUNDERSTORM WITH SMALL HAIL
IS LIKELY TO DEVELOP WITH THESE SHOWERS BY 230 PM. THE ACTIVITY WAS
MOVING NORTHEAST NEAR 15 MPH.

$$

[W13]

Yep, it sure looks like Darrington got a few inches of snow. It got down to 32 F or lower there early this morning, but it has already warmed up to 49 F so the snow would have probably melted already, especially since they have had 0.57" of rain since midnight.

Here is the web cam in Darrington looking southwest towards Whitehorse Mountain:

http://www.instaweather.com/KING/default.asp?cid=21&size=L&id=DRRNG

[snow_wizzard]

That is awsome that Darrington got snow! We are now clearly in the type of weather pattern that dominated many April's from the late 1940s through early 1970s! That is good company, if you ask me.

Interesting to note that the dew point temperatures have dropped to near 30 in many places today. If the clouds from the next front hold off long enough, we could have some interesting low temperatures tonight. Some of the analogs today are from 1955...the coldest April of the 20th century! To say I am happy with this month, so far would be the understatement of the year.

By the way...I am going to go out on a limb and say it's possible we have not yet seen the coldest weather we are going to get this month. The trough that is progged to dominate our weather in the 6 - 10 day period shows signs in could be deeper and colder than this one! This month is some confirmation of my suspicion that we have entered our cold climate phase. It seems a little more real now, doesn't it?

[W13]

Yep, we currently have a 31 F Dew Point with 47% Humidity and a 51 F temperature. Pretty nice afternoon today, I should be able to snap some pictures of the clouds and sunset later tonight (thanks to how we sprung ahead this weekend, the sunset isn't until 7:42 PM now!).

[andycottle]

Hi Randy, W13, Snow-wizzard! Well, like some of you folks that had HEAVY RAIN this morning and including hail, graupel, wet snow flakes.... I had a steady light rain for a short while. Sad to say....it was non measureable in my rain gage. By late morning, skies became partly cloudy and that is our current sky condition right now as of 5:25pm. My temp is 51 with humidity 47%, DP 32, and baro steady at 29.88.

-- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

Take a look at this! The ecmwf is showing a giant pool of cold air just beginning to enter the state on day 7.

http://weather.cod.edu/forecast/ECMWF/e ... mp_168.gif

This is after a lot of fairly cool weather in the 3 - 6 day period. The nice thing about cold air coming from the NW, is there is nothing to block it! LOL
I am seeing a really cold monthly average...

[andycottle]

Maybe if we some rather nice fronts in here, coupled by some energetic short waves....we could likely see hail, lightning, thunder, a little wet snow, ect. -- Andy

[andycottle]

Here`s a few pics I took at work today that shows how our weather was this afternoon. Not too bad of a day despite some morning showers. Oh BTW....that`s me you see in with the reflection of the clouds. -- Andy

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ajc192004 ... pg&.src=ph

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ajc192004 ... pg&.src=ph

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ajc192004 ... pg&.src=ph

[andycottle]

Viewing the 12z and 18z GFS this evening, a stalled out stationary front arives tomorrow late morning into afternoon hours, which will us more rainy and blustery conditions. 850MB temps near -6C, winds SW at 30kts and heights of around 1400M. 500MB vorticity heights are near 546DM and temps only in -20C range. So should be a rather cool day tomorrow as AVN, ETA, NGM - MOS models showing high temps in the mid-upper 40`s. 6th - 10th....we continue with our cool showery pattern. 11th - 14th looks rather rainy/showery also. Now in the extened, 15 through 21...a big ridge of high pressure may take over our our current cool pattern and give us more late spring-like weather with plenty of sunshine. Just have too see about that! Bet that High will be gone in the next 00z run of tonight.

-- Andy

[W13]

Great pictures Randy!

Here are a few I have taken so far tonight of the blue and pinkish sky:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xbmedia/detail?.dir=/102d&.dnm=3c46.jpg

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xbmedia/detail?.dir=/102d&.dnm=d7a5.jpg

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xbmedia/detail?.dir=/102d&.dnm=9643.jpg

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xbmedia/detail?.dir=/102d&.dnm=1e78.jpg

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xbmedia/detail?.dir=/102d&.dnm=a56d.jpg

I might take a few more once it gets dark, and check how good the night photos come out.

[R-Dub]

Great pics Andy and Justin!

Justin, congrats on the new camera, which one did you end up getting?

I have found with mine, as soon as it gets near dusk or low light conditions, it doesn't work so well. But my camera is also about 2yrs old now. You should also add the date onto the pic, that way you can look back and see what exactly what day you took the pic!

Currently Partly Cloudy with a temp of 42.5 degrees and dropping rapidly!

[andycottle]

Hey Randy, was just thinking the same thing! Always nice to have a date on the pics....unless you want be left wondering (when was that photo taken?;) ) At any rate, thanks for the good comments you two. And good pics, Justin! Will show my pics here in the next few minutes. -- Andy