Wetand News

There is now powerful observational evidence that outdoor air is extraordinary safe regarding COVID-19, and the recent protests have helped provide it.   The protests/riots began in Seattle and other cities on May 26th.  Thousands gathered without social distancing and a good 10% had no masks.  They participated in chanting, singing, screaming and other activities that ensured plenty of droplets were injected in the air, and that unhealthful environment was "enhanced" by coughing from tear gas and other agents. Did this huge exposure result in increased spread of COVID-19?  The answer is clearly no. Consider Washington's King County, a hotbed of protests starting 26 May (see below).  Both hospitalizations and deaths showed no  upward spike after the protests (the blue line shows May 26th).  We should have seen a signal by now, since the average time to symptoms is approximately five days. >earlier blog for documentation).    Some examples of scientific p

Every year there is a major air pollution spike on the fourth of July, with small particles (PM2.5) surging during the evening.  To illustrate, here are the concentrations of small particles (PM2.5, sizes less than 2.5 microns) for June 15 to July 15th for 2018 and 2019.  Huge upticks of pollutions for late July 4th and early July 5th.    2019 2018 These high levels of small particles are quite unhealthful, aggravating ailments such as asthma and heart disease. There are, of course, two sources of the such fireworks pollution:  large community displays and personal fireworks.   The former typically use large shells propelled by large mortars, injecting more particles higher into the atmosphere.  Personal fireworks are more numerous and widespread, but the densest concentrations of pollutants are near the surface. I have always wondered:  what are the relative contributions of the professional/community displays versus personal fireworks in terms of contributions to a

The radar imagery from the National Weather Service Langley Hill radar near Hoquiam showed heavy showers over the coastal waters last night.   To illustrate, here is the radar imagery over the Northwest for 1:14 AM this morning.   The reds indicate heavy precipitation!  Was it pouring offshore? A look at the infrared satellite image at the same time shows no weather disturbances out there (see below).  Just some clouds to the north (associated with system that will bring us rain on Saturday). A high resolution visible satellite image taken just before sunset on Thursday confirms the lack of weather offshore.   But note the low stratus and fog right along the coast....that will be important later! So is the expensive Langley Hill radar broken?     Is rain falling out of clear skies?   Is there an explanation for this mystery? There is an answer:    super bending of the Langley Hill radar beam by an unusually strong and low inversion, where temperature increases wi

During the past several years, a major source of wildfire smoke has been the forests in British Columbia. Just like Washington State, many of the forests have not been well-maintained, growing dense, unhealthy and prone to wildfires.  And smoke from such fires often makes its way into Washington State, as illustrated by July 18, 2017 MODIS satellite imagery: But the late spring this year has been generally cool, wet, and snowy in British Columbia (see headlines below) with the the effect of making fire danger quite low right now (see graphic fro British Columbia Wildfire Service).  Blue--very low danger--dominates the lower half of the province.  And it appears that the wet pattern in southern BC is not going to end soon. The latest ensemble forecast of accumulated precipitation (running the model many times and taking the average) from the European Center system (the best in the world) through July 9, shows wet conditions in southern BC and northeast Washington.

There are few things worse than doing something unethical or wrong and then allowing another person to take the blame for the transgression.   Even worse is when victim is portrayed as the offender and then attacked by the very folks that should be supporting the victim. This kind of unfortunate activity was done by President Trump and some of his staff in the Office of the President, aided by high level political appointees in the Department of Commerce. The victim?    Acting NOAA administrator Dr. Neil Jacobs. The scapegoat The transgression?  Sharpiegate This has all come to a head recently, with recent reports by the NOAA Integrity Officer and NAPA (the National Academy for Public Administration) and articles in both the NY Times and the Washington Post. A Brief Review of Sharpiegate The incident began with Trump's tweet on Sept. 1, 2019 in which he suggested that South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama would be hit much harder than

One of the most extraordinary and beautiful sights this time of year are the delicate noctilucent clouds that can appear after sunset and before sunrise. Take a look at a video made by Greg Johnson of Skunk Bay weather showing the celestial show yesterday morning: Noctilucent clouds are the highest visible clouds, located around 50 miles above the earth surface.  Such clouds form when moisture is deposited on dust in the upper atmosphere, generally from meteoritic dust.  Major volcanic ejections can also supply the small particles. These cloud form in the layer of the atmosphere called the mesophere, where the temperatures are the coldest in the atmosphere.  Specifically, we are talking about temperatures below approximately -185F.   Midsummer is favored because paradoxically that is when the mesosphere is coldest. NASA even has a satellite (AIM) dedicated to seeing these clouds, as illustrated by an example from June 13th below: The first report of noctilucent clouds

Many folks are interested in our mountain snowpack, from hikers and agricultural interests to those concerned about wildfires. Well, the latest snow water map from the USDA SNOTEL network is an eye opener and a study of contrasts (see below).  For the Olympics, we are now at 283% of normal, for the fire-prone Okanogan highlands of northeast Washington at 265%, and the Blue Mountains southeast of Walla Walla is around 190%.    The western side of the Cascades is very close to normal.  In contrast, east of the central to southern Cascades, snowpack is below normal, ranging from 58 to 35%. How can we have such huge variation over one state?  Is this believable? One has to be careful about interpreting such snow percentiles of normal.  On April 1st, the day water resource agencies like to use as a benchmark, the snowpack around the state was very close to normal.   But then we had a warm spell in April  and stronger than normal westerly winds that resulted in a faster-than-normal m

The first half of this month has been unusually wet over much of Washington State, with the exception being the lee (eastern) slopes of the Cascades, where strong downslope winds have provided drying (see below). Over the past month in Seattle, we have had about 3.1 inches, about double the normal amount.  My garden is quite wet from it all. Wildfire danger is quite low. The good news is that high pressure will build over the region, and according the European Center forecasts, the temperatures will zoom into the mid-70s on Friday...and conditions will be dry. But then we get to the curse part of the situation:  a front will move in on Saturday (see 3-h precipitation forecast ending at 11 AM Saturday), with some showers hanging around into Sunday. A powerful tool to check out the precipitation situation is to view the forecasts from the 51 member European Model ensemble (below).  The top panel shows the time when precipitation is predicted (shading) for each forecast

Sometimes clouds are just plain scary.  Dark, ominous and threatening. Just like it was on Saturday night around 7 PM from Seattle northward. I was at Magnuson Park in north Seattle just before 8 PM and a saw this line of low-hanging clouds and it was clearly raining....really hard...behind them. My dog started to pull at the leash.  She wanted to go home.  Now. Now I am a meteorologist and, of course, I have a weather radar app (Radarscope) on my smartphone.  I pulled it out, and I concluding my dog knew what she was talking/barking about.  Wow...there was a line of strong echos extended from Seattle to the northeast.  And my location (the blue circle) was right in front of it.  Time to run. Fast. The Seattle SpaceNeedle Pano cam showed the line approaching from a more southern vantage point, starting at 7:20 PM and ending around 8:20 PM.   Pretty scary. Torrential downpours, with small hail mixed in, accompanied the passage of this ominous cloud line, wi