Tuesday, October 25, 2011 2:52 P.M. October is the foggiest time of year for the Puget Sound region, and we talked about fog today in my Atmospheric Sciences 101 class with Cliff Mass. I am still amazed by how many specific types of fog there are. We talked about radiation fog, advection fog, upslope fog, […]
Long Term Cold Snap?
Monday, October 24, 2011 11:46 P.M. The graphic above shows the temperatures and precipitation predicted each day out to 16 days in the future by the GFS (Global Forecast System) model. I recently installed several programs from http://www.brianschmit.com/ and this was one of them. I’ve talked to Brian and he has given me permission to […]
Another La Nina Update
Thursday, October 20, 2011 12:38 P.M. Normally, I would not update the La Nina situation, but I saw something startling today. I was looking over this “Pacific Northwest Weather” group on facebook (btw, you should join it!) and somebody posted this graphic. I looked into it and discovered that the model above is the latest […]
Change is in the Air
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 5:41 P.M. Yesterday, I wrote about the variability of autumn weather in the Pacific Northwest and how we can see big changes in short periods of time. Today, we didn’t see a monumental change in the weather, but it definitely wasn’t like yesterday. As I was walking back from the IMA […]
Autumn in the Pacific Northwest
October 18, 2011 1:27 P.M. Generally, the Pacific Northwest has gradual seasonal changes. Winter very gradually transitions into spring, and apart from a few thundershowers here and there, spring gradually shifts into summer. Summer also shifts gradually… from cool, cloudy days in June to nice sunny days in August. But there is one season in […]
Tomorrow Will be the Warmest Day for Several Months
Tuesday, October 17, 2011 4:04 P.M. That was a bold title, and I may end up eating my own words at some point in the next couple weeks. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that tomorrow will be the warmest day until spring of next year. One commonly associates low pressure with cloudy, rainy, and sometimes downright […]
The Vostok, Antarctica Ice Cores
Sunday, October 16, 2011 1:21 P.M. At first glance, Vostok, Antarctica, seems like one of the worst places on the planet to set up a permanent settlement. In many aspects, it is. It is the coldest place on Earth. It is the most isolated research station in Antarctica. It experiences a polar night of 130 […]
The GFS Superensemble!
Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:17 P.M. When there is a period of pleasant but boring weather like there is right now, I generally look at the GFS Superensemble model for insight into the future. It has the designation of being a “Superensemble” not because it is the most accurate model (it isn’t) but because it […]
Latest on Seasonal Forecast
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 11:59 A.M. Taken from “The International Research Institute for Climate and Society” (IRI) These models all show the forecast SST for the Nino 3.4 region every month, and you can clearly see that most of the models predict cooler than normal temperatures in Nino 3.4. Cooler SST temperatures in the Eastern […]
Heavy Showers
Tuesday, October 11, 2011 2:28 P.M. Last night, I went walking with some friends around the UW campus just to get a breath of fresh air and get some relief from the plethora of work thrust upon us by our most excellent professors. I knew that showers were in the forecast, but I failed to […]