April Weather in the Pacific Northwest

[Phil]

Fun fact. According to reanalysis, Baffin Island Canada has been under lower than average geopotential height anomalies for 1,343 of the last 1,772 days. Lol, that’s roughly 76% of the time.

 

I haven’t looked at all of 2013 and 2014 yet, but I’m sure it was similarly impressive then as well. Talk about a persistent vortex!

[TT-SEA]

12Z GEM looks pretty warm as well... at least through day 7.    ULL is moving into CA at that time on the GEM so it might crash after day 7.  

[Jesse]

Fun fact. According to reanalysis, Baffin Island Canada has been under lower than average geopotential height anomalies for 1,343 of the last 1,772 days. Lol, that’s roughly 76% of the time.

 

I haven’t looked at all of 2013 and 2014 yet, but I’m sure it was similarly impressive then as welll. Talk about a persistent vortex!

 

Good to see the SSW shaking everything up.

[TT-SEA]

Update:  12Z GEM does not crash after day 7... stays warm through the end of the run.

[TT-SEA]

I don't trust anything in the models right now... but if they have the pattern correct at day 5 (seems reasonable at only 120 hours) and the cut off low is where the models show it now then the chances of staying warm beyond that time are elevated.   

[Jesse]

The sun this morning seems just a little sunnier now!

[ShawniganLake]

It still amazes me that parts of Nanaimo got over a foot of snow

I heard reports of 16” in the higher elevations of town above 400ft.

[Deweydog]

Decent onshore flow next weekend...

[TT-SEA]

Decent onshore flow next weekend...

 

 

Hints of a weak marine push at day 10... lock it in!  

 

[Jesse]

I smell a lot of winning coming up for team torch today.

 

Either that or whining! LOL!!

[stuffradio]

I smell a lot of winning coming up for team torch today.

 

Either that or whining! LOL!!

That's hot.

[Phil]

Good to see the SSW shaking everything up.

The SSW just occurred 2 months ago, lol. It was late enough in the winter that the cold season wavetrain only had a limited time to run, but even with the typical seasonal changes throwing up the blinders, there are large changes occurring in the tropics.

 

In this case, the response has manifested as a bizarre, backwards-propagating zone of subsidence since the SSW event. It’s debatable whether this is a statistical artifact of the resulting changes to background wave state or an actual backwards-propagating low frequency wave in of itself (depends how one defines such waves) but even the most experienced tropical meteorologists are taking note!

 

 

[Phil]

The twitter disco is definitely worth reading, IMO. There is no concrete theory as to the dynamic nature of this signature, but theoretically and statistically, a SSW trigger through changes to static stability (initially) makes sense.

 

[Deweydog]

We're all on the same team.

 

HE>I

[Geos]

Some very cool t-storm picks a few pages back.

Had some sprinkles last night but didn't get into the convection really. 

 

Was a little frosty this morning with a low of 35.1 at my place. Had to dig the ice scraper back out of the garage. Up to the low 50s already now. 

[Phil]

[TT-SEA]

Had a break between meetings and got one of the patios set up.    So late this year... but its time now.     I probably just guaranteed a crash next week.   You're welcome! 

 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Wow you guys...

 

Beautiful day in the Gorge!

[Phil]

Perhaps it will evolve into a much coveted cool and dry regime for us.

It theoretically could. Though, I’m becoming less and less convinced that there will be any decipherable background state this spring and summer.

 

There’s literally nothing present that could sustain a low frequency mode of circulation this year. Or at least nothing reliable. Maybe that changes once into August or September.

[Geos]

Looking like a shot at 70 by Tuesday.

 

[TT-SEA]

It theoretically could. Though, I’m becoming less and less convinced that there will be any decipherable background state this spring and summer.

 

There’s literally nothing present that could sustain a low frequency mode of circulation this year. Or at least nothing reliable. Maybe that changes once into August or September.

 

Good news!  I would like to order up another nice summer.   

[seattleweatherguy]

Looking like a shot at 70 by Tuesday.

 

Yikes thought that the gfs was calling for cool and wet

[Geos]

Yikes thought that the gfs was calling for cool and wet

 

I guess that was a few runs ago. This run was warmer then the 6z. 

[TT-SEA]

I guess that was a few runs ago. This run was warmer then the 6z. 

 

 

12Z ECMWF will probably go crazy now with a crash next week.  

[ShawniganLake]

Wow. Frontal heatsquall must have drawn up that 12Z ensemble chart. WARM.

[TT-SEA]

12Z GFS ensembles are way warmer than the 00Z run through day 10.  

[seattleweatherguy]

Hopefully we can avoid the heat spike

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Our climate is becoming more continental. Cooler drier winters, hotter drier summers.

[BLI snowman]

I think there's a good chance things will continue to gradually warm for awhile. Likely until mid August or so.

[TT-SEA]

Our climate is becoming more continental. Cooler drier winters, hotter drier summers.

 

Solar minimum... more blocking.

[BLI snowman]

Our climate is becoming more continental. Cooler drier winters, hotter drier summers.

 

Cooler winters?

 

And humid continental climates have much wetter, more exciting summers than we do. The Midwest kicks our a** in terms of summer weather.

[TT-SEA]

Cooler winters?

 

And humid continental climates have much wetter, more exciting summers than we do. The Midwest kicks our a** in terms of summer weather.

 

 

Hazy, hot, and humid.

[BLI snowman]

Hazy, hot, and humid.

 

The comparable latitudes in the Midwest (MN, WI, northern MI) still have pretty pleasant summer temps most of the time. With frequent storms.

[stuffradio]

Hazy, hot, and humid.

Sounds heavenly.

[Geos]

The comparable latitudes in the Midwest (MN, WI, northern MI) still have pretty pleasant summer temps most of the time. With frequent storms.

 

It can still get pretty humid in the southern half of WI and southern MN in the summer, but the northwoods country is usually pretty comfortable. Sometimes summers can turn out pretty hot and humid though. 

Dewpoints of 65-70+ from Milwaukee south are really common late Jun - late August. 

[Phil]

Hazy, hot, and humid.

The Midwest isn’t very hot or humid during the summer except on brief occasions. I think it’s just the closest thing you’ve experienced to the real deal.

 

The southeastern third of the country is the swamp zone.

[BLI snowman]

It can still get pretty humid in the southern half of WI and southern MN in the summer, but the northwoods country is usually pretty comfortable. Sometimes summers can turn out pretty hot and humid though. 

Dewpoints of 65-70+ from Milwaukee south are really common late Jun - late August. 

 

Yeah, the Chicago to Milwaukee region is about the barrier for where the average summer weather changes towards being more hot and uncomfortable, and frequently 85-90+. Chicago is about the same latitude as Yreka, CA, so it's pretty far from us.

[Geos]

The Midwest isn’t very hot or humid during the summer except on brief occasions. I think it’s just the closest thing you’ve experienced to the real deal.

 

The southeastern third of the country is the swamp zone.

 

In my experience the Midwest summer increasingly became more humid I felt. Dewpoints never seemed to go much past 70 when I was tracking weather in high school (90s), but then it up until I left dew points would push 75 regularly during the heart of the summer and even reach 80 on occasion.

It's all the evapotranspiration from the crops that have helped to boost the humidity/dew points. 

[TT-SEA]

12Z ECMWF is less ridgy at 168 hours than the GFS... and looks more likely to crash.

 

[Jesse]

GFS ensembles now say the last part of April could torch pretty hard. Nice work guys!