Wetand News

For a university to serve its community, produce new knowledge, and educate its students, the faculty cannot be afraid to speak freely. For a university to provide a place where knowledge and ideas are freely shared and debated, faculty must be shielded from outside political pressure, and diversity of viewpoint must be protected for both faculty and students. As I will describe below, there are serious threats to faculty diversity and freedom at the University of Washington.  Threats reminiscent of the loyalty oaths of the late 1940s and early 1950s.  Subtle and overt pressure against faculty holding the “wrong views”, with University faculty increasingly pushed towards a monoculture of political correctness. This is not simply a faculty issue.  It will influence which students are admitted to the UW and the type of education they receive. Should

 The mid-May wind event is now past its peak, but not before thousands of customers lost power. The water vapor satellite image at 4 AM this morning was impressive, with plumes of moisture circling into the clear "eye" of the storm.  Not your typical May satellite image! The maximum wind gusts ranged from around 50 mph on the coast and 50-55 mph over Northwest Washington to over 60 mph on the eastern slopes of the Cascades.   But if you really like winds, head to Mount Rainier, where gusts hit Camp Muir (at 10,000 ft), 52 mph at Sunrise Ranger station, and 66 mph at Crystal Mountain. Strong winds combined with leafed trees led to power outages around the region, with about 5000 City Light customers losing power and roughly 20,000 Puget Sound Energy users (see outage maps below) And now the exciting news, we FINALLY will have a truly decent weekend coming up.  In western Washington, highs reach the mid-60s on Saturday and around 70F on Sunday (see forecast map

This May we are experiencing winter-like levels of precipitation, winter-like increases in the snowpack, and record-breaking cool temperatures. The only thing missing is a winter-like Pacific storm, with deep low pressure and strong winds. Well, it won't be missing tomorrow:    a strong Pacific cyclone will make landfall on the British Columbia coast and gusty, damaging winds could batter the coast and Northwest Washington. Even Puget Sound country will get a piece of it. The low center will be making landfall on northern Vancouver Island at about 8 AM tomorrow (Wednesday), as shown by the predicted sea level pressure map at that time (see below). The solid lines are isobars, lines of constant pressure.  Where there are large gradients (large change in pressure), strong winds are expected.  Folks, there are a LOT of isobars there. Winds will be ferocious over the ocean, with gusts near the low center reaching 50-70 mph.   I hope no Alaska cruise ships will be traversing the region

 It is now clear that La Nina is not going away, and may hang around into next winter.    Cold water is entrenched over the central and eastern tropical Pacific (the definition of La Nina) and the latest forecast model runs suggest a continuation into fall. Several of you have asked:   what does this imply for our summer weather? Let me tell you.    But first, the bottom line:    the summer effects of La Nina are modest, but will push the western side of our region towards cooler than normal conditions. The Impacts During La Nina years, sea surface temperatures off the West coast are usually cooler than normal, and those cooling effects spread inland.   To illustrate, here is the sea surface temperate difference from normal for the summer months (May through September) for La Nina years.    Blue colors are cooler than normal. And if we average surface air temperatures for La Nina summers and subtract those temperatures from normal, we find that cooler than normal summer temperatures (e

You check the "temperature" on your smartphone or another device.    What does it really mean?   It turns out that temperature is not as simple as you might assume. Can the temperature at the ground be very different than reported on your device or on TV?  Yes, it can. Can the time of maximum temperature vary at various depths in the soil?  You bet. And knowing about the nature of surface temperature can save your life. All is explained in my podcast. My podcast also includes a review of the dismal week ahead. Here is the total precipitation forecast for the next week.   Up to FIVE INCHES in the mountains.   And lots in eastern Washington.  Potential for flooding on a few Washington rivers. Lots of snow above 4000 ft! (see below).  There will be good skiing at Whistler way into June. Several feet will fall in the mountains of British Columbia. And extraordinary cold is being forecast for the next ten days (see European Center forecast below).  Very unusual. The cold, wet stor

Meteorologists need the help of Big Tech to improve weather prediction and save lives. How? By collecting pressures from smartphones.   This blog asks for their assistance. There is no more useful weather observation than surface pressure.  With surface pressure alone, one can determine the three-dimensional structure of the atmosphere, sense the precursors of severe thunderstorms, and much much more. Many smartphones include excellent pressure sensors, mainly to help determine elevation.   With billions of smartphones with pressure sensors around the world, there exists the potential to greatly improve weather forecasts, particularly in third-world countries with sparse weather observations and for severe thunderstorms in the U.S. There are research groups, including my own, that have solved the technical issues of calibrating smartphone pressures using machine learning and making the observations anonymous. But there is a major problem:  collecting the pressures from smartphones.   

 One of the problems in being a meteorologist is that you suffer twice with bad weather:  once with the forecast and then again when you experience the ill weather. And the suffering is getting worse. Tomorrow will be the last dry day for a long time, and this May will end up with rainfall more appropriate for February. Let me show you the dismal story in 48-h chunks.   Wednesday will be mainly dry, but Thursday will be wet, with the 48-h precipitation total ending 5 AM Friday (below) showing a moderate atmospheric river coming in off the Pacific, with rain enhanced over the mountains. During the next 48-h the precipitation revs up over Oregon, with some locations receiving over 2 inches (see below) Over the next 7 days, the totals are...well..scary, with a number of mountain areas getting three to five inches.  A lot any time of the year, but unusual for May. Eastern Washington gets substantial rain, particularly in the "extreme drought" area from Yakima to Moses Lake. River