Hi y’all! It’s been a while, and I apologize for the delay in posts. I had some technical difficulties installing an SSL and spent a lot of time trying to configure a CNAME (an alternate domain for the same destination) for a WeatherTogether subdomain. The good part, however, is that WeatherTogether is now in HTTPS, and our images are hosted on our domain instead of Amazon’s (we use them for media storage).
New URL: https://cdn.weathertogether.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Timor-Sea-1899×500.jpg
HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure and means that your connection with the site is encrypted, and the new URLs will be much better for SEO (search-engine optimization), meaning more of our images should show in searches. So we’ve made some nice progress on the site.
I often point to how the weather can turn on a dime from mild and dry October to a stormy and wet first week of November. Well, 2018’s switch was about a week early, but it was still pretty darn pronounced. After seeing no rain from the 10th to the 22nd, Seattle saw a combined 2.56 inches from the 25th through the 28th, bringing total rainfall for the month above normal.
North Portland got absolutely soaked in the afternoon by a storm on the 28th. It was a Sunday, and my friend was helping me move into a new apartment. We were feeling good after we rented a UHAUL barely fit all my stuff in, but then came this:
There were torrents of water all over the streets, vivid lighting, and even pea-sized hail at times. We pulled off the road to wait it out, and when the rain finally let up, the streets were completely swamped in water that was up to a foot deep in spots.
But after that burst of rain in late October and some active weather to begin November, we’ve had a pretty calm week thus far. Additionally, models are pretty adamant that we’ll be calmer than normal for at least the next week.
Current Conditions and Forecast
The current conditions on the ground now are “dark” and “chilly,” but let’s take a more worldly view. 🙂
We currently have a substantial ridge just offshore and an extremely deep trough centered over the Plains States. This ridge will move over us tomorrow and begin to flatten later Friday as a weak system swings through the area. It will then rebuild over the weekend, giving us another calm stretch with low clouds/fog in the morning burning off later in the day.
Though temperatures will be close to average here through the weekend, the majority of the country will see much-colder-than normal weather through at least the first half of next week due to this trough. On the other hand, Southern California will actually see a Santa Ana Thursday and Friday, bringing strong winds, well-above-average temperatures, and extreme fire danger to the region.
If you are hoping for an early start to ski season, you aren’t gonna get it. After a weak system comes through on Tuesday 11/13 or Wednesday 11/14, most models show ridging reforming over the area and persisting through the latter half of November.
Speaking of ski season, El Nino (a skier’s second-most feared physical phenomenon ahead of an avalanche but behind a Pineapple Express) has really strengthened over the past several weeks. Last month, SST anomalies in the Nino 3.4 region were +0.86°C, which is ahead of the 0.50° threshold for an El Nino. According to the CPC, we currently have an “El Nino Watch” with a 70-75% chance El Nino conditions developing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they upgraded that watch to an advisory in the next month.
Alright, I’m headed to bed. Thanks for reading y’all, I’ll get back to posting these more regularly.
Charlie