PNW April 2023 Weather Discussion

[TT-SEA]

8 minutes ago, Cold Snap said:

Yeah I’m pretty sure SEA averages about 3” of rain in JJA.

But that was 3 year cumulative map so 3 times that amount for the average.  And it was for June-September and SEA averages just over 5 inches that period.    So the average comparison for the map for SEA was 15 inches total.

[MossMan]

Rain!

[ShawniganLake]

Peak wind gust with todays storm was 103mph on Solander Island off the NW coast of Vancouver Island. Pretty impressive for April.  

[Ken in Wood Village]

This is probably the strangest radar loop I have seen in awhile. You can see moisture going SE but you can also see moisture going NE. Strange

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 hour ago, Ken in Wood Village said:

This is probably the strangest radar loop I have seen in awhile. You can see moisture going SE but you can also see moisture going NE. Strange

The models actually showed this pretty well

[TT-SEA]

4 hours ago, Ken in Wood Village said:

This is probably the strangest radar loop I have seen in awhile. You can see moisture going SE but you can also see moisture going NE. Strange

What you see there is precip at different levels... the stratiform rain moving SE is the upper level moisture and the more convective looking precip moving to the NE is a surface front.    This radar look is fairly common with our winter storms and the storm yesterday was essentially a winter-like storm.

[TacomaWx]

Got down to 43 this morning…a rarity in April 2023. Average low as of yesterday morning was 38.6. No rain since midnight but we’re up to 3.27” of rain MTD. Based on the models we will finish pretty close to the rainfall we got in April 2022 (3.63”). 

[Skagit Weather]

44 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

Got down to 43 this morning…a rarity in April 2023. Average low as of yesterday morning was 38.6. No rain since midnight but we’re up to 3.27” of rain MTD. Based on the models we will finish pretty close to the rainfall we got in April 2022 (3.63”). 

Still only 1.15" here so far on the month and 1.04" up at BLI which is about half of average for this time in the month. We'll probably pick up 0.25"-0.5" in the next couple days, but will probably end up more than inch below average by the end of the month.

[TacomaWx]

14 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

Still only 1.15" here so far on the month and 1.04" up at BLI which is about half of average for this time in the month. We'll probably pick up 0.25"-0.5" in the next couple days, but will probably end up more than inch below average by the end of the month.

Didn’t realize how dry it had been up there. IIRC April 2022 was drier overall the further north you went as well. I know folks around PDX are closing in on 5” or so at this point and about 3.5” here. 

[Anti Marine Layer]

Uh oh, Rain lovers!

[TT-SEA]

21 minutes ago, ML Loather said:

Uh oh, Rain lovers!

There will probably be more grass fires in late summer... but the forest fire threat should be lower or at least delayed.   Pretty important distinction because it implies that the significant moisture across the west this year is a bad thing.

[MossMan]

1 hour ago, Skagit Weather said:

Still only 1.15" here so far on the month and 1.04" up at BLI which is about half of average for this time in the month. We'll probably pick up 0.25"-0.5" in the next couple days, but will probably end up more than inch below average by the end of the month.

Forgot to look at my gauge before I left for work, I am somewhere between 3” and 4” for the month. Will have to look when I get home. Still not great but not terrible like up your way…A whole 10-15 minutes away lol.  I’m feeling pretty lucky. 

[MossMan]

7 hours ago, ShawniganLake said:

Peak wind gust with todays storm was 103mph on Solander Island off the NW coast of Vancouver Island. Pretty impressive for April.  

My wife has a online fitness instructor that lives somewhere on an island around Vancouver Island but I don’t remember the name nor do I know Vancouver Island very well at all…But she went to hop onto their normal class last evening and nothing, she tried texting and calling and nothing, then I remembered you mentioning that it got quite windy up here and my wife felt better knowing it was just a communication issue with probably being powerless. Do people live on Solander Island? 

[TT-SEA]

7 minutes ago, MossMan said:

My wife has a online fitness instructor that lives somewhere on an island around Vancouver Island but I don’t remember the name nor do I know Vancouver Island very well at all…But she went to hop onto their normal class last evening and nothing, she tried texting and calling and nothing, then I remembered you mentioning that it got quite windy up here and my wife felt better knowing it was just a communication issue with probably being powerless. Do people live on Solander Island? 

This is Solander Island...

[ShawniganLake]

6 minutes ago, MossMan said:

My wife has a online fitness instructor that lives somewhere on an island around Vancouver Island but I don’t remember the name nor do I know Vancouver Island very well at all…But she went to hop onto their normal class last evening and nothing, she tried texting and calling and nothing, then I remembered you mentioning that it got quite windy up here and my wife felt better knowing it was just a communication issue with probably being powerless. Do people live on Solander Island? 

I don’t think anyone lives there. It’s a rock in the middle of nowhere. 
 

The fitness instructor probably lives on one of the Gulf islands.  Saturna Island gusted to 55mph yesterday.  

[MossMan]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

This is Solander Island...

 

1 minute ago, ShawniganLake said:

I don’t think anyone lives there. It’s a rock in the middle of nowhere. 
 

The fitness instructor probably lives on one of the Gulf islands.  Saturna Island gusted to 55mph yesterday.  

Ahhh yeah that sounds familiar! 

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, MossMan said:

 

Ahhh yeah that sounds familiar! 

You should buy it Randy... no people and windy all the time!

[ShawniganLake]

6 minutes ago, MossMan said:

 

Ahhh yeah that sounds familiar! 

Saltspring island is probably the most populated. Decent chance she lives there.  They have an amazing farmers market in the summer. 

[MossMan]

10 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

You should buy it Randy... no people and windy all the time!

Sounds like heaven!! 

[MossMan]

14 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

Saltspring island is probably the most populated. Decent chance she lives there.  They have an amazing farmers market in the summer. 

I texted my wife to find out, it’s Pender Island apparently. 

[ShawniganLake]

1 minute ago, MossMan said:

I texted my wife to find out, it’s Pender Island apparently. 

That would have been my second guess. 

[Phil]

22 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

And probably won't last more 3-4 days which is also typical no matter what the models show beforehand.

IMO the overall warm theme should last into the first week of May, then a ULL moves closer to into CA/West Coast and ridging re-centers offshore/up in GOA.

22 hours ago, RentonHill said:

Could you imagine the "discourse" if this took place in 2023

I looked up 1954 summer here. Intriguing for sure. Ridge over the Plains lead to persistent NW flow with lots of MCS activity. Despite some very hot days, heat was short lived and the summer was cooler/drier than normal overall, with relatively low humidity. That kind of pattern hasn’t occurred in awhile.

20 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Exactly. Summer will never be wet in our region. 

Summer and Autumn were the wettest seasons there during the last ice age. Eventually it will be wet again during the summer. 

19 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Full 12Z EPS run... some sort of troughing will return after next weekend.    Maybe a ULL pattern into the SW which might still be decent.   Just hoping we don't return to the crazy anomalous troughing again and get some more variety.  

That pattern at the very end is something that’ll probably recur multiple times this warm season. Ridging/high heights centered farther north, less subsidence/more ULLs down south.

15 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Ag Weather update mentioned concern for another dry summer in the middle of the country... citing the very dry conditions cumulatively over the last 3 years during the peak of the growing season from Jun-Sept.    Interestingly... the PNW does not appear to be drier than normal over the same time period.

If tomorrow’s rain underperforms we’ll probably end up in the “severe” drought category by June. Have had 7 consecutive months with below average precipitation and the large scale pattern looks to remain unfavorable for awhile.

13 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Indeed.   Its just math.   

Long term average at SEA for those 4 months is 5.01 inches.

2020 - 5.24

2021 - 5.04

2022 - 3.15

Summertime soil moisture in the westside PNW seems more correlated to the degree of marine influence/cloud cover than rainfall. Need a pattern with more Pacific influence.

[TT-SEA]

15 minutes ago, Phil said:

Summertime soil moisture in the westside PNW seems more correlated to the degree of marine influence/cloud cover than rainfall. Need a pattern with more Pacific influence.

Agreed... that is why I said heat was a much bigger issue than rainfall departures.   But occasional rain throughout the summer always helps a great deal.   That is climo but has been missing during July and August lately. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Thanks for the feedback Phil.

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

2 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Agreed... that is why I said heat was a much bigger issue than rainfall departures.   But occasional rain throughout the summer always helps a great deal.   That is climo but has been missing during July and August lately. 

I have lived here for 6 summers. I have never seen it rain in August. And only a few times in July

[TT-SEA]

4 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

I have lived here for 6 summers. I have never seen it rain in August. And only a few times in July

In 2019 there was rain on 12 days in July at August at SEA.    And 20+ days in that period in my area.    Compared to last year when there was basically none.    The difference was striking.   We did not need to water anything in the summer in 2019... everything stayed lush green.    Last summer we couldn't keep up with watering.   It might be different in your area... but in the Seattle area and EPSL the summers of 2019 and 2022 were at opposite ends of the spectrum.   A few rain events in the summer makes a big difference and its climo.  

[TT-SEA]

12 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

I have lived here for 6 summers. I have never seen it rain in August. And only a few times in July

There was 3.28 inches of rain in August 2015 during a very hot summer... 3 separate significant storms.  That was before your time in the PNW though.  

[Cascadia_Wx]

13 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

I have lived here for 6 summers. I have never seen it rain in August. And only a few times in July

Six of our region’s hottest and driest summers in history probably doesn’t give a very good idea of normal.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Ended up with a 47/32 yesterday, still very chilly for 4/20 but the southerlies took the edge off things late. In a crushing defeat, PDX also rose to 50 just before midnight.

[TT-SEA]

8 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Six of our region’s hottest and driest summers in history probably doesn’t give a very good idea of normal.

True.   But maybe this is becoming the new normal.   What is normal is ever changing.   

[ShawniganLake]

11 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

There was 3.28 inches of rain in August 2015 during a very hot summer... 3 separate significant storms.  That was before your time in the PNW though.  

August 2015 wasn’t a wet month to the north.  We ended up exactly average, with just over an inch on the month.  Those storms all died as they moved north.  

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

August 2015 wasn’t a wet month to the north.  We ended up exactly average, with just over an inch on the month.  Those storms all died as they moved north.  

I remember that... all of them really focused on the Seattle area in particular.

[Anti Marine Layer]

13 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Ended up with a 47/32 yesterday, still very chilly for 4/20 but the southerlies took the edge off things late. In a crushing defeat, PDX also rose to 50 just before midnight.

It missed Earth Day by 2 days.

[TT-SEA]

12Z GEM brings that ULL offshore right into the PNW towards the end of the run.  This seems more plausible than a perma-ridge.   Would not be surprised if 12Z ECMWF goes in this direction as well.

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

34 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

In 2019 there was rain on 12 days in July at August at SEA.    And 20+ days in that period in my area.    Compared to last year when there was basically none.    The difference was striking.   We did not need to water anything in the summer in 2019... everything stayed lush green.    Last summer we couldn't keep up with watering.   It might be different in your area... but in the Seattle area and EPSL the summers of 2019 and 2022 were at opposite ends of the spectrum.   A few rain events in the summer makes a big difference and its climo.  

I miss precip from so many systems that hit SEA. I think I get shadowed from more than 50% of them. It still boggles my mind

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

31 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Six of our region’s hottest and driest summers in history probably doesn’t give a very good idea of normal.

Maybe I am the problem?

[TT-SEA]

4 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

I miss precip from so many systems that hit SEA. I think I get shadowed from more than 50% of them. It still boggles my mind

Sequim is the sunniest and driest place in western WA and you close to there.   

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

1 minute ago, TT-SEA said:

Sequim is the sunniest and driest place in western WA and you close to there.   

I work in Sequim. The "sunny" reputation is BS. The dryness is true, but it is cloudy many many days in Sequim. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

12z runs were decent! 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

40 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Ended up with a 47/32 yesterday, still very chilly for 4/20 but the southerlies took the edge off things late. In a crushing defeat, PDX also rose to 50 just before midnight.

Yet further south SLE scored a 48. Last below normal day of the month? ‘‘Twas a good run.