Wetand News

 My podcast talk starts with an exceptional forecast for this time of the year:  this weekend will be dry and sunny, and I expect the weather on Thanksgiving Day to be excellent. Turkeys will see their shadow on Thanksgiving! But a turn to cloudy, wet conditions looms after that... And then I discuss the meteorology of the Columbia Basin, describing the cold, cloudy weather that fills this topographic "bowl" during the winter season. To illustrate, take a look at the visible satellite image from Wednesday. Anyway, to learn more about the forecast and some of the fascinating aspects of the Columbia Basin winter weather, check out my podcast (see below). To listen to my podcast, use the link below or access it through your favorite podcast service. Some major podcast servers:     Like the podcast? Support on Patreon 

Powerful winds have pushed through and downstream of regional gaps in the Cascades and other regional mountain barriers. Consider the maximum gusts observed this morning (see below).   There are three swaths of wind exceeding 40 mph (yellow colors).  One extends southwest of Bellingham and heads over the San Juan islands and then westward out the Strait. The other extends westward north of Mount Rainer and out to Tacoma.  And another extends from the western Columbia Rivr Gorge and then over Portland and the northern Willamette Valley. There are a few odd strong winds over some exposed ridges, like one near the Tri-Cities. So what is going on here? We start with a very large difference in pressure across the Cascades.  Sea level pressure (solid lines) and near-surface temperatures (color shading, blue and purple indicated cold air) for 4 AM this morning are shown.   There is a very large pressure difference (gradient) across the Cascades with higher pressure to the east.   Cold air is

A number of locations around the Northwest are experiencing poor air quality.....with some locations rivaling the particle concentrations experienced during the recent wildfire events. But it isn't wildfires this time.    It is woodsmoke plus a SuperInversion.   Puget Sound Clean Air Agency has a Stage 1 Burn Ban in place. Let's start by looking at the air quality information from the PurpleAir network (below) this morning.  Green is good air quality, yellow is declining, orange is of concern, and red/purple is unhealthy. Mediocre air quality in the south Sound, but seriously degrading air quality around Spokane, northeast WA, and around Bend Oregon. The origin of the smoke is clear : mainly smoke from burning wood for warmth.  Parenthetically, a highly renewable energy source.   Traditionally, the main air quality problem in the Northwest has been from wood smoke, not summer wildfires.  But woodsmoke has declined as an issue as more folks use natural gas fireplaces/heaters and

The weather gods are being extra kind to us this year, providing a usually dry period during the climatologically wettest time of the year. To illustrate, here is the climatological probability of receiving a hundredth of an inch or more in Seattle over the year.  The climatological probability of rain each day is over 60% from November 7 through mid-December.  This is typically the wettest time of the year! The forecast for this week?    Absolutely dry with plenty of sun.   Take a look at the forecast precipitation total through Saturday at 4 PM.  No rain over the Northwest and California. The reason for these dry conditions?    The big West Coast ridge is back, as shown by an upper-level map (500 hPa, about 18,000 ft) on Tuesday around 4 PM.   The solid lines are heights, but you can think of them as the pressure at around 18,000 ft.  To get a better view of the upper-level situation, the following map is at the same level, with the shading showing the anomalies from climatology (nor

There is an apparent contradiction regarding wildfires and climate in the western U.S. that few have talked about.   Wildfire acreage has been low even though the summer has been warm and dry for most of the region. This year was one of the most benign wildfire years in a long time for the entire West Coast.  Plotting the wildfire acreage over California since 1987 (see below) shows that the 2022 acreage burned has been quite low, similar to the situation 30 years ago. And the same has been true for Washington State (below, from 2002 to now).  The wildfire acreage this year was very modest...similar to 20 years ago. The interesting thing is that this low-fire area situation occurred even though the west coast states have been warmer and drier than normal.     Consider the difference of this summer's (June 1-October 15) temperature from normal (1990-2010 mean)--see below.    Warmer than normal for the entire coast!  You would expect more fires--right? What about precipitation and d

Temperature contrasts in our region can sometimes get very large and this week we had some dramatic examples. We are talking about as much as 50F in variation across the region during the morning Consider the minimum temperatures on Wednesday morning.   A buoy off the coast measured 46F and the temperature dropped to 44 F in the Strait of Juan De Fuca.  In contrast, over NE Washington the lows fell into the single digits and plummeted to -2F in the Methow Valley near Twisp. Here is a close-up view of the temperatures around the Methow Valley Wednesday morning--very low temps near the Methow Riber, but 10-20 F warmer on the ridges overhead. On Thursday morning it was even colder in the Methow Valley, dropping to -5F, while temperatures were about the same along the WA coast. How can we have such crazy contrasts over the region? The first is the proximity to the relatively warm Pacific Ocean.  As shown below, temperatures right off our coast are 12 C (54F) and warmer.  Thus, if there are

Cold air and gusty winds have surged southward into Washington State, with light snow over Northwest and Northeast Washington last night. Snow was observed at Sequim Valley Airport northeast of the Olympics. The snowfall totals, available from the cooperative CoCorahs network, showed about a 1/2 inch over the portions of the San Juans and 1-5 inches from Port Angeles to Sequim.  There were some flurries over Seattle last night. The cold winds are howling out of the Fraser River valley this morning, with winds at Bellingham gusting to 35 mph (see below, black numbers are temperature, red are gust speeds).   This current of cold, dry air is splitting around the Olympics and producing gusty northerly winds over Puget Sound and powerful easterly winds in the Strait. As the Fraser River outflow is forced upwards by the Olympics a band of precipitation (snow) is apparent on the radar (see example around 7 AM this morning) And let's not forget eastern WA, with cold, northerly winds, gusti