October 2022 PNW weather Discussion. + Ultimate Leg Reveal Extravaganza

[NWbyNW]

Just hang in there everyone.  Just a four more days of this...

There is no real escaping anywhere from Washington, to Idaho, to BC, to Oregon. 

[Gradient Keeper]

3 minutes ago, Sonny Summers said:

Ellensburg would be like Great Falls or Cut Bank. Spokane would be like Havre or Glasgow.

Yeah arctic air would have no trouble flooding into eastern Washington and piling up against the east slopes of the Washington Cascades. Another thought. Let's say that if the Canadian Rockies and Rocky Mountains didn't exist wouldn't that allow maritime air masses to spill inland much further also influencing their climate, or would it simply be more like the Canadian prairies, Northwest Territories with a huge reservoir of bitter air. Could that also affect the processes of the PV and subsequent lobes as they rotate towards Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. A lot to chew on, or maybe I'm overthinking it.

00z ECMWF in 10 hour 9 minutes

[Chewbacca Defense]

42 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Amazing... live view from Friday Harbor on top and Bellingham on the bottom.       Unbelievable difference across a short distance. 

 

Just took the dog out and immediately started coughing.  I can still smell it in my nose even after coming back inside.  I am seeing 140-150 on my backyard air quality meter, that is definitely the worst I have recorded.

[Cloud]

Might crack 70 today at SEA.. 66 at 2:30pm and a couple degrees warmer than yesterday. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

10 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

Kind of crazy how much the switch flipped this year from the spring to the summer. The last 120 days (6/20-10/18) at SEA have been the driest on record for that period with only 0.54" of precipitation. The previous 120 days (2/21-6/20) were the second wettest on record for that period with 17.11".

It's now been 122 days since SEA recorded more than 0.15" of rain in a day which is by far the longest streak on record. In the previous 120 days before that, SEA tied a record with 36 days with more than 0.15" of rain in a day.

Note also how nine out of ten of those longest dry spells are in the 21st century. There really should be no doubt that our summers are getting drier as well as hotter.

[MossMan]

2 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Just took the dog out and immediately started coughing.  I can still smell it in my nose even after coming back inside.  I am seeing 140-150 on my backyard air quality meter, that is definitely the worst I have recorded.

154 here currently. 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

140 ppm here as of now. Disgusting day again.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

AQI 162 here.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

AQI 238 at the Bellingham waterfront and right around 300 up the hill in Chewie’s neighborhood.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

13 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

Yeah arctic air would have no trouble flooding into eastern Washington and piling up against the east slopes of the Washington Cascades. Another thought. Let's say that if the Canadian Rockies and Rocky Mountains didn't exist wouldn't that allow maritime air masses to spill inland much further also influencing their climate, or would it simply be more like the Canadian prairies, Northwest Territories with a huge reservoir of bitter air. Could that also affect the processes of the PV and subsequent lobes as they rotate towards Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. A lot to chew on, or maybe I'm overthinking it.

00z ECMWF in 10 hour 9 minutes

Look at northern Europe to get something of a clue as to the latter scenario. There are basically zero mountains from The Netherlands all the way into Russia, and the climate starts out as basically maritime and gradually becomes more continental. By the time you’re in Moscow it is completely continental.

Southern Europe is a completely different story of course. Plenty of mountains there.

[Phishy Wx]

28 minutes ago, Seattle said:

What would our climate be like if the Rockies and associated ranges did not exist, but the Cascades/Coast Mtns did?

MT/Dakotas like Cold as Balls in Spokane

[Gradient Keeper]

9 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Look at northern Europe to get something of a clue as to the latter scenario. There are basically zero mountains from The Netherlands all the way into Russia, and the climate starts out as basically maritime and gradually becomes more continental. By the time you’re in Moscow it is completely continental.

Southern Europe is a completely different story of course. Plenty of mountains there.

Good point. Yep. Thanks.

[Sonny Summers]

22 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

Yeah arctic air would have no trouble flooding into eastern Washington and piling up against the east slopes of the Washington Cascades. Another thought. Let's say that if the Canadian Rockies and Rocky Mountains didn't exist wouldn't that allow maritime air masses to spill inland much further also influencing their climate, or would it simply be more like the Canadian prairies, Northwest Territories with a huge reservoir of bitter air. Could that also affect the processes of the PV and subsequent lobes as they rotate towards Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. A lot to chew on, or maybe I'm overthinking it.

00z ECMWF in 10 hour 9 minutes

Imagine the Gorge wind in and around Portland. Troutdale would be a warzone.

[Meatyorologist]

1 hour ago, AlTahoe said:

Our arsonist on the king fire got 20 years!

 

https://wildfiretoday.com/2016/04/09/arsonists-selfie-at-king-fire-leads-to-sentence-of-20-years-in-prison/

A forest is burned and a man, as guilty as he is, is rotting in jail for 20 years. Everything is worse now. Not sure what this idiot expected.

[Meatyorologist]

26 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

Yeah arctic air would have no trouble flooding into eastern Washington and piling up against the east slopes of the Washington Cascades. Another thought. Let's say that if the Canadian Rockies and Rocky Mountains didn't exist wouldn't that allow maritime air masses to spill inland much further also influencing their climate, or would it simply be more like the Canadian prairies, Northwest Territories with a huge reservoir of bitter air. Could that also affect the processes of the PV and subsequent lobes as they rotate towards Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. A lot to chew on, or maybe I'm overthinking it.

00z ECMWF in 10 hour 9 minutes

I love thinking about this kind of stuff.

And these fringe hypotheticals aren't dumb. In fact, humans have used them to solve larger problems since the beginning of reason.

Solve one problem for fun, apply your discoveries to other problems. Simple and entertaining.

[Cloud]

22 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

I love thinking about this kind of stuff.

And these fringe hypotheticals aren't dumb. In fact, humans have used them to solve larger problems since the beginning of reason.

Solve one problem for fun, apply your discoveries to other problems. Simple and entertaining.

We do this on  a daily basis here at the R&D/AI Architect department here at Microsoft... and it's a lot of fun. 

Can't see why it can't be applies to anything else in life. 

[Sonny Summers]

These are pointless maps, but they are always fun to look at. The top three analogs are absolutely stellar. Of course there are a few turds mixed in with the chocolate pieces. They can't all be winners.

[mtep]

Easily the worst air quality I've seen in my 6 years in Bham. Chuckanut Mountain (about 1.5 miles away) has disappeared behind the smoke and the Arb (1,500' away) looks to be following it its footsteps. It wreaks of smoke in my apt, Friday can't come soon enough.

 

 

[mtep]

Local sensors don't seem to be picking up on the putrid hellscape outside for some reason though. No way the AQI is 67 up in the Arb right now. 

[Gradient Keeper]

15 minutes ago, Sonny Summers said:

Imagine the Gorge wind in and around Portland. Troutdale would be a warzone.

I'm trying! It could be fun for a bit lol. PDX-DLS of -30mb

11 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

I love thinking about this kind of stuff.

And these fringe hypotheticals aren't dumb. In fact, humans have used them to solve larger problems since the beginning of reason.

Solve one problem for fun, apply your discoveries to other problems. Simple and entertaining.

I agree it is fun and can be real beneficial.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

11 minutes ago, Sonny Summers said:

Imagine the Gorge wind in and around Portland. Troutdale would be a warzone.

Portland and Vancouver, BC would be significantly snowier, probably around 30–40"/year. That’s a wild-*a** guess obtained by halving the annual snowfall in Halifax, since unlike in Halifax, marine and not continental air would predominate. Seattle would probably see significantly less cold and snow, as a result of lacking a nearby sea-level conduit for interior air.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

3 minutes ago, mtep said:

Local sensors don't seem to be picking up on the putrid hellscape outside for some reason though. No way the AQI is 67 up in the Arb right now. 

See my recent post on Bellingham's air quality. Over 200 at the downtown waterfront and more like 300 a bit up the hill on the purpleair network.

[selkirks]

Important to keep in mind that AirNow averages over the past six hours or something along those lines. 

[Cloud]

11 minutes ago, mtep said:

Local sensors don't seem to be picking up on the putrid hellscape outside for some reason though. No way the AQI is 67 up in the Arb right now. 

As posted, I believe this is an average over time. It's easily 180-200 near Bellingham right now and worse at the border. 

"The AirNow site displays hourly, not real-time, readings."

[Timmy]

18z is caving

[Omegaraptor]

34 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

I'm trying! It could be fun for a bit lol. PDX-DLS of -30mb

I agree it is fun and can be real beneficial.

It's a fun and interesting exercise for sure. Also kind of a wonky question but wondering how much the climate would change on the West Coast if the eastern/inland Siskiyous were removed and only a coast range was present. They're kind of an unusual mountain range in that they run west-east rather than north-south like most Western mountain ranges do. Northern CA would likely get stronger and more frequent winter cold snaps.

[Iceresistance]

Speaking of terrible air quality, there was extremely thick smoke that originated from the NW part of the state many years ago, the AQ levels got so bad, there was an "Air Quality Emergency" issued for basically the entire state except the panhandle. The smoke was so thick and dense that you could not even see a quarter of a mile and I could not be outside for more than 5-10 minutes breathing in all of that smoke.

[Phishy Wx]

Interesting

 

 

[NWbyNW]

If there is any positive to this... at least the smoke isn't brown/reddish color like a few days ago...  

CURRENT VIEW

CLEAR DAY VIEW

[Iceresistance]

3 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

Interesting

 

 

Wait! How is that even possible!?

[T-Town]

Smoke and footwear check from T Town. 

[Gradient Keeper]

6 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

Interesting

 

 

None of this makes any sense to me, but.... I did hit my head A LOT as a child. It could explain that. Yeah. Remember the pajamas with the slippery footies? Yep. Twice in the ER within a week split my head open.

00z GFS in 4 hours 42 minutes

[Phishy Wx]

3 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

None of this makes any sense to me, but.... I did hit my head A LOT as a child. It could explain that. Yeah. Remember the pajamas with the slippery footies? Yep. Twice in the ER within a week split my head open.

00z GFS in 4 hours 42 minutes

soot and suspended particles from smoke get in the prevailing winds and head east where they meet moisture and the particles seed nuclei for larger Hailstones, heavy rain, etc.  Seems to me this is a natural version of cloud seeding.  seems pretty straight forward, imo 

[Meatyorologist]

High of 70F here

[snow_wizard]

The ECMWF was pretty darn interesting today.  A strong low pressure center moving inland south of Seattle and then a high of only 46 on one day.

Meanwhile...this is the worst smoke day here yet, and it looks way worse over the North Interior on the visible sat pic.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

6 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

None of this makes any sense to me, but.... I did hit my head A LOT as a child. It could explain that. Yeah. Remember the pajamas with the slippery footies? Yep. Twice in the ER within a week split my head open.

00z GFS in 4 hours 42 minutes

Oh, c’mon guys, it should be obvious: condensation nuclei. That smoke doesn’t all magically disappear once it leaves the West Coast. Some of it may settle out, but some remains. Anything that can affect cloud formation can easily affect storm formation.

[Gradient Keeper]

2 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

soot and suspended particles from smoke get in the prevailing winds and head east where they meet moisture and the particles seed nuclei for larger Hailstones, heavy rain, etc.  Seems to me this is a natural version of cloud seeding.  seems pretty straight forward, imo 

Well, hmmm that makes sense. Wouldn't it also affect lapse rates, better hail growth.

[snow_wizard]

54 minutes ago, Sonny Summers said:

These are pointless maps, but they are always fun to look at. The top three analogs are absolutely stellar. Of course there are a few turds mixed in with the chocolate pieces. They can't all be winners.

Why are they pointless?  6 to 10 day outlooks are actually somewhat accurate these days.

[Phishy Wx]

3 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

Well, hmmm that makes sense. Wouldn't it also affect lapse rates, better hail growth.

most likely, probably will contribute to stronger plains and front range early season (fall) blizzards too

[NWbyNW]

Let's look at some AQI's around the region!!  This time I tried to get a coastal location and a location further inland from said coastal spot.

Vancouver BC - 160

Abbotsford - 326

Bellingham - 157

Maple Falls - 470

Mount Vernon - 158

Lake Stevens - 187

Everett - 72

Gold Bar -  220

Port Angeles - 48

Seattle North - 108

Seattle Downtown - 95

Seattle South - 153

Bellevue - 154

Snoqualmie - 301

Tacoma - 103 

Bonney Lake - 152

Aberdeen - 59

Chehalis - 91

Longview- 71

Battle Ground - 204

Vancouver - 166

Camas - 179

Wenatchee - 162

Yakima - 56

Kennewick - 62

Walla Walla - 52

Spokane Downtown - 102

Spokane North - 126

Spokane East - 106 

Portland North - 156

Portland Downtown - 130

Gresham - 153

Hillsboro - 105

Astoria - 58

Salem - 149

Eugene -  158

Oakridge - 440

Bend - 114

Medford - 48

 

This is among the worst I've ever seen it.