Weather, Climate, and Other Science Topics
FINALLY! After 56 days of no measurable precipitation for Seattle and 57 for Portland, both streaks will end tonight as a relatively strong front moves through the area. The front is associated with an upper-level trough/associated ~995 hPa surface low currently centered near Haida Gwaii. The water vapor imagery below looks more reminiscent of a […]
I was in 8th grade when I first learned about the Great American Eclipse. Mr. Pearsall, the science teacher at Washington Middle School, gave us a handout on the eclipse and told us not to miss it. 11 years later, I live 25 miles from the path of totality, and I wouldn’t miss this eclipse […]
It’s not much, and not everybody will get wet. But for the first time nearly two months, rain is in the forecast for parts of the Pacific Northwest! The summer of 2017 has been extraordinarily dry for the Pacific Northwest. Following a soaker on June 15 that dropped 0.42 inches at Portland and 1.05 inches at […]
Everything seemed right for record high temperatures at Portland. We had offshore winds to prevent any cooling from the Pacific Ocean and a massive ridge overhead with insanely warm temperatures aloft. But with extreme heat comes extreme fire danger, and fires have erupted over the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia over the past few days. […]
This past Sunday, I headed up to Hidden Valley Camp, an old-school summer camp in the Cascade foothills of Snohomish County, WA for “Visitor’s Day,” a day where families of campers and other visitors can visit the camp and interact with campers and staff. I’m a longtime former HVC camper, camper-leader, and staff member (baker […]
It’s been a boring past few weeks for Pacific Northwest weather bloggers. Portland, Seattle, and many other places around the Pacific Northwest have now gone a month without any measurable precipitation. For much of the past month, a large ridge of high pressure has been plopped right over us, shunting the storm track to the […]
FINALLY, after several days of coding and several months of troubleshooting, WeatherTogether has its own model charts! Before I go any further, I have to thank Quinn Abrahams-Vaughn for writing some html and javascript pages to get me started with model visualization and Derek Hodges for his guidance on shell scripting and crontabs to automatically […]
The first major heat wave of the year is living up to the hype! Portland and Salem hit 98 and 101 respectively yesterday, and today, they simply switched highs. According to Mike Newman (a fellow weather buff from the Portland area), today’s high of 101 at the Portland Int’l Airport was just 1 degree below […]
By now, I’m sure most of you have heard about the record heat in California and the Desert Southwest. On Sunday, San Francisco obliterated its previous heat record of 86 degrees with an unbelievable 97-degree high, and yesterday, Palm Springs reached an egg-frying 122 degrees! Phoenix even had to cancel nearly 50 flights yesterday due […]
Sorry for the post hiatus folks! I just got back from a week-long trip with my folks to Cabo San Lucas and had a great time fishing, beach-combing, dancing, and eating all sorts of delicious food over there. We’ve had a pleasant start to June, and the past two days have been simply exceptional! Yesterday, […]
