Weather, Climate, and Other Science Topics
As I’ve mentioned in some of my previous posts, this has been an exceptionally stormy winter for much of California. While these storms have been crucial in eliminating California’s drought, they have also caused a variety of weather-related hazards in the Golden State. And no hazard has been bigger than the crisis on Northern California’s […]
The 2016-2017 winter has been an extraordinarily wet winter for California, but Washington and Northern Oregon have actually been drier than normal for most of the winter. But with Seattle on track to break their all-time reocrd for monthly rainfall in February and Portland not too far behind, one wonders what is responsible for the […]
I apologize for not posting as much as I would like recently! I’ve been very busy tweaking the site and preparing for WeatherTogether’s booth at WeatherFest, which is part of the American Meteorological Society’s (AMS) annual conference. As luck would have it, the AMS conference is in Seattle this winter, so it definitely made sense […]
A major pattern change is in store for us next week. After dealing with very cold temperatures and heaps of snow for those lucky folks in Portland, we will see temperatures in the 50s, snow levels above 7000 feet, and very heavy rain as an atmospheric river plows through the Pacific Northwest. There is still […]
Yesterday, some pretty strong storms rolled through areas of Western Washington, bringing vivid lightning, torrential downpours, and even funnel clouds to multiple locations throughout the state. With cool air aloft and high sun angles warming the air at the surface, the atmosphere quickly became very unstable, and vigorous thunderstorms quickly developed. In order to show […]
Thursday, January 21, 2016 5:45 p.m. It’s been pretty wet today. I could explain it with satellite imagery, models, maps, and all that jazz (and I will), but all you really needed to do was to go outside and look at the size of the puddles, both on the road and off it. There was […]
Tuesday, November 17, 2015 10:34 am Things are really ramping up now throughout Western Washington. The all-important PDX-BLI gradient, which was forecast to max out at 14-18 hPa, is already at 18 hPa, and continues to slowly rise. There is a chance that the gradient could reach 19 hPa at some point today. Regardless of […]
Monday, November 16, 2015 4:44 pm It’s looking more and more like a significant windstorm may be in the works. The models are not as bullish about this storm as they were yesterday morning, but they are still showing very strong winds with widespread power outages possible. Charge your devices tonight! Water Vapor Image Taken […]
Sunday, November 15, 2015 1:00 pm Wow, we have a lot to talk about. It’s been a very long time since the weather has been this exciting! Credit: WSDOT Flickr Page First off, the rain has died down around Western Washington and most rivers have receded below flood stage. The Snohomish River at Snohomish, The Skokomish […]
Friday, November 13, 2015 12:57 pm Credit: PRISM Group and Oregon Climate Service. Retrieved from Reddit (yup!) One of the most fascinating things about Pacific Northwest weather is how much our local terrain influences our climate. Just in the state of Washington, we have two mountain ranges that get gobs of snow, a massive ocean off our […]
