Pacific Northwest Weather

[snow_wizzard]

Where is everyone? Things are starting to look wild!

It is getting really dark here.

[weather girl]

12:51 in Salem. 64 degrees, 20mph winds and some pretty good thunder happening. Heavy rain looks like it should be here any minute.

[AnthonyC]

Another active day!! We've already seen heavy rain and small hail...and the wind is GUSTY today...coming from the south with gusts of 30 mph. This afternoon and tomorrow look about the same...I would pay close attention to Saturday night as a surface low bombs off the OR/WA coast...both the ETA and GFS keep the low far enough offshore to have little impact for the Puget Sound, but a slight deviation could make all the difference...to have a 990 mb surface low at the end of May is very impressive.

[W13]

Nice pix as always Andy!

W13...how large was the hail you saw...dime sized, nickel sized or what?

I would say it was around dime-sized, maybe even a tad bigger. It came down pretty hard too. I go to school probably just a few miles away from where you live in Covington (Kentwood High School).

As for today, we had a pretty good rain squal move through the area around 12:30 PM, but that has been it so far in terms of precipitation.

As I type this, I can hear thunder in the distance. There is a red echo on the NWS radar - this could get interesting!

[snow_wizzard]

I hope to tell you guys, we just got CLOBBERED here! Bending trees, thunder, hail, and torrential rains. The temp has also fallen about 10 degrees in just minutes. Unquestionably one of the worst storms I have ever seen here!

The rain was falling in sheets and the poor kids just got of the school bus a ways down the road. What a show!

[W13]

WOW! Now that was truly awesome! Heavy rain, booming thunder, nickle-sized hail, and breezy winds. I got a ton of pictures from yesterday and today which I am uploading as I type this.

And now as I type this again, it is starting back up again.

[snow_wizzard]

We got a quarter inch of rain in 10 - 15 minutes. That is mid west type stuff! I got to clearly see a nice bolt of lightning. Now this is weather!

It is spooky how much this year is like 1993, at least on a local level. It had some eerily similar stuff.

[W13]

I saw some lightning to snow_wizzard. We dropped 12 degrees in about 10 minutes - now that is pretty amazing for where we live (this isn't no Rapid City, SD with Chinook Winds, though!).

We got 0.18" of rain + a nice coating of hail in around the same time period.

Pretty awesome stuff!

[snow_wizzard]

The beat rolls on! The very wet spring just keeps getting wetter, and the analogs continue to be pre 1975. Out of the 10 analogs from the GFS and Canadian ensembles today 7 were from the 1950s! This has got to mean something, becuase it has been like this for weeks, months in fact. It remains to be seen if we will indeed soon realize the below normal temps that these patterns should bring. We may soon know if TT might be right, that it is just plain harder for it to get cold here now.

My theory is that the surface temps are simply taking a while to adjust to the different upper level patterns that have kicked in since early last year. It is also possible that it is just fine details in the surface pressure that are keeping it warmer. I do at least admit that TT could be right. Time will tell!

[andycottle]

WOW! Now that was truly awesome! Heavy rain, booming thunder, nickle-sized hail, and breezy winds. I got a ton of pictures from yesterday and today which I am uploading as I type this.

And now as I type this again, it is starting back up again.

W13...! You should absolutely become weather spotter! You said that you had nickel sized hail.. which that alone, warrents a spotter call to the NWS. -- Andy

[andycottle]

I had some pretty good down pours of rain here in my area of Woodinville. And the rain really came down! Also had a good little thunder storm early this afternoon that included moderate rain and gusty winds to probably around 30mph. Rest of the day....it`s been periods of rain squalls and partly sunny periods. What an active day! I`m off tomorrow, so will be here to see the storms fire up again. Late this aftenoon...around 4:30pm, I got soaked in a moderate to heavy rain band while coming home from Molbaks. And by time I got close to home....which was 15, 20min later...the rain had just about came to a complete end.

And now, were currently under a rain shower with a temp of 53 degrees at 5:23pm.
-- Andy

[R-Dub]

I have never seen rain drops so big as I just saw in the last 20 min!! Looked like snow, but it was all liquid. I have never seen seen water raging down my driveway like that before, it was incredible.

I wrote this last night, and I had a feeling something was different about this cell, I was shocked when I was watching the news tonight and they were reporting from Lake Ki which is only a half mile from my house, a weak tornado touched down and collapsed a carport, downed a tree, then went across the lake picking up a boat out of the water about a foot or two, then hit land on the other side and damaged another house. I pass this house everyday, and I was thinking is was very odd that this place looked like it was hit by a big windstorm, there were big fur branches down all over there yard, and there ornamental wooden garden structures were destroyed and all over the yard. And yet no other place looked like it was touched, and I thought to myself before I knew I wondered if some sort of a tornado or downdraft had hit them. On the news Ted Buhner (SP?) from NWS was here, and confirmed that the tornado had touched down.
Its funny, when that cell was hitting my area my dogs were acting very funny in which they never usually do, even with the increadible thunder we had today didn't even phase them. I think they senced that tornado!!

Also today at around 4:20PM we had a very intense cell move over head, and I witnessed two simutainious lightning bolts hit the water infront of my house at LK Goodwin!!! The thunder was instant, and windows shook really bad.

What a couple of days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Currently Partly Cloudy and breezy.

[R-Dub]

And here it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
630 PM PDT THU MAY 19 2005

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..

0750 PM TORNADO 5 W ARLINGTON 48.18N 122.25W
05/18/2005 F1 SNOHOMISH WA NWS STORM SURVEY

TORNADO WITH A WIDTH OF 10 YARDS TOUCHED DOWN MIDDLE OF
LAKE KI FOR 1/4 MILE, THEN PROCEEDED ON GROUND FOR 30
FEET AND LASTED ABOUT 15 SECONDS. SNAPPED CEDAR TREE
ABOUT 6 FEET OFF OF THE GROUND, WHICH COLLAPSED CAR PORT,
AND CAUSED ROOF DAMAGE OF ANOTHER HOUSE. OTHER MINOR
DAMAGE REPORTED WITH DEBRIS IN PROXIMITY OF THE HOUSES.
NO FATALITIES OR INJURIES REPORTED.

[TT-SEA]

R-Dub... what is your total rainfall for the month at this point??

[R-Dub]

Here you go TT............

5/19/05 LK Goodwin WA
6:42:09 PM CURRENT MIN/MAX
Temperature (ºF) 54.0 49.7 / 61.4
Partly Cloudy
Humidity (%) 83.9
Wind (mph) SSE 2.6
Daily Rain (") 0.12
Pressure ("Hg) 29.98
Monthly Rain: 1.95 "
Dew Point:49.3 ºF

[andycottle]

Wow! Sounds like eciting weather...! -- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

TT...I think we can now say that our are is getting some exciting weather! I'll bet those peole are in a state of shock that a tornado hit their house! This is a great pattern, because everyone gets a chance to get in on the action...

[R-Dub]

I'll bet those peole are in a state of shock that a tornado hit their house!

They said on the news that they will never forget the roar from the F-1 Tornado!

[TT-SEA]

Yes... this is fun weather.

I like the mix of sun and storms.

Small tornadoes happen every though... and that was a VERY small tornado.

I also like our daily dose of rain to keep the landscape lush green.

[TT-SEA]

R-Dub... I am sure almost 2 inches of rain in the last 10 days is much better than the mere .10 you had in the previous six weeks.