Brian_in_Leavenworth

Makes me wonder what kind of a pattern would produce that. Thinking their anomaly maps are wrong, like what Phil said. Did it show actual precip amounts instead of anomaly maps?

Pretty amazing they have Wenatchee at -.86 below normal rainfall for the next 2 weeks, considering Wenatchee averages only. 54 inches of rain for the entire month of May. Makes me wonder where they get their numbers from.

Sure, but April is still relatively dry in Western Oregon and Washington compared to November through February. Seattle and Portland average about 2.5 inches in April, compared to 5-6 inches in the wettest Winter months. A 1.5 inch deficit for April is better than a 4.5 inch deficit in December or January. And actually heavy rain in April in the mountains would erode the snow pack faster than drier weather. Would much rather have a drier April then in any winter month.

Someone in the March thread posted horrible looking April precip maps, making it look like we are in a massive drought. April east of the Cascades is normally dry. Wenatchee, for example, averages 0.53" of rain, Yakima 0.57. Spokane is a bit above an inch. So even a rainless April is only about a half inch below normal for most of Eastern WA.

If you go to Lake Chelan, take the boat to Stehekin and stay a couple of days. No TV, phone, or internet. My wife and I go every year. You can camp, stay at the main lodge at the dock, or rent a house. The only cars are for the few locals that live there. We rent bikes and bike to the falls and the bakery, though there are more places beyond there. Great scenery.

One of the things about these eruptions is that they are very short lived, maybe 30 minutes or so. Hard to really get a lot of SO2 and ash in the stratosphere and affect global weather with such sort lived eruptions. Mt. St. Helens big eruption lasted about 9 hours, and Pinatubo's also lasted 9 hours.

Not fun to drive in.

I-90 in parts of Eastern Washington (Ritzville) closed due to a dust storm. The NWS issued a dust storm warning, you don't see that very often. What makes the dust so bad this time is they have been plowing the fields, so the dirt is pretty loose now and can more easily be blown around. Gotta give the NWS Spokane credit, they got this forecast spot on, and also had anticipated dust storms.

Well, when they put it like this, it makes a bit more sense: "Leavenworth has a continental Mediterranean climate (Köppen Dsb) with summers characterized by hot, sunny days and chilly nights, and cold, snowy winters." It has been nice lately, but still freezes at night if it is clear.

Pretty much gone here. Plain may have more though, they get more snow and are a bit higher elevation. They groomed their cross country ski trails for the last time yesterday, so at least then there was decent snow. If you go up any higher, it would be better, guessing some of the trails do.

My understanding is that the GFS v16 will become the new operational as of tomorrow's 12Z run.

They were supposed to upgrade to the parallel earlier this week, but it was delayed until probably next week due to severe weather on the south and they wanted continuity of the same model until the threat of severe weather subsidizes.

GFS upgrade will NOT happen tomorrow, due to severe weather in the south. Sounds like they didn't want to change models in the middle of this. No date announced as to when the upgrade will happen. https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-to-announce-major-upgrades-to-us-weather-model

Don't know where you are, but the Nina did pretty much what it was expected to do in the PNW. Not as cold as some would have liked, but the mountain snow pack is well above normal, as is typical in a Nina. And many lowland areas had significant snow. Also a pretty decent arctic outbreak in February. Seems like a typical Nina to me.

How are 2nd year Nina's different, especially in late Fall/ early Winter, considering that in the 2nd year, I assume the atmosphere is already starting in a Nina regime, as opposed to being in transition during the same time in a first year Nina, especially considering a first year Nina is often coming off of a Nino regime?