James Jones

Haha, unbelievable. It’s been drier than average since friggin’ February in Tim’s backyard and he’s still b*tching.

 

And minus those 2 weeks in April, it’s been downright desert-like, relative to his average.

 

It literally couldn’t get warmer/drier in the warm season if it tried.

 

Extrapolate the precip totals of the major lowland stations since mid-April over a full year and they would sit well below the 10" maximum criteria for a desert. It's been over 4 months now of incredibly dry conditions.

 

It's funny how our climate has a reputation for being so rainy and cloudy when it's perfectly capable of going months without any meaningful rain with abundant sunshine.

You have any posts that are not centered around my preferences?     

 

Side note... I am happy camper if it only rains on 70% of the days in November.

 

And we are spending 10 days of November in Newport Beach, CA this year. 

 

An exceptionally wet and stormy November would be very welcome this year. 

 

2006       

One last non-smoky day here 

 

HRRR actually looks okay south of Portland even 36 hours from now. I suspect it's being too optimistic though.

 

Yes, it's been such a cool, wet summer that an early fall is a foregone conclusion. Even the Douglas firs around here are already shedding their needles in anticipation of winter. Failed to make it up to 90 here AGAIN today! Brrr! Won't someone please think of the poor freezing children?

It’s pretty incredible how many dying or at least highly stressed trees you see just driving around right now, and we could easily still be 6+ weeks away from our first meaningful rain event. Gonna be interesting to see the damage come next spring.

 

GFS has been showing a cooldown in the long range for a couple days now while the Euro is still showing torching as far as the eye can see.

Just basing things off of my respiratory response, it seems to be worse. I have had a sniffly nose and itchy throat all day. Never had that from the Eagle Creek Fire.

 

It seemed a bit worse to me last year, my recollection is that the days with the falling ash had thicker smoke with a more obscured sun and worse air quality. Could be wrong though.

 

Either way it's nasty out there. Don't recall seeing anything like this kind of smoke situation prior to the last couple of years (2015 had a couple days like this but it was very short lived compared to 2017 and 2018).

Just for fun, the average highs and lows for the JJA periods leading up to PDX’s top five coldest winters:

 

June: 72.9/52.8

July: 79/56

August: 76.1!!/56.1

 

Toasty!

 

And here's the 2010s UHI/global warming averages so far:

 

June: 74.3/54.5

July: 81.8/58.4

August: 83.2/59.7 (Gonna go up once this month is added of course)

 

Downtown Portland went from 1874 through 1957 without recording any August with a warmer average high than 82.7. 

Those who live in central and northern King County east of 405 know that it feels like it rains on the majority of the days for 9 months of the year.     

 

We all know what is coming... regardless of how dry it is now.  

 

One extreme to the other.   We have only had one month of dry weather so far.    The rainy season dominants this climate.

 

Your goofy little microclimate is not representative of the vast majority of the region. You know this of course.

 

For everybody else it most definitely does not feel like a 9 month rainy season. November - March is quite rainy but even then there are almost always some dry periods in there to break things up. 

Sounds like a Alaska Air mechanic wanted to go out in style. Even did a barrel role or two apparently before he took her down.

 

It was a noble self sacrifice to protest the addition of the third runway and general rampant UHI at Seatac. 

Smokey enough today that PDX is reporting overcast conditions.

I'm sure it's possible. But I'm still skeptical with this pattern, especially how it's been trending since yesterday.

 

If it were one week later in August, I'd say there's no way that produces triple digits at PDX, but we're still in the dog days until about the 20th or so.

 

Models are obviously not locked in on any solution so who knows if they actually hit 100, though things are almost certainly going to stay fairly hot for a while going forward. The smoke is another factor that could hold things down a bit. 

 

The overall point though is that it 100 isn't some monumental achievement at PDX, it doesn't take a massive 594 dm ridge with the axis right over us to do it.

Seems odd with that pattern. How many instances are there of PDX hitting 100 with heights below 585?

 

It doesn't even really look like a pattern that would produce strong offshore flow.

 

Yesterday, heights were around 589 and PDX hit 95. Granted, there was some smoke, but that seems more typical. Of course, I know heights are just one factor in how hot it gets.

 

I think heights were about 585 when they hit 100 last month. They also somehow got to 100 on this day:

 

http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/NARR/1982/us0618.php

Interesting. Something definitely happened in 2013.

 

Similar results at PDX, only 8 total highs under 70 in July/August after 2010.

 

See above. 

 

Never said anything about a notable cool period being likely.

 

So your point is that there's some uncertainty in the medium-long range? Not trying to be a **** but that just seems totally obvious.

 

To summarize the state of things: right now we're looking at another 4 days of hot weather followed by a "crash" down to around average with things looking uncertain beyond that point, though some degree of warmer than average is clearly favored by the models with anything cool being the least likely outcome. Obviously the specifics aren't going to be nailed down at that range.

Ok. No reason to infer I'm biased towards a troughy outcome, though. You're clearly more emotionally invested in how it ends up than me, but I'm not using that to discredit your reasoning

 

Honestly I'm not sure what point you've been trying to make today.

 

Absolutely nothing indicates a notable cool period coming up, at best it shows us going down to around average for Friday/Saturday with the ensembles showing uncertainty beyond that point, though the smart money would be on some degree of warmer than average considering what the operational runs have shown and the general theme of this summer so far.

PDX has seen just 1.32" of rain in the last 111 days (since April 17) with no meaningful rain on the horizon. Ridiculous.

The 12z EURO is showing 90+ weather for PDX this Monday to Thursday with Wednesday getting into the triple digits. The heatwave could possibly even start this weekend as PDX gets to 88, TTD to 89. Can't wait for another heatwave, past couple days have sucked for me.

 

We need a repeat of the August 1981 heatwave to make up for this travesty. I mean what the **** does it take to get some sun around here???????????? Been cloudy for like 10 straight hours!

It does, but tying it to global warming is questionable, considering the amount of global warming since the last period we saw cooler summers is quite small.

 

As far as the models advertising a big trough and then falling apart...I think you always have to be skeptical when they show a massive pattern change. Persistence often wins out.

 

 

Sure, doesn't necessarily have to be caused by AGW, it could be natural variation instead. That's outside the scope of my knowledge but the overall point still makes sense.

 

Obviously our region has always been on the edge of the 4CH, so even a slight strengthening/expansion of it could make a big difference locally. It would explain why such a high percentage of summertime troughs in recent years seem to end up offshore - the 4CH is strong enough that troughs can't really make their way in. 

 

Supposedly the Medieval Warm Period also featured a strong/expansive 4CH, I'd be interested to know what summers were like out here during that era.

I wonder if what the runs a few days ago were showing is something that might have actually verified a couple decades ago. Then they snap back into our global warming reality.

 

I think the western heat/four corners high is just too strong and expansive to be kept at bay for long these days. It has become a more potent pattern forcer than anything dropping from the NW. So much so that it squeezes what would have been a robust trough into a cutoff low offshore as the western ridge reasserts itself.

 

The northern branch/GOA ridge tries to run the show for a bit but just can’t overcome the western heat dome for long.

 

Seems like a plausible explanation. 

 

Thoughts on this Dewey? 

Could be a marine influenced sub-90 shocker at PDX today...

I’m sure it will be obscured by more impressive months in short order. We will be way overdue for another record warm July in a few years following our frigid 2016 redux in 2019.

 

Back in 2009 I doubt many would have thought that July would be surpassed twice in less than a decade. Three times if you count last August.

I was thinking about that too. If anything, Tuesday looks a little hotter but I don't see Monday being more than 93 or 94. Hot, but not hott.

 

This coming from Mr. "89 on 7/17/2018" means 95 is a lock.

Not nearly enough. ECMWF is a blowtorch from Sunday right up into the very last day of the month. It's in the cards to string together 10 straight days of 90+ to end the month which is just insane right after last weeks heatwave.

 

I'm guessing the top end isn't looking too impressive on the surface maps?

51 at PDX is pretty impressive. Gonna ruin our record hot month.

Just read the PDX “heat advisory”. Lmao.

 

Lows of 55-65 degrees? Oh, the horror!

 

 

Lots of people without AC in the Portland area. If you live in an apartment building it can be pretty freaking uncomfortable.

My completely unscientific gut feeling right now is that this will be the coolest PNW summer since 2012. September will torch though.

 

Jinx! LOL

 

2016 is the new gold standard for frigid summers around here.