Joshua Lake Oswego

Today is not even remotely close anomalously compared to the June heatwave. Exceeding the normal high temp by almost 40 degrees and breaking the all-time hottest temperature ever recorded for three consecutive days including one day by nine degrees in June takes the cake by a mile. I’m no statistician, but I imagine the heatwave standard deviation from normal is so far off the charts it’s almost theoretically impossible except over a very long period of time. That event was orders of magnitude more significant than today.

Seems almost impossible, doesn’t it? I would love a 13”, 10”, 9” Nov, Dec, Jan or something like that. I would take much more too, but I’m trying to be somewhat grounded in the realm of possibility.

Thanks for that. I'm rarely wrong about it, but everybody gets annoyed at my negativity. Especially since we had two over-performing events in September for the first time in many, many months that I downplayed beforehand. I understand. I like to vent though. Just like how @rsktkr said he/she watches every extended GFS ensemble run for hints of snowfall, I look at almost every run of every model for QPF. That's what I personally care about the most. Some of you want wind, snow, cold... whatever, and I want a boatload of rain. If you had your favorite weather event consistently teased with very minimal verification, you would be frustrated too. It's not like all of the cards have to align perfectly for us to get rain like they do for big snow events, windstorms, or even artic air intrusion, but for some reason, we very reliably underperform.

Looks like my place topped out at 52. 35 for a low this morning.

Always just 7-10 days out Always 7+ days out. We know the low will end up well west of where it is forecasted by the Euro on this run.

It's not an act

Indeed. Looking desert-like for the next couple of weeks.

Looking like a total dud for Oregon.

It always does. Eventually, it will be right.

I understand why a lot of people would like that. Down here, we can’t keep affording to have below normal precipitation. The couple of over-producing storms in September are meaningless in the scheme of things. I cannot root for anything other than wet, wet, wet. Besides the benefit to our ecosystem, that’s the type of weather I enjoy.

That’s only 3 hour precipitation. 48 hours isn’t much different though. Everybody kept telling he how wet the models were. About that…

We have a long way to go for the “wetter” part. I have a feeling the north/south gradient will continue on and our friends to the north will end up pretty wet when it’s all said and done, but we will end up quite a bit drier than normal.

You masochist, you.

Who could have seen that coming???

Up to 41 after a low of 39.

Should be a great year for fall colors with cool temps, plenty of sun, and very little rain.

So does the rain. Looking very dry. Nobody took my bet.

The GFS backdown has begun.

Ok, I’m ready for another bet with the odds seemingly stacked against me. $20 says that PDX gets <.25’’ of rain from right now until the end of Sunday. I would possibly be willing to make the same bet through 7 days from now, but that’s unfair to me without some odds. Everybody talking about how wet and active it’s going to be, put your money where your mouth is. The ICON is on board with the Euro now. Huge shift at 00z. The trend is not our friend. We’ll see if the GFS bows down on the 00z or waits a little bit. Inevitably, it will follow suit.

Looks good. Unfortunately, the Euro is not biting. Very dry the next 10 days.

Sunday sure fizzled out…

Dry run overall though. Soon, we will be getting to the time of year where if 10 day model runs are showing less than 2-3'' of rain for the I-5 corridor lowlands, it will be a below average forecast.

This is just silly. Even San Diego gets a dusting.

Crucify me at the stake for saying this if you must, but analogs don’t mean sh*t in my opinion. The recorded reliable and detailed weather history is unbelievably short and insignificant in the scheme of things. It is not reliably possible to make long-term predictions based on previous years with some similar attributes. There are far too many variables without even factoring in man-made or man-expedited change. Did any analogs show PDX having a warm winter followed by a handily record dry spring followed by the hottest temperature of all-time by 9 degrees at the beginning of summer? Mother Nature will do what she wants. We have gotten very good at short-term forecasting and forecasting likely trends in the mid-term. Long-term… we suck. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen weekly, monthly, and seasonal forecasts completely bust. So much so that a monkey seemingly has the same odds of forecasting weather as the most skilled human forecaster when dealing with anything beyond a couple of weeks out. Data mining will continue to improve as the amount of data increases and computers continue to get smarter. For now, we can’t do much more than provide a guess by an educated person. Not even an educated guess.

With all of this rain talk on the form and forecasts by the CPC and such, you wouldn't think that we would be getting below-normal rainfall in the next 10 days. Yet...