Wetand News

Whether you are a climate activist, a governmental official, or a citizen hoping to be well-informed on climate issues, getting accurate and reliable climate information is important. Unfortunately, the Seattle Times continues to provide unfactual information, with screaming headlines and stories that can easily be shown to be incorrect. This disappointing behavior by Seattle's only newspaper was obvious on Tuesday (see below). A blaring, big-type headline heralded that " DATA CONFIRMS THAT WARMING IS WORSENING FLOODS, DROUGHT ". And in the subtitle, they double down:  " WHAT HAD BEEN AN EXPECTED CONNECTION IS BACKED UP BY A NEW STUDY " As I will demonstrate below, these claims are unfounded.  The study does not confirm anything.   And the "expected connection" subheadline is very revealing of the editorial approach of the Seattle Times. The article The article, like so many stories in our local newspaper, was a reprint of a Washington Post article (b

 Question On Friday afternoon at 4 PM, where would be the better place to put on your sunglasses and go outside for a warm St. Patrick's Day stroll? Seattle or Los Angeles? The surprising answer:  SEATTLE! To illustrate the stunning situation, here is the latest European Center surface air temperature forecast at that time.    59F in Seattle and even higher over Chehalis and Portland. In contrast, about 55-56F in LA on Friday afternoon. A stroll is enhanced by dry weather.  The total precipitation forecast through Saturday at 5 PM, shown below, indicates that Seattle will be dry, with light precipitation in the mountains.   In contrast, during the same period, Los Angeles will be inundated by heavy precipitation, with 1-2 inches through Saturday afternoon from San Diego through Santa Barbara. Let's take a closer look at the upcoming warmth, with Friday being the warmest day.  Here is the predicted surface air temperature at 4 PM Friday,  the warmest hour of that day. Western Wa

There is been a lot of talk about the huge amount of snow and rain hitting California, where the drought of the previous few years is now clearly over. But with the bulk of precipitation heading south of the Northwest during the past month or so, where does that leave the Pacific Northwest?    How is our snowpack doing?  Are our reservoirs filling?  Are we in water trouble? It is time to check this out, particularly as we are moving into the drier Northwest spring. The bottom line:  Washington State water storage is modestly below normal, with no serious water issues expected. First, the snowpack.    Oregon snowpack is well above normal and Washington State snowpack is generally near normal, although a bit below normal for the Yakima Basin and the North Cascades. Precipitation  With the "meteorological hose" heading in California (and after the uber-dry period during fall), the Northwest has been drier than normal.   To illustrate this, below is the percent of normal precipit

The Pacific Northwest Weather Workshop is the region's premium weather gathering, and it is back as an in-person meeting on May 12-13th at NOAA's Sand Point facility in Seattle.  This will be a hybrid meeting, so those of you who wish to attend remotely can do that as well. At this workshop, we discuss the latest advances and studies regarding Northwest meteorology and climate (including British Columbia) and review the major weather events of the past year. The upcoming meeting will include talks on advances in regional weather prediction technology, the Portland snow bust, the December ice storm, wildfire meteorology, the autumn smoke event, new initiatives in media weather, regional climate change, and much more. We will also have a banquet at Ivar's Salmon House (in Seattle) on Friday evening, with an engaging speaker. If you are interested in attending, you can get more information and register at the meeting website: https://a.atmos.washington.edu/pnww/ And those inte

As I have noted on several occasions, Oregon has some of the worst weather radar coverage in the nation, with a huge radar gap off its central and southern coast and another in eastern Oregon Important weather features approaching the coast can be missed, reducing the skill of short-term forecasts from western Oregon into western Washington.   Perhaps including the missed Portland snowstorm of February 22. Below is a National Weather Service radar coverage map,  with yellow indicating the regions of low-level coverage (coverage below 3000 ft above ground level).  The coverage would be much worse near sea level.  Western Washington and the Washington coast have good coverage thanks to the Langley Hill radar (Hoquiam), the Camano Island radar north of Seattle, and the Portland radar.   But most of the Oregon Coast has no coverage.   The Portland radar is blocked by the coastal mountains at low levels and the Medford radar is poorly placed, positioned so high (7500 ft) that the radar beam

  My new podcast (see information below) not only talks about the current weather situation but answers a question many of you are asking: Has Global Warming/Climate Change contributed to increased numbers and intensity of cold waves...and particularly cold waves over the western U.S.? The answer is definitively no, something noted by statistics provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a number of peer-reviewed articles (see EPA graphic below). Graphic courtesy of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency And then there is the current chilly situation.   Unbelievably, forecast models show two situations with the potential for light lowland snow (with little accumulation). The accumulated SNOWFALL through 10 AM Thursday is shown below.  Nothing major, but southwest Washington and northeast Oregon may get some flakes. Light snow over the eastern slopes of the WA Cascades. A more vigorous system moves through Friday morning, with eastern Washington getting much more a

 The western U.S. is experiencing one of the coldest end-of-winter periods in the historical record, with too many cold records to list. To illustrate, let me "warm up" by considering the departure from normal of the average maximum temperatures across the region (below).    Unbelievable-- in some parts of the region highs have been down by OVER 15F from normal. Consider the long-term trend of the average high temperature at Los Angeles for the same period (2/20-3/5) You will not believe it (below).  The last two weeks were the coldest for the entire record, going back to the mid-1930s.   LA residents are probably staying in their hot tubs. For San Francisco, the past two weeks have had the coolest maximum temperatures since the latest 1960s. Portland?   The latest two weeks tied for the second coldest for the entire record. During the past few weeks, a large number of major low-temperature records were broken in the West.  Not only were a huge number of daily records broken