Colder Weather Arrives Friday, First Mountain Snows, and Critical California Wildfire Danger

The Pacific Northwest isn’t known for its rapidly changing seasons. We don’t exactly plunge into winter like the Northern Plains, and our slow trudge towards summer out of the depths of January is even slower. June is the hottest month of the year for the Desert SW, but many years, while Death Valley is sweltering […]

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Mountain Waves, Jet Streams, and a Puget Sound Convergence Zone

More satellite eye-candy today! Take a look below (note – if you are receiving this post via email, you may have to go to the actual post to see the loop). One thing that immediately stands out is the powerful jet stream centered over NW Oregon/SW Washington. Note how much faster the high-elevation clouds in […]

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Snow For Parts of Western WA Tonight, Portland Snow Tuesday Morning?

Featured image credit: Brie Hawkins When Boston hit 70 degrees yesterday, I assumed it was the warmest weather I’d ever witness in New England in January. Well, Boston hit 74 today. 74 is the average high for June 5th and the highest all-time January temperature since records began back in 1872, so this is an […]

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Western WA Snow Sunday Night/Monday

I’m currently in Boston for the 100th annual American Meteorological Society conference, and let me tell ya; snow was the very last thing on my mind today. We hit an astonishing 70o  degrees today, absolutely smashing the previous daily record of 62. This was only the third time since 1872 that Boston hit 70 in January. But […]

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Reviewing the 2019 January 5/6 “Epiphany” Windstorm

Toppled Tree

The strongest storm thus far of the 2018-2019 storm season brought a brief but intense blow to many areas last night, with many locations in the Willamette Valley and Puget Sound experiencing 50 mph gusts and a few locations even hitting 60! I’ve heard that some folks are calling this storm the “Epiphany Storm” since […]

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A Mini Heat Wave for Tuesday + Model Shenanigans in the Far Extended

What a refreshing weekend! With a high of only 68 degrees, Sunday was Portland’s first sub-70 degree day since we hit 69 degrees on June 14.  Our chill was brought to us via a deep upper-level trough arriving from the NW, and though we warmed up to 79 today as this trough passed east, Glacier […]

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Snow in Seattle Metro This Morning

A Snowy Road near Bear Creek

Folks in the Seattle metro were treated to some snow this morning as a convergence zone formed over the area! This zone was hinted at by last night’s high-resolution UW WRF-GFS, but the timing was off – the WRF-GFS had the zone occurring slightly later and further to the NE than the zone actually was. […]

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New Year’s Snow Review

As expected, the weak low that passed through from the NNW through Southwestern Washington last night brought scattered snow showers to parts of the area, with the highest amounts being in the Central Sound area between Seattle and Tacoma where a weak but very persistent convergence zone formed. There was an incredible gradient in snow […]

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Spotty New Year’s Snow, Bigger Event Late Next Week?

New model runs are coming in as we speak, and they show a similar scenario for late New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day. Next week still looks like the coldest in several years, and there is low confidence in a moderate-to-major snowstorm on Friday, with model solutions agreeing on bringing a system into the area while […]

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Yet Another Pattern Change Update

I must admit, it’s a little difficult coming up with varying titles for your blogs when you are simply blogging about the same thing. It’s not as difficult as forecasting snow in Seattle, but it’s definitely up there. Models are still adamant with a major pattern change beginning Saturday evening as a deep upper-level-low drops […]

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