Wetand News

As predicted, the second.....and probably more potent...line of thunderstorms is now moving northward near the Oregon/WA border. The latest visible satellite image (4:26 PM) shows several major, strong convective systems entering Washington State.  The one on the right has good radar coverage from the Pendleton, Oregon NWS radar, but the western one is in the well-known radar hole over the eastern slopes of the Cascades. The radar image at the same time (below), shows intense radar returns with the eastern storms (red colors), but the western systems have poor coverage so we don't know how strong they are.  Since they are heading for the Cascades and western WA, this is not good. Over the past half hour, lightning sensors have shown massive lightning in these storms (see below, each strike is shown by an "X") There are some strikingly strong winds with this line of thunderstorms, with some gusts reaching 60-70 mph! (see the max gusts over the past hour b

I will do an update at 5 PM...right before the big action hits.... _______________________________ Things are really revving up now. The latest radar image (7:45 AM) shows a region of thunderstorms approaching Puget Sound and another storm over eastern Washington.  It is starting to thunder outside. In fact, the latest WWLLN lightning network flash map shows LOTs of lightning south of Seattle and over the Columbia Basin. And the latest visible satellite image is impressive with strong thunderstorms/convection on BOTH sides of the Cascades.  The latest wave vapor satellite image is amazing.  In front of a deep low (red arrow) over southern CA a band of moisture and warmth is heading directly towards our region (blue arrow).  The fuel truck is here.   And uplift in front of the approaching disturbance is setting off the storms. The NOAA Storm Prediction Center outlook has increased the threat of severe convection over our region to "enhanced."  This

Portions of Washington State, particularly from the Cascade crest eastward, may see some very strong thunderstorms starting tomorrow morning and extending into the evening.    Storms that may bring heavy rain, hail, lots of lightning, very strong winds and even the chance of a tornado-packing supercell thunderstorm. And western Washington may get some heavy rain and perhaps some thunder. The NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma has an unusual severe storm outlook for Saturday, with the greatest threat in central Washington and Oregon. You don't see that very often! Key ingredients will be in place on Saturday in our region: very unstable air and an approaching upper level disturbance that will provide upward motion that will initiate the convection (thunderstorms). To put it another way: we will have both the fuel (unstable air) and the match (the approaching disturbance).   And we will also have strong wind shear (wind change with height), which is impor

The new GOES weather satellite produces stunning images and today's pictures are particularly noteworthy.  Here is an image at 1:26 PM today (Wednesday), showing off the full-color capabilities of the satellite. The still considerable snow over the higher elevations of the Cascades really stands out, as does the glaciers/snow on the volcanic peaks and the Olympics.  Stunning. And look closely at the image around Portland and northern Oregon.   A whole collection of jet contrails are apparent (see blow up below).  If we were in normal times, there would be a lot more of them. Another thing that is striking is the huge amount of farmland in eastern Washington and northern Oregon, with much of it irrigated. Immense acreage.  And the irrigated areas actually cool the atmosphere because of all the water that is evaporated from the moist surfaces. And finally, one can view the large amount of brown sediment around the Fraser River delta near Vancouver, Canada.

Washington State is in trouble. Testing of coronavirus has stagnated and our current testing is being done in an uninformative, unscientific, reactive way. We need not only to increase our COVID-19 testing, but importantly to begin random sampling of our population .  Embarrassingly, such science-based, rational testing is exactly what Oregon is about to start. As stated by Oregon governor Kate Brown: “This program is a game changer,” Brown said. “It will give us a more accurate understanding of the true rate of infections in Oregon and to have ongoing precision monitoring of any new outbreaks.” Oregon is not alone.  Other states, such as Ohio and Indiana, are also doing randomized testing to understand the true state of the infection.  But not Washington. Random sampling is the scientific way to deal with the COVID-19 crisis Today, Washington State is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in ignorance.  We are only testing those that have symptoms and ask for

Announcement:  I will be doing a short weather forecast followed by live answers to your questions on Tuesday and Friday at noon using Facebook Live.   This is an experiment to try to bring local weather lovers into a conversation, and I thought it would be good to provide some human interaction in this COVID days.  The session will be on my facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/realcliffmass/ ). _______________________________________ Streamflow....the amount of water moving down our rivers and streams.... is important for many reasons, ranging from water resources and flooding  to the viability of resident or returning fish populations.  So it is useful to check on the current situation and projections for the rest of the summer. The streamflow today (see below) looks reasonably good.  Most streamflow sites are observing near normal conditions (green colors), with some locations (NE Washington, SE Washington) above normal (blue colors).    Only a few site in the south Sound

Twice today I was asked about the difference between partly cloudy and partly sunny.    And that inquiry is one of the most frequent I get, for reasons I do not understand. OK...let's settle this for once and for all. Here is an image of a partly cloudy sky: And here is an image of a partly sunny sky: T hey are the same. .... during the day, partly cloudy and partly sunny denote exactly the same thing :  a sky with between 3/8 and 5/8 coverage of clouds.   Obviously, partly cloudy would be a better choice at night. Mostly cloudy  is 5/8 to 7/8 coverage, while mostly sunny indicates 1/8 to 3/8 coverage during the day. Now, a harder one.   What does it mean to have a sky obscured?   Is it the same as an overcast sky? The answer to the second question is NO--they are not the same. The sky is obscured when you can not see the sky, when you are in middle of cloud or smoke or dust storm.  Here are two examples of an obscured sky, one from smoke and the other from lo

With all the scary news these days, you need to be prepared for one more unwelcome announcement:  the BLOB is back and its impacts are already apparent. Perhaps, you already know about our red menace, a large area of warmer than normal sea surface temperatures over the northeastern Pacific.  You can see the strengthening and extension of the BLOB in a series of temperature maps over the eastern Pacific, with the shading showing the differences of the sea surface temperatures from normal (yellow to red are above normal in degrees C). During the last week in March, there was warmer than normal temperatures offshore, but near normal just off of the entire West Coast. By late April, the warm blob had strengthened considerably, with an extension reaching the California/Oregon coast. And last week, the warmth really surged up and down the West Coast, including off the Washington Coast, which was roughly 1-1.5C (2-3F) above normal From past experience, we have learn