TT-SEA

Totally agree. The constant gray and rain is tough... but some people love it and cheer for it all summer too. I will never feel that way. It will be nice to know you have always have a great chance of serious cold and snow and it does not take every domino to line up perfectly.

Minnesotans say the Vikings are the most cursed team in the NFL... and its hard to argue with that.

Another huge difference between Sioux Falls and the Puget Sound region is the amount of sunshine in Sioux Falls. Its quite sunny there in all seasons.

He is going to experience some wicked blizzards and thunderstorms! Maybe start cheering for the Vikings and Twins as well.

Well of course it matters to the organizers of Duke's Mayo Bowl. And the teams have to make travel plans so it matters to them. Maybe their parents as well. But I don't think the Duke's Mayo Bowl is going to be huge for national exposure or for recruiting as Cloud indicated. I am skeptical that there are many high school kids dreaming of being in the Duke's Mayo Bowl.

Yes... as I said... the best the Cougars can probably hope for is a meaningless pre-Christmas bowl game. The Huskies and Seahawks are done. Of course the players have to be there so it matters to them... but a surprisingly large number of players are opting out of these silly bowl games to avoid injuries. So even to many players it does not matter. The vast majority of bowl games are completely meaningless. No one pays attention any more and the prestige has been watered down to basically being a participation trophy... unless you are in one of the big bowl games.

Wow! That is basically Minnesota. But the SW corner of Minnesota does not have as consistent snow cover as the northern and eastern parts of the state. Also not many trees down there...its basically wide open plains outside of the cities. I think you will love the climate overall since you seem to really like seasonal extremes. Guaranteed cold and snow and guaranteed warm/hot summers with lots of thunderstorms.

Here is the full ECMWF weeklies run that Phil mentioned earlier.... might get the desired warm November to set us up for later.

12Z EPS is basically a zonal-fest after a brief break this weekend... no cold weather in sight.

12Z ECMWF definitely shows systems diving south into Oregon and CA next week and bypassing WA for the most part. This is rainfall totals from Sunday to Friday...

There are other factors involved. For example... there has been no below freezing weather here. Our roses and dahlias are still blooming like crazy right now. And we got a decent amount of rain in August and September. The years in which the trees turned much earlier than this year were often drier in August and September. I am speaking only for my area. But the color has definitely been later than normal up here. We had significant late summer rain and have avoided any below freezing weather to this point.

Went out and took a couple pics... lots of alders here which are still greenish and then will turn brown and just go bare. Cottonwoods in the background in second pic are starting to turn yellow. In most years they were already mostly bare by this point so they are running quite late this year.

Yeah... our cottonwoods just get daily rain so it's pretty hard for them to put on a show.

17 years here now... and at best the cottonwoods in my area turn a pale yellow and then go bare in a few days. Some years its straight to brown then bare. I have never seen them put on an impressive show anywhere around here.

Yeah... Facebook has been reminding me of all my fall color pics over the last 10 years. This year was pretty late. I think we hit the peak this past weekend but won't really have any sunny days to enjoy at peak. I assume it will be past peak by this weekend with more rain and wind ahead.