A Cold Start for the Summer Season

OK....we need a new name.

Julanuary?

Julember?

Whatever the name, the last week has been mainly cloudy and well below normal in our area.

According the maximum temperature anomaly map (difference from normal ) for Washington for the first seven days of July, the high temperatures in most of western Washington have been 6-12F below normal.    Even eastern WA has been generally cool.


At SeaTac Airport, not a single day had the high temperature reached the normal values (low to mid-70s)--see below.

Sunshine?     Much less than normal!  To illustrate, here is the solar radiation observed at the WSU AgWeather site in Seattle. We should be hitting a peak of about 950 this time of the year, but many days have been warmed by half or less (like yesterday and June 27th).   Just depressing.


Normally, our region dries out rapidly after July 4th, with lots of sun each day.  Not this year.  Tomorrow?  Don't get your hopes up.  Another wet weather system is now approaching and the latest forecast of 24-h precipitation ending 5 PM tomorrow (Thursday) has a good wetting from the WA coast, NW Washington, and southern BC.  Not many wildfires this year so far.


And do I dare show you the National Weather Service OFFICIAL 6-10 day temperature forecast?
Are you strong? Here it is...blue (cooler than normal) over our part of the U.S.


Can we depend on the BLOB, that area of warm water off our coast to provide a warm solace?  Unfortunately not....the temperatures are near normal off our coast, with some areas even below normal.


What is the cause of this cool, cloudy affliction?   We have been stuck in a pattern with higher than normal pressure offshore, but lower than normal pressure over the Northwest, resulting in enhanced onshore flow of cool, cloudy marine air.   The pressure anomaly for June 25-July 1 below illustrates the problem (purple is below normal pressure, red is above normal).


I notice that there is a movie about our situation (see below).  With a guy with a gun, this does not sound like it is a flick with a happy ending.


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