September 2018 Weather in the Pacific Northwest

[TT-SEA]

No comments from Tim on how terrible the Hawks are?

Waiting until the game is over... don't want to say anything good and jinx it.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Waiting until the game is over... don't want to say anything good and jinx it.

Don't worry, the Cowboys are even less clutch than the Seahawks of late.

[Geos]

Pretty cloudy day here. Some darker clouds ober towards Bothell and Maltby right now. Another CZ getting going?...

[TT-SEA]

Pretty cloudy day here. Some darker clouds ober towards Bothell and Maltby right now. Another CZ getting going?...

 

No.

 

Just instability cumulus.  

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Hawks doing their best to choke.

[TT-SEA]

Hawks doing their best to choke.

 

Hate this crap of playing so soft with a lead.

 

For example... they should have thrown a pass downfield with 2:01 left to mix it up.   Clock was going to stop anyways.   

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Hate this crap of playing so soft with a lead.

 

For example... they should have thrown a pass downfield with 2:01 left to mix it up. Clock was going to stop anyways.

Agreed. I see so few teams who are trying to run out the clock throw right before the 2MW. Makes no sense.

 

Regardless, the 12s are happy and got their first W. Isn't their some weird stat that the Niners @ Seahawks game is almost always played in the rain way more than the other divisional matchups?

[Timmy]

Since we are on the topic, nice win by the panthers!

[VancouverIslandSouth]

I just topped out at 120 on my way to work. Got there in no time at all.

 

Were you driving up to Comox? That 120kph stretch sometimes catches people by surprise and I often see people driving 90~100 there either because they don't feel comfortable driving that fast or didn't realize the speed limit jumped by 30.

[TT-SEA]

Sun setting against Mt Si...

 

[Geos]

Almost 12 hours of daylight exactly now. Looks like 63 for a high today. 

 

Only 1.39" of rain so far this month. Definitely been rain shadowed here. 

[Geos]

Have had some cooling over the eastern equatorial Pacific waters in the last 7 days. People that were yelling el Nino look kind of dumb now. 

 

[ShawniganLake]

Were you driving up to Comox? That 120kph stretch sometimes catches people by surprise and I often see people driving 90~100 there either because they don't feel comfortable driving that fast or didn't realize the speed limit jumped by 30.

No I was driving to Duncan. But speeding by quite a bit. That stretch of highway up island is so good, you can pretty comfortably drive 120-130 if you have a decent vehicle.

[jcmcgaffey]

It’s almost as if people that live in convergence zone hotspots don’t realize that they are the outliers, not the other way around.

I actually average less rain than SEA but the last 4-5 months i have been almost double. It has just been the very similar persistent pattern recently.

[TT-SEA]

I actually average less rain than SEA but the last 4-5 months i have been almost double. It has just been the very similar persistent pattern recently.

I average about twice the rainfall at SEA and over the last 5 months its been more than double the normal double. Actually its been about 6 times as much rain as SEA. But even so... my rainfall has actually been just about normal for my area over that period.

 

Meanwhile... SEA is at 32% of normal rain over the last 5 months. But WFO SEA is at 55% of normal rain since May... getting 1.68 inches more than SEA. I wonder if there really is an issue with the gauge at SEA?

[Deweydog]

They should never have built a fourth runway over the rain gauge.

[Phil]

Have had some cooling over the eastern equatorial Pacific waters in the last 7 days. People that were yelling el Nino look kind of dumb now.

 

#ModeLOLogy

 

That being said, the +IOD/cool Indo-Pacific and +PMM/warm dateline SSTs should still promote an increasingly niño-like circulation as time wears on. I’m assuming 2019 will continue the slow evolution into the niño.

 

It reminds me of 2014/15, which was a weak +ENSO prelude to the strong niño in 2015/16. If history holds true, next winter (2019/20) should be a legitimate niño.

[jcmcgaffey]

I average about twice the rainfall at SEA and over the last 5 months its been more than double the normal double. Actually its been about 6 times as much rain as SEA. But even so... my rainfall has actually been just about normal for my area over that period.

 

Meanwhile... SEA is at 32% of normal rain over the last 5 months. But WFO SEA is at 55% of normal rain since May... getting 1.68 inches more than SEA. I wonder if there really is an issue with the gauge at SEA?

Most of it has been due to the persistent convergence zone that has been setting up shop further south than normal (lynnwood to north seattle when normally it is between lynnwood and my Vernon). Some of it too has just been bad luck as that small area around SEA has either been just south of the main moisture or just north of the main moisture. But like I said before when it rains I will check local stations on wunderground and the station at SEA is always less than all the other nearby stations and sometimes less than half.

[TT-SEA]

Most of it has been due to the persistent convergence zone that has been setting up shop further south than normal (lynnwood to north seattle when normally it is between lynnwood and my Vernon). Some of it too has just been bad luck as that small area around SEA has either been just south of the main moisture or just north of the main moisture. But like I said before when it rains I will check local stations on wunderground and the station at SEA is always less than all the other nearby stations and sometimes less than half.

 

Yeah... I am not saying its all related to the gauge.   Its mostly related to pattern persistence or the lack of organized systems as Justin mentioned.   But an issue with the gauge could possibly be exaggerating the difference a little more.  

[ShawniganLake]

0z GFS focuses a very wet 24hr period directly over Tim’s house next weekend

 

That set-up would probably yield a lot of snow in a couple more months.

[VancouverIslandSouth]

Stinkin birds on the radar, I swear we've had more bird noise than real precipitation lately.

[jcmcgaffey]

Yeah... I am not saying its all related to the gauge. Its mostly related to pattern persistence or the lack of organized systems as Justin mentioned. But an issue with the gauge could possibly be exaggerating the difference a little more.

I find the local features interesting. Some studies have shown average annual rainfall just within Seattle varies quite a bit (see attached image). There have also been studies that have shown the driest place east of the Puget Sound waters is Ballard. Also if you look at the other attached image you will see a finger of higher precip essentially follow I90. Issaquah (which is where I grew up) is one the wettest locations on the Eastside compared to any towns directly north or south. Living in Ballard the last 10years I have noticed a substantial difference in weather. I get way more drier/sunnier days then when I lived in Issaquah.

[TT-SEA]

0z GFS focuses a very wet 24hr period directly over Tim’s house next weekend

 

That set-up would probably yield a lot of snow in a couple more months.

 

 

You know this will verify!   Of course this might finally actually hit SEA just as hard as here.   

 

[ShawniganLake]

Blocking looks better this run. Probably less of that warm moist southerly flow that had been shown when the low cuts off offshore.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Very nice day, somewhat chilly, but still nice. 60/39 up here. Had 0.20" of rain yesterday it looks like, so 1.15" on the month or about 1/2 of average. 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

72/40 here. Currently a pleasant 50F. Looks like some more shadowing being depicted in the models for here.

 

The weirdest days here are during ARs because the jet is so strong and we are in that sweet spot of max shadowing from Mary's Peak and other nearby mountains to the SW, Laurel Mountain/Peak to the immediate west, and the northern coast range and Butler Hill and Murphy Hill to the NW. These features often times make AR days have occasional sprinkles with subtropical temps and the usual wind.

 

These same shadowing features are really useful in the advecting east wind events out of the gorge for the goodies in winter though, as upsloping gives this area some nice totals, as 2003 and 2008, among numerous other events dictate. Monmouth actually averages about 5" of snow a year. And still 3-4" since 1981. So last year was just insanely bad luck, along with Corvallis.

 

I keep having inklings about how I see the cold season unfolding but with ENSO being so neutral I've no clue. When does the cold season contest start?

[weatherfan2012]

Have had some cooling over the eastern equatorial Pacific waters in the last 7 days. People that were yelling el Nino look kind of dumb now. 

 

this very well could be a neutral positive but like phil said have a nino bit of a flaver to it and the real nino comes on spring summer 2019.

[TT-SEA]

72/40 here. Currently a pleasant 50F. Looks like some more shadowing being depicted in the models for here.

 

 

I see that McMinnville is at 140% of normal rain for September... and they are squarely in the west valley.     Must be a pretty distinct north-south gradient within the WV.

[Esquimalt]

Did you guys hear about that crazy EF3 tornado in Ottawa? Just insane stuff

[TT-SEA]

Did you guys hear about that crazy EF3 tornado in Ottawa? Just insane stuff

Just watched some videos... that is crazy.

[MossMan]

Nice morning. Chilly morning...43 at 7am.

[Phil]

Great to see more research acknowledging this. The idea that freshwater pulses triggered large scale cooling is the epitome of outdated, tail-wags-dog logic. The presence of ice-rafted debris has always lagged temperature in every proxy dataset I’m aware of.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14330

 

“ICEBERGS NOT THE TRIGGER FOR NORTH ATLANTIC COLD EVENTS”

 

Abrupt climate change is a ubiquitous feature of the Late Pleistocene epoch1. In particular, the sequence of Dansgaard–Oeschger events (repeated transitions between warm interstadial and cold stadial conditions), as recorded by ice cores in Greenland2, are thought to be linked to changes in the mode of overturning circulation in the Atlantic Ocean3. Moreover, the observed correspondence between North Atlantic cold events and increased iceberg calving and dispersal from ice sheets surrounding the North Atlantic4 has inspired many ocean and climate modelling studies that make use of freshwater forcing scenarios to simulate abrupt change across the North Atlantic region and beyond5,6,7. On the other hand, previous studies4,8 identified an apparent lag between North Atlantic cooling events and the appearance of ice-rafted debris over the last glacial cycle, leading to the hypothesis that iceberg discharge may be a consequence of stadial conditions rather than the cause4,9,10,11. Here we further establish this relationship and demonstrate a systematic delay between pronounced surface cooling and the arrival of ice-rafted debris at a site southwest of Iceland over the past four glacial cycles, implying that in general icebergs arrived too late to have triggered cooling. Instead we suggest that—on the basis of our comparisons of ice-rafted debris and polar planktonic foraminifera—abrupt transitions to stadial conditions should be considered as a nonlinear response to more gradual cooling across the North Atlantic. Although the freshwater derived from melting icebergs may provide a positive feedback for enhancing and or prolonging stadial conditions10,11, it does not trigger northern stadial events.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

PDX running a -1.2 departure on the month so far! EUG is at a -2.0 departure. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Oregon department of agricultural seasonal forecast was released last week. Calling for slightly below normal temps in October, above normal November and December. Forecasting much above normal precipitation. 

 

Their analog years were 1996, 2006, 2012. 

[Deweydog]

Haha! 12z...

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Haha! 12z...

 

OUCH

[Front Ranger]

I average about twice the rainfall at SEA and over the last 5 months its been more than double the normal double. Actually its been about 6 times as much rain as SEA. But even so... my rainfall has actually been just about normal for my area over that period.

 

Meanwhile... SEA is at 32% of normal rain over the last 5 months. But WFO SEA is at 55% of normal rain since May... getting 1.68 inches more than SEA. I wonder if there really is an issue with the gauge at SEA?

 

Many places are between 30-50% of normal since May 1. Including OLM, Bremerton, BLI, Kent, and Landsburg.

 

SEA is on the drier side, but not an outlier.

[Esquimalt]

Lol GEM

[Jesse]

PDX running a -1.2 departure on the month so far! EUG is at a -2.0 departure.

That negative departure won’t last through the end of the month. At least at PDX.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Lol GEM

 

Sure has a unique perspective on the situation.