Meatyorologist

Annoying last minute trend to send this week's clipping trough into BC. Given their snowpack situation though it's probably for the best. I think someone said the other day that the snowpack situation there is the worst in recorded history? I had no idea. Canada has seriously torched this winter.

Yep! NNE. Directly in the lee of Maple Leaf hill.

It's pretty gusty in nature here, though I'm in the lee of some ~450' hills, so short timescale wind patterns could be more stochastic in nature right where I am due to lee turbulence. Could be much different in a more exposed location such as the top of Magnolia near Discovery Park, at 300' overlooking the Puget Sound.

Then on the backend of the front you can watch the PSCZ negate the rainfall differential in the exact areas that were shadowed hardest.

We get those here on the north end of the city. Used to confuse the hell out of me as a kid. I can reliably count on some lee action if we're in the Olympic rain shadow during an AR event. Especially if vertical wind shear is low and the whole column descends efficiently. On days like that it can be pissing buckets of rain in Tacoma under dark skies with no wind, while up here it's dry and mild under filtered sunshine, with roaring westerly gusts around 40-50mph. Excellent walking days, very active and pleasant!

I'm starting to agree with this more and more as I grow older. Snow is where the "money is at." Though two 22/11 type days and a week below freezing is the most wintry weather we would have seen in Seattle since December 1990. And I'd gladly take that, snow or not. Not to burst your bubble but in actuality the tightest pressure gradients and the mixing required to get those really strong gusts down to the surface both arrive after the front, in the postfrontal convective environment. Often where it's sunny and clear, albeit with bands of showers and thunderstorms. There are tight gradients that can make things a bit gusty ahead of the front as it approaches, but the stable air prevents much more than that. This actually means most of our windstorms, at least as I've observed here in the Puget Sound, come on nearly instantly. Given the tame nature of our climate it's a somewhat unsettling reminder of the vast amounts of thermal energy present in the Pacific, and how even our most boring weather is made possible by forces beyond our comprehension. Concentrate that energy release over a small area, and the sky is the limit, no pun intended. As insane as the Columbus Day storm was, it's even more insane to me that it arrived without warning, and likely almost instantly, from calm to over 100mph in minutes. Even hurricanes "ramp up" over the course of hours. That storm claimed lives just from the wind damage alone, especially out on the coast. The other day we had sheets of heavy drizzle with wind. It's a once or twice a year thing, and while it looks really cool, almost like a blizzard, once you step outside you quickly realize it's more of a vibes type of event. Getting caught out in that is like turning your hose onto mist mode and letting it rip from three feet in front of your face. You can see the GOA heights increasing as it draws closer. -PNA is the theme this Spring. (Hope you enjoyed the Phil themed post. Was not intentional lol)

Damn. I'll take your six consecutive days below freezing w/ 1-4" of snowcover and two lows of 11F. If that's so disappointing for you. Let's just face it man. Your soul would shrivel up and die if you lived out here for even half a decade.

Early next week is a textbook Arctic blast in DJF

By a thread.

This is Phil's "nightmare fuel" by the way.

Arguably Spring is the best time to recieve 80F+ heat since the biosphere is so saturated and plant growth genes are being activated up the yinyang. So long as the Summer proceeding is tame!

I think the winter predictions were a joke man. But yes I agree, I think our ECOSYSTEM can HANDLE a couple eighpril eighty-burgers.

Guidance has a nice lobe of cold air sitting for days north of AK. Could be something to feed off as more cold air spills south into the GOA from there via the Beaufort Sea.

I've always wanted to do something like this. I'd be a happy participant.

So are the Sierras. In two runs they've managed to turn a heatwave into a blizzard at around ~D6

Pretty rapid trend.

That trough in the medium range is a pretty good win. Keeps the back and forth theme going.

I am I drunk or did we not already do that last year? Edit: 86/89/88 from the 13th through the 15th. Close enough by all metrics except for actually reaching the milemarker itself.

I can see that shower from here in Interbay

The Canadian today was a Jesse special. Circumvents any ridging and forces down some clippy troughs and chilly NW flow in the long range. One way to thread the needle to avoid a heatwave mid month.

Highs going from the 70s to the 40s in one day is exceedingly rare here. With a bit more downsloping or if the pattern had developed just a week or two later, some could have threaded the needle to go from the 80s to the 40s. I wouldn't be surprised if some foothill locations did. Plains type stuff.... Though Summertime crashes from the 90s to the 60s do happen from time to time, as we saw last year.

A balance of dynamic troughing and amplified ridging w/ thunderstorms on the backend of the ridging is my ideal warm season pattern. It looked before like the upcoming ridge would be the same transitory sort we've come to grow used to this year, but now it looks like ridging may become our default base state for the mid-late month. Seems to be the new normal these days. I'm looking forward to the beautiful Spring weather, but I do hope May answers a bit and brings wetter weather.

Maybe my call for a cool April was a little off. Kind of looks like we'll hit an unavoidable mid month warm spell... And it could be the first real heat of the year, not counting the highly anomalous mild weather in early March and late January.

Hang in there Brian.

They were probably just wolves in sheep's clothing