Storm!

Monday, October 10, 2011
9:34 A.M.

Don’t you just love these National Weather Service graphics? It’s hard to find one single graphic that has so many explanations and a model picture, but the NWS issues them when there is some sort of significant weather occurring. Pretty awesome!!!

Over the next few days, we will get a fair amount of rain. The graphic above shows the Seattle metropolitan area getting anywhere from around .75 to 1.25 inches of rain from 5 A.M. PDT Monday to 5 A.M. PDT Wednesday. As is generally the case, higher amounts will be found to the south, as there is less rain shadowing from the Olympics there.

This particular system differs from other weather systems that impact us in the autumn and winter because it will give us several periods of rain instead of one long period of rain before the front passes through. Right now, we have a pretty weak front passing through, with most of the rain heading south toward Cape Mendocino. However, the strong jet stream and unstable air behind the front will support the development of numerous small troughs, which will keep the rain going around our area until early Wednesday morning.

Take a look at the current satellite and radar imagery for our area. They don’t look too impressive over Washington. The satellite pic was taken at 7 A.M. PDT, and the radar image was taken 2 hours later. I obtained both of these pictures from the NWS’ graphical forecast discussion.

However, the GFS models from this morning show a strong jet stream, currently over southern Oregon, lifting northward into our area. Both of the models below are also from the NWS graphical forecast discussion.