PNW April 2023 Weather Discussion

[TT-SEA]

12 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

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

I think the sunny reputation comes from the fact that when we have our big rain events in western WA with SW flow that area is usually in a small sunny hole.    But probably doesn't apply to the rest of the time as much.

[BLI snowman]

At about 6.5" here for the month here after yesterday's soaking. Have already surpassed last April here which finished at 5.4".

[Omegaraptor]

22 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

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

Even with 15” of annual precip Sequim is really still a pretty lush place. Fog drip goes a long way!

[BLI snowman]

27 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

12z runs were decent! 

Canadian crashes the 70 degree HEAT party pretty quickly.

[TT-SEA]

47 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

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.

Appears that the 12Z GEM is an outlier compared to its ensemble mean.    But still think the ECMWF might go in the direction of undercutting the ridge fairly quickly.  

[Phil]

 

[Phil]

 

[RentonHill]

5 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

what does this mean. bonus points for no acronyms beyond ENSO

[Phil]

Love seeing that negative anomaly in the SW US.

 

[Phil]

Can’t let our guards down yet, though.

 

[Phil]

3 minutes ago, RentonHill said:

what does this mean. bonus points for no acronyms beyond ENSO

Recent westerly wind burst was potent and should augment the move towards El Niño.

Trades strengthen a bit for the next couple of weeks associated with the MJO, but doubtful it’ll be enough to halt the progression.

[Phil]

This -NAO is gonna reinforce the +AMO in a major way. Expect some wild SST warming next week.

[ShawniganLake]

1 hour ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

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

Have you lived anywhere else in the PNW. I’d wager it’s a pretty “sunny” area.  Victoria is in the top 10 sunniest cities in Canada. Much fewer marine layer days in the summer around southern Vancouver island. 

[Front Ranger]

22 minutes ago, Phil said:

Love seeing that negative anomaly in the SW US.

 

Looking like April could end up as the sixth consecutive below normal month here.

[Omegaraptor]

10 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

Have you lived anywhere else in the PNW. I’d wager it’s a pretty “sunny” area.  Victoria is in the top 10 sunniest cities in Canada. Much fewer marine layer days in the summer around southern Vancouver island. 

Victoria gets about 2200 hours of bright sunshine per year according to Environment Canada.

I’d wager probably most places more than 15 miles east of the crest and most non-coastal places south of 44N latitude are sunnier.

[Front Ranger]

16 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

Have you lived anywhere else in the PNW. I’d wager it’s a pretty “sunny” area.  Victoria is in the top 10 sunniest cities in Canada. Much fewer marine layer days in the summer around southern Vancouver island. 

Important to remember, however, that Canada only has 15 cities.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Nice looking crash at the end of the Euro. Good to see some light on the other end of the tunnel already.

[Omegaraptor]

Looks like the average high of 54.0 at PDX for the April 1-20 stretch was the coldest on record, with 1968 being second at 54.5.

At SEA it was the second coldest on record at 51.1, behind 2011's 50.7.

Worth noting that to be comparable to October 1-20's positive anomaly last fall it would have needed to be about 3-4 degrees colder still. Basically imagine three 4/2008 or 4/2022 events, back to back. Seven of PDX's daily heat records for October were set in 2022.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 minutes ago, Omegaraptor said:

Looks like the average high of 54.0 at PDX for the April 1-20 stretch was the coldest on record, with 1968 being second at 54.5.

At SEA it was the second coldest on record at 51.1, behind 2011's 50.7.

Worth noting that to be comparable to October 1-20's positive anomaly last fall it would have needed to be about 3-4 degrees colder still.

Analog 

[Deweydog]

Who told somebody??? Top story…

https://www.kgw.com/article/weather/portland-weather-forecast-warm-sunny/283-85d2b802-6fa1-4415-90a5-e2ce16f1c1fe

[the_convergence_zone]

3 hours 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.  

That storm cycle prevented wildfires from getting out of hand following the warmest winter on record. I was up in Manning Park BC in mid-August (around the 14th) when the first storm hit -- there were a number of large wildfires at the time that were pretty much knocked down to nothing. Snow fell on the higher peaks. Then there was the memorable windstorm at the end of August. The Queets rainforest fire also got wiped out by that storm cycle. 

The other big mid-summer storm that I remember was July 23, 2014 which was an all-day soaking rain, 0.76" at Sea-Tac. 

Every year is different, but in general the August/September period seems to have a ton of variance in terms of when the first major storm cycle hits. The median date is probably around September 20 but as we've seen recently it can be up to +/- one month from that date. Fortunately the shoulder seasons have been trending wetter in recent decades, and I expect that October 2022 will remain an outlier for a while. 

[Iceresistance]

19 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Oh yeah Shawnee got messed up 

Yeah, that tornado touched down 2.1 miles from me, and managed to become 1.3 miles wide!

[Cascadia_Wx]

2 minutes ago, the_convergence_zone said:

That storm cycle prevented wildfires from getting out of hand following the warmest winter on record. I was up in Manning Park BC in mid-August (around the 14th) when the first storm hit -- there were a number of large wildfires at the time that were pretty much knocked down to nothing. Snow fell on the higher peaks. Then there was the memorable windstorm at the end of August. The Queets rainforest fire also got wiped out by that storm cycle. 

The other big mid-summer storm that I remember was July 23, 2014 which was an all-day soaking rain, 0.76" at Sea-Tac. 

Every year is different, but in general the August/September period seems to have a ton of variance in terms of when the first major storm cycle hits. The median date is probably around September 20 but as we've seen recently it can be up to +/- one month from that date. Fortunately the shoulder seasons have been trending wetter in recent decades, and I expect that October 2022 will remain an outlier for a while. 

You have any actual proof that the shoulder seasons have been trending wetter? And of course that is also going to vary from location to location. Certainly not the case down here.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Raining pretty hard between Albany and Eugene.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

29 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

You have any actual proof that the shoulder seasons have been trending wetter? And of course that is also going to vary from location to location. Certainly not the case down here.

Pretty sure I posted last week that in Oregon spring is quite a bit wetter than 100 years ago. Not sure the same is true for fall. Overall precipitation is pretty stable year over year.

[TT-SEA]

1 hour ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Nice looking crash at the end of the Euro. Good to see some light on the other end of the tunnel already.

I just want to highlight this post... maybe bump it in October when the models finally show 4 days of troughing and I say there is light at the end of the tunnel having to deal with 4 days of troughing after months of ridging.    

[Cascadia_Wx]

26 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Raining pretty hard between Albany and Eugene.

There’s a decent band of showers from about Astoria to Colton right now as well. Nice to see. Hoping they will clip the Portland area before too long.

[Front Ranger]

25 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Pretty sure I posted last week that in Oregon spring is quite a bit wetter than 100 years ago. Not sure the same is true for fall. Overall precipitation is pretty stable year over year.

Just looking at the past 60 years...

Spring (Mar-May) has trended wetter at: SEA, OLM, PDX, SLE

Fall (Sep-Nov) has trended wetter at: SEA, OLM, PDX, SLE

September is the month that has trended least wet, not surprising given it is just as much a summer month as June, though.

[Doinko]

20 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

There’s a decent band of showers from about Astoria to Colton right now as well. Nice to see. Hoping they will clip the Portland area before too long.

Raining a bit here

[Phil]

36 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

I just want to highlight this post... maybe bump it in October when the models finally show 4 days of troughing and I say there is light at the end of the tunnel having to deal with 4 days of troughing after months of ridging.    

^^BREAKING: Tim is forecasting a hot, ridgy summer in the NW.

[Phil]

Now it looks more like June than April.

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, Phil said:

^^BREAKING: Tim is forecasting a hot, ridgy summer in the NW.

Ha!  No. 

But I would have been mocked endlessly for "light at the end of the tunnel" post last October.   

[Meatyorologist]

40 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

I just want to highlight this post... maybe bump it in October when the models finally show 4 days of troughing and I say there is light at the end of the tunnel having to deal with 4 days of troughing after 11 summers of ridging.    

 

[TT-SEA]

7 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

 

The only light at the end of a tunnel right now is a little spring ridging which is way overdue.  

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Been consistent rain for most of the last couple hours. Nice stretch of cool weather that is very much needed here.

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

15 minutes ago, Phil said:

Now it looks more like June than April.

Wow. 

[Phil]

Still doing our best CA impression. Just stupid at this point.

 

[Phishy Wx]

6 hours 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

sounds like a Spokane summer, unless we get a renegade Thunderstorm if the the SW monsoon is really strong.  last August we had storm go thru about a mile east of my place that put down tennis ball sized hail. oof

[Deweydog]

9 minutes ago, Phil said:

Still doing our best CA impression. Just stupid at this point.

 

[Doinko]

11 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

sounds like a Spokane summer, unless we get a renegade Thunderstorm if the the SW monsoon is really strong.  last August we had storm go thru about a mile east of my place that put down tennis ball sized hail. oof

I was in that area in August 2021 and there was a nice thunderstorm with some heavy rain at times