Pacific Northwest Weather

[snow_wizzard]

I thought you guys might enjoy seeing a composite list of the record lows for January from 1850 to the present. These readings are all from the central Puget Sound area. To say the least, this list shows that what we have been seeing recently is abnormally mild! The records I have from 1892 - 1944 are from downtown Seattle, which is a very poor location for extreme cold. That is why there are so few records from that period. Notice that several of the readings have minus signs in front of them!

1...10..1952
2....6...1950
3....6...1950
4....8...1862
5....8...1862
6...13..1888
7...10..1888
8...14..1909
9...13..1949
10...7..1868
11...9..1868
12...9..1868
13...5..1875
14...1..1888
15..-2..1888
16..-8..1862
17...3..1854
18..-7..1862
19...0..1854
20..10..1854
21..13..1962
22..-1..1854
23...0..1854
24..10..1950
25...7..1950
26...9..1957
27..-3..1862
28...7..1950
29...6..1950
30..-6..1862
31...0..1950

By the way...I have only found two analogous years to this one so far. Those are 1978 and 1993. I want to find 5 before I make my predictions. Finding the other 3 is proving to be tedious work.

[TT-SEA]

It is tedious work... I totally agree!!

And we are basically in the same place with 1978 and 1993.

[weather girl]

This is from the "for what it's worth" category. I was listening to a Portland meteorologist this morning giving the 7-day forecast. He said he thinks the pattern the PNW is in right now will probably last through May. So, as somebody else said: Not cold, not warm, not wet, not dry...... Variable, as they say. Also, it is my understanding that summer patterns basically "set-up" in May and recycle through July, (with some flexibility, of course.) So still maybe a sliver of hope for a cooler summer.

Also, I was reading an article earlier this week where a California climatologist said that, actually, temperatures in rural areas are cooling. Urban centers are heating up, though. I'll try to find it because it was interesting.

[snow_wizzard]

I actually think we are going to see a period of well below normal temps later this month. The GFS has been showing a zonal flow devleoping by mid month, and I have no reason to doubt it. The MJO is in the process of flipping from a profoundly to profoundly negative state. That suggest the huge temperature swings that have been effecting the country will continue. For some reason the MJO is in an abnormally out of balance state right now...normally the fluctuations are much smaller than they are now.

As for the rural areas getting cooler, that may be true of California but I would be very surprised if that is true of the US in general. California has had a number of surprisingly cool years lately (periodically over the past 10 years), but that is the exception to the rule. At any rate, I know the temps in Washington State have been warming significantly since 1975.

[R-Dub]

Hey everyone, just checking in and letting you know I am still around
Work and life have been crazy lately, so I am not able to make it on here as often. Plus in my area anyway the weather has been quite calm to say the least. Only .1" of rainfall since about mid April! Been running irrigation at work and home for the last couple of weeks now. Currently its in the mid 60's and Mostly Sunny.

[snow_wizzard]

R-Dub...That is amazing it's been that dry up there. We have had about 2 inches of rain in the last two weeks. It seems like every time rain is in the forecast we have been getting it. It is so wet here that the lawn is out of control and has to be mowed way too often for my taste!

It looks everyone will get substantial rainfall in the 3 - 6 day period.

[andycottle]

Hi guys. And hi Randy!

A pretty nice afternoon here after starting out with cloudy grey skies and some what cool temps this morning. My high today was 68 with a low of 52. As for the weekend weather....GFS, AVN, MRF showing mostly dry weather through saturday but with more in the way cloudyness. And for Sunday.....well, that is looking to be quite wet and rainy.

-- Andy

[TT-SEA]

Snow_Wizzard...

Can you give me some statistics on 1884. Specifically rainfall and snowfall by month from November 1883 through all of 1884 somewhere close to Seattle.

I am trying to determine if we have any similarities.

That winter featured a weak El Nino and Southern California had an amazingly wet winter. It was the wettest on record down there.

Also... in August of 1883... the volcano of Krakatau exploded and spread ash through throughout the Earth. This may have had the same of effect temporarily as global warming during the winter of 1883-84. This is further making me interested in comparing this year.

I want to see what the summer of 1884 was like... and the winter of 1884-85.

[snow_wizzard]

TT...You certainly perked my interest with talking about 1884. The winter of 1884 - 85 had our coldest December ever recorded. That baby was COLD! Here are the monthly temps for July 1883 - March 1885

1883 - 62.3, 62.2, 56.0, 46.2, 44.5, 41.5

1884 - 39.0, 34.0, 43.0, 51.5, 52.5, 64.3, 62.3, 65.0, 54.0 brrr, 49.1, 47.3, 31.2 brrrrrrrrrr

1885 - 39.0, 44.5, 47.5

Precip for Nov 1883 - Mar 1885

1883 - 4.97, 4.39

1884 - 3.83, 4.81, 0.84, 2.18, 0.48, 2.35, 0.09, 1.17, 2.16, 5.39, 2.22, 5.55

1885 - 10.20, 5.10, 0.77

Snowfall for Dec 1884 was 19 inches.

[snow_wizzard]

TT...Another interesting note. New York City had 43 inches of snow in the winter of 1883 - 84. 40 or more inches of snow there is one of the comparisons I have been looking for. 1884 may have more matches than I would have thought.

[TT-SEA]

Interesting... really cold in December 1884 and really cold at the end of December 1978.

I could see a warm winter overall with a really nasty cold spell in December of 2005.

[TT-SEA]

You gotta admit... we have been running warm for a long time now.

In fact... today was the 17th out of the last 18 days that have been at or above normal.

If that were a cold spell... I think you would say this was astounding and unbelievable!! A sure sign that next winter was going to be amazing.

I think this propensity for warmth is a signal for next winter. And maybe many years beyond. But we could still get a nasty cold spell.

[snow_wizzard]

I do admit this warm spell has been something of a surprise to me. The upper level flow pattern does not look like it should be this warm. No well defined ridge, lots of clouds, several days with rain. Certainly a dirty and not overly pretty warm spell. I will be most interested to see if we get a cold period to balance this out later in the month. The GFS continues to hint at a major pattern shift, especailly by day 9 or so. As I have said before, the MJO strongly supports a change.

You could have a point about December being cold. I found another very close match to this year...1914. The winter of 1914 - 15 did have a cold December also. 1914 is actually a great match. It had very dry weather here, wet in Cal, snowy in new York city, decent temperature match for us, a wet April, and an almost perfect match across the nation for temperatures last winter. Then you consider that 1993 had a serious Arctic outbreak in late Nov and 1978 having the late Dec cold spell...

One late twist to the weather this year is the fact that Montana and North Dakota just set some all time record lows for the month of May. That is quite interesting and indicates that some cold air is kicking around this season. If Montana and North Dakota start getting consistently cold, we will get our share too. Quite frankly the global patterns are so out of whack right now, it is going to be very hard to predict. We need to be prepared to be surprised!

[AnthonyC]

And the 'blah, blah' weather pattern continues...

Another mostly cloudy day, but mild. It's already 3pm so I assume the stratus will not clear. This seems to happen almost everyday...they say morning clouds/afternoon sun yet it stays cloudy, but mild, all day. I'm tired of this weather pattern.

The southern branch of the jet stream remains the most active which is unusual for this time of year...esp. since it's directed into California. This pattern should continue for at least another week. This weekend could be wet, esp. for the southwest interior, but Bellingham may stay dry. The continued message of "system going into southern Oregon, northern California and brushing Washington" continues...

I miss the sun and warmer temperatures...don't get me wrong, by no means is it cold. But it's not as enjoyable to have warm temperatures when it's not sunny.

Anthony

[andycottle]

When the NWS calls for morning clouds/afternoon sun, they are acounting for places that will see clouds most of the afternoon and places that will see sun in the forecast area. -- Andy

[andycottle]

Today has been mostly cloudy, though we did have a litte sun late this afternoon. So not exactly a partly cloudy day. -- Andy

[invisible]

We only got less than 2 mm of rainfall since the first day of May. The highest temperature was 72 F. The lowest was 45 F. It was amazing that south Washington got much more rainfall than north. Most areas in north get more rainfall than south ones for normal May

[invisible]

I believe that we will have a little ice age by 2030. It's something with our climate right now. We are on the downslope toward the bottom of the secular minimum. We had postive amplitude between 1952 and 1984. We should have less El nino in the short term furture. I believe that La nina will occur more often in the future.

We maybe will have a cold winter this year because the sunspot will be in minimum level. It happens every 11 years.

[TT-SEA]

This is a very interesting year. Although bland so far in Seattle.

The variability of the MJO is really a wild card. It looks like a very wet period could be upon us next week and beyond.

More interesting... the MEI expert mentioned the extreme SOI variability and compared it to 1953 and 1883. But in the spring of 1884... the SOI was also extremely variable and running parallel in timing to this year.

I think 2005 is a much better match to 1884 than to 1883. Southern California has just come off their wettest winter since 1883-84 (the wettest winter ever). There is no way we are equal to the spring of 1883. Southern California is not heading INTO their wettest winter... rather they are just coming OUT OF one of the wettest winters in history.

We are almost exactly in the same place as the spring of 1884.

This year the SOI went from positive in March to very negative in April. The same thing happened in March and April of 1884. This is a very unusual circumstance. Combined with all the other similarities... like a very snowy winter in New York and an amazingly wet winter in Southern California... I think we have found a very good match in 1884.

Combine that will the indications from 1978 and even 1953... and I am beginning to believe in the possibility of a very cold, snowy period during the coming winter. Maybe for two weeks at the end of December or early January.

I must give Snow_Wizzard credit for picking up on the unusual nature of this year so early.

That being said... there are additional signs that outside of this cold period... the rest of the upcoming winter may be warmer than average.

Something for everyone!!

[TT-SEA]

AND.... 1884 was near the end of a PDO 30-year warm phase.