Weather, Climate, and Other Science Topics
When most Portlanders think of December, they think of Christmas trees, advent calendars, and cars with those big bows on them. Certainly not sunny skies, and much less 50+ degree temperatures to accompany them! But that’s exactly what we’ve seen to begin December. There was no measurable precipitation for the first 5 days of December […]
In my last blog post on 8/30, I warned of a “late-season heatwave with offshore flow” that would “dramatically increase fire danger for the Pacific Northwest.” But when I wrote that, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we’d see a wind/firestorm the intensity of the one witnessed earlier this month. I work […]
Saturday’s rain was refreshing, wasn’t it? Some spots saw far more rain than forecast as a weak upper-level low slowly drifted southeastward from the Olympic Peninsula through the Willamette Valley and into Central Oregon, while other spots saw hardly any rain at all. This was particularly true for the Puget Sound region, where a local […]
This post was co-produced with fellow WeatherTogether blogger Mark Ingalls of Kennewick, WA. From Wednesday, 2/5 – Saturday 2/8, the Blue Mountains of Southeast Washington and Northeast Oregon witnessed a historic, unprecedented period of heavy rain and flooding. Like almost all of out wintertime river flooding events, this event associated with an atmospheric river – […]
We finished January on a stormy note. I headed up to Whidbey Island last Friday night the 31st to visit my folks, and we lost power on my way up due to strong southerly winds from an atmospheric river that was aimed primarily at NW Washington and Vancouver Island. We are located at the very […]
Yesterday, my parents drove down all the way from Seattle to celebrate my 27th birthday with me in Portland. I knew that the Willamette was running high, so we decided to go visit Willamette Falls in Oregon City. In my opinion, Willamette Falls is one of the most under-appreciated natural phenomena in the world – […]
Meteorologically speaking, I can’t remember ever seeing a more boring November & first half of December in my life. I was looking through some climate stats, and the last time Portland saw at least a half inch of rain was on September 17, when 1.01 inches of liquid sunshine fell at the airport. The last […]
We will enter a much stormier pattern Wednesday that will persist through the weekend and possibly beyond, with moderate/strong systems affecting the area every 24-36 hours. Because these storms will be quick-moving and temperatures will be relatively cool, no flooding is expected and we will instead see significant early-season snowfall in the mountains. Not enough […]
Welcome to autumn everybody! The equinox occurred at 12:50 this morning, and our days will continue to get shorter and shorter until the winter solstice. Interestingly, the equinox has slightly more day than night for two reasons: first, the sun is a disc and not a point, and two: Earth’s atmosphere refracts light, making the […]
I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve absolutely loved our summertime weather. Granted, it’s been extremely boring and there hasn’t been much to write about, but I’ll take anything over the apocalyptic fires and smoke we saw the past two summers. And it doesn’t hurt that our “boring” summers are pretty much “perfect” by any […]
