September 2018 Weather in the Pacific Northwest

[TT-SEA]

Nah, out there in the rain forest as well. Palmer had a stretch of 59/68 days without rain from July 30 to October 5 in 1993. 

 

Backloaded summer 

 

Yes... I said June and July were very wet and cool.   The percentage was WAY less than 85% for a good part of meteorological summer.   

[Farmboy]

159 years ago yesterday was the mega solar storm known as the Carrington Event.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Today we're the complete opposite with no sunspots. 136 day and counting with no sunspots this year.

 

Then 2 years later was an epic, kick-a** winter.

[BLI snowman]

Yes... I said June and July were very wet and cool.   The percentage was WAY less than 85% for a good part of meteorological summer.   

 

Doesn't matter, a bone dry and persistently sunny September will obviously still feel like a part of summer. 

 

I don't think people were downgrading the winter of 1985-86 because much of the action fell outside of meteorological winter.

[TT-SEA]

Doesn't matter, a bone dry and persistently sunny September will obviously still feel like a part of summer.

 

I don't think people were downgrading the winter of 1985-86 because much of the action fell outside of meteorological winter.

No... the second part of September never feels like summer due to the sun angle. You cannot beat a warm and sunny June and July.

[BLI snowman]

No... the second part of September never feels like summer due to the sun angle. You cannot beat a warm and sunny June and July.

 

The second half of June never feels like spring because of the sun angle.

[TT-SEA]

Coming back from Snoqualmie about 15 minutes ago... elk along highway right before you come into North Bend.

 

[TT-SEA]

The second half of June never feels like spring because of the sun angle.

Sure as hell does when its frickin dark all day. We experienced it first hand for a week at the end of June.

[BLI snowman]

Sure as hell does when its frickin dark all day. We experienced it first hand for a week at the end of June.

 

The clouds are still wispy and the daylight is long. 54 degree rain at the end of June truly feels more summer like than 94 degree sun at the end of September.

[TT-SEA]

The clouds are still wispy and the daylight is long. 54 degree rain at the end of June truly feels more summer like than 94 degree sun at the end of September.

Wispy... sure!

 

Cold rain and dark skies at the end of June feels like being robbed. Same weather as we have in January and February with twice as long daylight. Stupid.

[WeatherArchive]

Why is it even though we are a coastal climate we DON'T get much rain in the summer while places like Christchurch get scattered storms or even England can have "washout" summers ruining BBQ parties and sunbathing. We don't get these so called "washout" summers.

[WeatherArchive]

Need some volcanic assistance for 1983 and 1993.

 

And in June and July of those years... it was more like 20% of the days being warm and dry up here. 85% would be perfect. 20%... not so much.

 

And 2010 had that lovely streak of 32 days in a row with rain in May and June. Miserable here.

 

I would never complain about 85% of the days being warm and dry.

Good for you as not everyone is like you not having asthma. Once the wildfires and smoke starts the fun is done.

[TT-SEA]

Good for you as not everyone is like you not having asthma. Once the wildfires and smoke starts the fun is done.

Yep... I hate the smoke too. Although it was a permenant part of PNW summers for thousands of years until we started major fire supression about 80 years ago.

 

We need a good rain once a week. Not rain for 80% of July like we had in 1993.

[VancouverIslandSouth]

Why is it even though we are a coastal climate we DON'T get much rain in the summer while places like Christchurch get scattered storms or even England can have "washout" summers ruining BBQ parties and sunbathing. We don't get these so called "washout" summers.

 

The comparison with Western Europe is pretty interesting. Many PNW cities receive more annual precip than those in Western Europe but ours is heavily skewed toward the fall/winter while theirs is almost evenly distributed throughout the year. I think it has to do with the configuration of the continents and how that influences the Aleutian/Icelandic Low. The Iceland low stays around in the summer. I'm not expert, but I'm guessing the reason the Aleutian Low struggles so much in the summer here is a result of Alaska warming up reversing the north-south temperature gradient that feeds the expansion of the low into the GOA. In Europe the cold North Atlantic runs north of the continent so seasonality wouldn't have as much of an impact.

[VancouverIslandSouth]

Big runs coming up. I'm down for some November rain in September.

 

With less people cheering on the perpetual drought state we may have a chance this time.

[MossMan]

57 currently...Brrrr.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Pleasant 67F in the land of 90+ consecutive dry days?

[ShawniganLake]

57 currently...Brrrr.

Just a week from now, average lows will have dropped into the 40’s here.

[Timmy Supercell]

Overall J-J-A temperature for my area wasn't entirely impressive. But summer 2018 may have been the driest one I've been through. Before 2018 I always had pretty heavy t'storms in August, ones that would just about flood out downtown. NOT this time. Even in 2017 when August had a +4.3 Mean in K-Falls, there was also a couple floods that month.

 

http://i68.tinypic.com/28m1u9j.jpg

 

http://i65.tinypic.com/2ymy3aw.jpg

[MossMan]

El Niño strikes early!

https://q13fox.com/2018/09/03/19-rescued-at-washington-state-fair-when-ride-malfunctions-leaving-riders-stranded/

[Jesse]

Pretty unpleasant how pleasant this weekend turned out considering how pleasantly possible unpleasantness seemed to previously be.

Something tells me you drought fanatics will be pleasantly surprised as next week’s advertised unpleasantness pleasantly evaporates as well.

[WeatherArchive]

The comparison with Western Europe is pretty interesting. Many PNW cities receive more annual precip than those in Western Europe but ours is heavily skewed toward the fall/winter while theirs is almost evenly distributed throughout the year. I think it has to do with the configuration of the continents and how that influences the Aleutian/Icelandic Low. The Iceland low stays around in the summer. I'm not expert, but I'm guessing the reason the Aleutian Low struggles so much in the summer here is a result of Alaska warming up reversing the north-south temperature gradient that feeds the expansion of the low into the GOA. In Europe the cold North Atlantic runs north of the continent so seasonality wouldn't have as much of an impact.

so in the summer we have more of a south to north influence? is there any climate scenaroi (scenario) that would make an "Aleution Low" on steroids?  would that make things more thundery if our summers were wetter or just depressing? it makes sense for the Iceland low to have more of an influence due to the configuration of the gulf stream going way north but you'd think their would be way more heat/humidity from Africa/Spain.etc.  Britain gerts thunderstorms from Spanish Plumes mostly in the S,SE districts aka Kent and sometimes up the east coast. The best heat scenarios like the 70s drought come from Africa and can stay for quite a while like 76 where hose pipes were illegal with hose pipe police patrolling for illegal water violaters!http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/40358961/what-the-drought-of-1976-looked-like-as-this-years-heatwave-continues

[Geos]

A nice dewy morning. 50 currently with mostly clear skies. 

[Tyler Mode]

41.9 this morning, coldest so far August/September.  I love the large diurnal changes that come in September.

[MossMan]

47.

[Jesse]

47.

 

Probably close to your average low up there.

[Geos]

Dipped to 49 before the sun started getting higher. 

 

6z GFS moisture through Day 10.

 

[TT-SEA]

Dipped to 49 before the sun started getting higher. 

 

6z GFS moisture through Day 10.

 

 

 

Not much rain even here until Monday on the 06Z GFS and then its pretty much a WA and BC event.

[Phil]

The D10-15 EPS brings our friend back.

 

Still plenty of cold to work with given the reduced OHC around the NE-Canadian waters this year.

 

[TT-SEA]

GFS has been much drier overall than the Euro. Including the 06z (which I never usually look at).

 

 

I don't normally look at 06Z run either.. but had to check the details on the timing of that precip.

 

The GFS has been way better than the ECMWF in terms of precip lately... the ECMWF has been over-promising rain for awhile now.

[Phil]

I don't normally look at 06Z run either.. but had to check the details on the timing of that precip.

 

The GFS has been way better than the ECMWF in terms of precip lately... the ECMWF has been over-promising rain for awhile now.

The GFS’s skill scores (z500, global) are *by far* the worst of all the models since 8/25. It’s not even close..even the CMC is kicking its butt.

 

It’s a terrible model that occasionally lucks into a win when boundary conditions evolve to mirror its convective biases.

[TT-SEA]

The GFS’s skill score (z500, global) are *by far* the worst of all the models since 8/25. It’s not even close..even the CMC is kicking its butt.

 

 

The GFS has often been drier than the ECMWF for the PNW for some time.

 

And its been correct.   

[Phil]

The GooFuS thinks it will be 104 degrees here today.

 

Great model!

[TT-SEA]

The GooFuS thinks it will be 104 degrees here today.

 

Great model!

 

Temperature output on the GFS has always been bad... way too extreme in both directions.   That certainly does not mean everything is garbage.  The GFS MOS should be used.   It shows 93 at DCA today.    

[Jesse]

The GFS has been way better than the ECMWF in terms of precip lately... the ECMWF has been over-promising rain for awhile now.

It definitely has been. Although the operational GFS did recently cave to the Euro and EPS regarding the heatwave idea for next week. Hopefully a sign that the Euro is getting its together.

 

That or the droughty pleasantness marches on unabated.

[Phil]

Overall J-J-A temperature for my area wasn't entirely impressive. But summer 2018 may have been the driest one I've been through. Before 2018 I always had pretty heavy t'storms in August, ones that would just about flood out downtown. NOT this time. Even in 2017 when August had a +4.3 Mean in K-Falls, there was also a couple floods that month.

 

http://i68.tinypic.com/28m1u9j.jpg

 

http://i65.tinypic.com/2ymy3aw.jpg

Yet another warm, dry summer. Pretty nutty...that’s six in a row now, correct?

 

FWIW, it’s becoming hard not to fault the persistent +PMM/northward-displaced Pacific ITCZ, at this point. Until this changes (hopefully sooner rather than later), the old analogs with more interhemispheric forcing probably aren’t viable to use for boreal summer.

 

Let’s hope solar minimum (trend to -NAM/equatorward heating through the remaining years of this decade) can bump the system into another quasi-stable sequence of boundary state evolution. Because the ongoing mode of tropical seasonality was a hallmark of the Medieval Warm Period (South American cold tongue, meridionally-expanded WPAC warm pool, +NAO), and it coincided with some of the worst megadroughts of the entire late Holocene across western North America. No bueno.

[Jesse]

Yet another warm, dry summer. Pretty nutty...that’s six in a row now, correct?

 

FWIW, it’s becoming hard not to fault the persistent +PMM/northward-displaced Pacific ITCZ, at this point. Until this changes (hopefully sooner rather than later), the old analogs with more interhemispheric forcing probably aren’t viable to use for boreal summer.

 

Let’s hope solar minimum (trend to -NAM/equatorward heating through the remaining years of this decade) can bump the system into another quasi-stable sequence of boundary state evolution. Because the ongoing mode of tropical seasonality was a hallmark of the Medieval Warm Period (South American cold tongue, meridionally-expanded WPAC warm pool, +NAO), and it coincided with some of the worst megadroughts of the entire late Holocene across western North America. No bueno.

Sounds pleasant. Don’t you go ruining my Holiday weekend with a megadrought cancel.

[Blizzard777]

That trough is digging for our weekend watering and Hurricane Norman riding the line keeping it neat

I’m putting my money on the GFS for lighter precipitaion.

[TT-SEA]

As recently as Sunday... the ECMWF was showing copious rain over WA for the weekend.     

 

The 00Z ECMWF backed way off in favor of keeping the main rain to the north and west.   The 12Z GFS shows just scattered showers on Friday night into Saturday morning.  

 

The 12Z GFS does show a more organized front arriving Monday... which is actually faster than the 00Z run.

[TT-SEA]

12Z GFS shows some rain at times in WA on Monday and Tuesday and then it turns dry again for the rest of the work week.

 

Looks like Oregon pretty much misses out on the Friday night system and the rain on Monday and Tuesday.    Just too far south to get in on the action with the pattern shown.

[Jesse]

12Z GFS shows some rain at times in WA on Monday and Tuesday and then it turns dry again for the rest of the work week.

 

Looks like Oregon pretty much misses out on the Friday night system and the rain on Monday and Tuesday. Just too far south to get in on the action with the pattern shown.

Your voodoo shrine is working!