April 2014 in the PNW

[Phil]

That theme should continue well into May.

I hope you bust.

[Jesse]

It's been nasty here too, but at least it looks like the worst is behind us.

 

The ground is still frozen solid, snow everywhere, and no sign of bird/plant life. We're way past the equinox now too.

 

Goes to show how massive our system's thermal inertia truly is. We're approaching a late-August Sun angle.

I think that as of today the sun angle is equivalent to September 5th, roughly.

[TT-SEA]

I think that as of today the sun angle is equivalent to September 5th, roughly.

 

He said approaching.   We will be at late August sun angle equivalent later this coming week.

[Jesse]

He said approaching. We will be at late August sun angle equivalent later this coming week.

Did I disagree with him?

[chinook]

Did I disagree with him?

No. You were pointing out for today.

[Jesse]

In the mean time, I am going to try to savor the last few days of autumnal sun angles. Just under five months to go until they're back.

[Black Hole]

One of my classes is called 'weather forecasting' and I am leading the class, including the teacher so that's fun. Anyway we had a forecast for Seattle the other day so I felt pretty comfortable with that one because I knew about its warm bias ahead of time

[richard mann]

-

There's no doubt 2014-15 will be an El Niño winter. Problem is people love to hype and ignore the facts (AKA what governs ENSO). Hence all the super Niño predictions.

— And others (apparently), like to draw general conclusions regarding / present general characterizations of .. "peoples'" views, other than their own.

http://theweatherforums.com/index.php?/topic/141-2014-enso-thread/page-2&do=findComment&comment=24306

[richard mann]

... [The] Problem is ... people love to hype .. and ignore the facts (AKA what governs ENSO). 

 

Remind us all again, if you would perhaps then "Phil", as to your own views regarding these main causal or controlling factors and elements.

 

Here, perhaps. —> http://theweatherforums.com/index.php?/topic/141-2014-enso-thread/page-2 (.. head of pg. 2.)

http://theweatherforums.com/index.php?/topic/141-2014-enso-thread/?p=24306 (.. The most recent post to the thread.)

 

— For better general referencing in the future. ....

 

("AKA" / "also known as". ?)

[BLI snowman]

18z alert!

 

Something like that would be kind of groovy.

[Jesse]

18z alert!

 

Something like that would be kind of groovy.

Outlier.

[Timmy Supercell]

Pure misery there.    I am telling you... people are at their wits end after two horrible winters and now springs in a row.

 

One of the stations there had a story about coping with the horrific weather and the importance of talking to other people rather leaving it bottled up.      

 

Spring started 15 days ago and we call it quits..

 

By May it will be alright!

[richard mann]

Major SSW attm with a favorable EPF and full scale propagation likely, could be the FW event.

 

Should see more "blocking" develop in May/June..which is exactly when we DON'T want it.

 

Working backward through this set of statements here above (Not, so far as I can tell, connected particularly to anything previous to it, posted whether by yourself or anyone else.), and with my apologies, .. Why, don't we (presumably those of us either whether or both in or interested in what takes place weather and or climate wise where looking at the PNW), want to see more "blocking" develop in May/ June. ?

 

And then with this question otherwise, could you perhaps expand a bit more where regarding, elucidate with respect to, what you've said here above more initially, having apparently lead to the conclusion that you've pointed to. ?

[Guest Monty67]

18z alert!

 

Something like that would be kind of groovy.

That would be more than groovy. I like our chances of seeing some decent ridging around mid month.

[Weather101]

Sunny and 60-70F is the best weather for spring/summer IMO. 70-75F is find but anything more is uncomfortable and too much.

[Jesse]

For those wanting to see a return to a ridgy pattern, it's interesting to think about how ridgy overall the last year or so has been.

 

Late April/early May last year were quite warm and ridgy. Same with early June, then we had the heat wave in late June of course. July-early September were persistently ridgy. We had a wet and cool period for about a month between mid-September and mid-October, then went right back to an extremely ridgy pattern for about three weeks. The last half of November and most of December and January had a ridge either near us or over us. February and March were wet and now we are looking at a possibly ridgy middle of April. 

 

Just some food for thought.

[TT-SEA]

For those wanting to see a return to a ridgy pattern, it's interesting to think about how ridgy overall the last year or so has been.

 

Late April/early May last year were quite warm and ridgy. Same with early June, then we had the heat wave in late June of course. July-early September were persistently ridgy. We had a wet and cool period for about a month between mid-September and mid-October, then went right back to an extremely ridgy pattern for about three weeks. The last half of November and most of December and January had a ridge either near us or over us. February and March were wet and now we are looking at a possibly ridgy middle of April. 

 

Just some food for thought.

 

 

Just want what has been basically two months of nearly endless rain and troughing here to end.   Don't care how it ends.   Just end.   

 

A ridge is the easiest path to ensuring that result.

 

You want some very specific pattern where its troughy and cold but sunny.    That would be fine with me... but it seems much more difficult to achieve that result.     

 

I am easy... don't care if its 58 and sunny or 78 and sunny.    The only part of that equation that matters to me is the sunshine and a generally dry weather regime. 

[TT-SEA]

Heavy drizzle here... probably socked in all day again.

 

GFS and the MM5 models completely blew it for today... ECMWF has shown light precip out here all day for today for many runs.

 

Did I ever mention that I hate warm fronts??   

[Jesse]

Heavy drizzle here... probably socked in all day again.

 

GFS and the MM5 models completely blew it for today... ECMWF has shown light precip out here all day for today for many runs.

 

Did I ever mention that I hate warm fronts??   

 

At least we can agree about that.

 

Worst weather possible in this climate, hands down. Nothing redeeming about it usually, not even mountain snow.

[TT-SEA]

At least we can agree about that.

 

Worst weather possible in this climate, hands down. Nothing redeeming about it usually, not even mountain snow.

 

Amorphous blobs of precipitation with no definition.   

 

Can track on the radar very well... most of it comes from the thick pile of low-level, gooey crap that gets deposited on top of us and can't clear out.

 

Sometimes it goes on for days.     Weather hell.      

[Jesse]

Just want what has been basically two months of nearly endless rain and troughing here to end.   Don't care how it ends.   Just end.   

 

A ridge is the easiest path to ensuring that result.

 

You want some very specific pattern where its troughy and cold but sunny.    That would be fine with me... but it seems much more difficult to achieve that result.     

 

I am easy... don't care if its 58 and sunny or 78 and sunny.    The only part of that equation that matters to me is the sunshine and a generally dry weather regime. 

 

I would just like to see an overall dry pattern during the warm season that doesn't completely torch. It used to happen a lot around here. I believe the atmosphere is still completely capable of it, and there will probably come a time when it becomes common again.

 

It's not like it takes some sort of extremely unusual setup. Basically just take whatever ridge that is giving us nice weather and move the axis a little bit offshore and I'm a happy camper.

 

I am even fine with some very warm days as long as there is variability. Dry fronts/clipper systems and cold nights here and there to break things up. It's when the warmth starts to get stagnant and redundant and consistently record-breaking that I start to get antsy.

[Jesse]

Amorphous blobs of precipitation with no definition.   

 

Can track on the radar very well... most of it comes from the thick pile of low-level, gooey crap that gets deposited on top of us and can't clear out.

 

Sometimes it goes on for days.     Weather hell.      

 

I'm going hiking on the east side again today. Plenty of sunshine over there. You should follow suit.

[TT-SEA]

I'm going hiking on the east side again today. Plenty of sunshine over there. You should follow suit.

 

 

We should.  

 

So much yardwork we want to do and its just terrible out there.   A drenching, miserable drizzle.   

 

Really hoping next weekend stays dry like the models are showing.    

[stuffradio]

I would gladly accept a weather pattern where it's rain 1 or 2 days, followed by 3-5 sunny days in a row. That doesn't usually happen though. Usually we get rain for 4+ days in a row and 1 sunny day.

 

Environment Canada says it's supposed to reach 68F for me next weekend.

[BLI snowman]

For those wanting to see a return to a ridgy pattern, it's interesting to think about how ridgy overall the last year or so has been.

 

Late April/early May last year were quite warm and ridgy. Same with early June, then we had the heat wave in late June of course. July-early September were persistently ridgy. We had a wet and cool period for about a month between mid-September and mid-October, then went right back to an extremely ridgy pattern for about three weeks. The last half of November and most of December and January had a ridge either near us or over us. February and March were wet and now we are looking at a possibly ridgy middle of April. 

 

Just some food for thought.

 

Okay... we also just had a top wet March and a cold, wet February. And we're not in any kind of -ENSO event, so there's nothing to sway things towards a persistently cold/wet pattern like you would like.

[TT-SEA]

GFS MOS and the new WRF run keep it fairly cloudy tomorrow with rain moving in by noon on Tuesday.

 

Not really going to break out of this crap for awhile.

[Jesse]

Okay... we also just had a top wet March and a cold, wet February. And we're not in any kind of -ENSO event, so there's nothing to sway things towards a persistently cold/wet pattern like you would like.

Cold and wet isn't what I'm looking for. If you want to know what kind of April weather I would like, look no further than the 12z GFS. Just about perfect.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

12z GFS looks fairly pleasant! 

[TheBigOne]

Working backward through this set of statements here above (Not, so far as I can tell, connected particularly to anything previous to it, posted whether by yourself or anyone else.), and with my apologies, .. Why, don't we (presumably those of us either whether or both in or interested in what takes place weather and or climate wise where looking at the PNW), want to see more "blocking" develop in May/ June. ?

 

And then with this question otherwise, could you perhaps expand a bit more where regarding, elucidate with respect to, what you've said here above more initially, having apparently lead to the conclusion that you've pointed to. ?

Because if the blocking happens in May/June that will *waste* the potential energy for summer and then we enter a troughy regime with constant onshore flow or a trough to the SW of us that brings in higher humidity.   Last summer Salem Oregon had constant dewpoints of 58 to 60F which is rather sticky for here and I didn't enjoy it one bit in the afternoons!     Yuck!  And to think that New England the dews are 70F!  Sometimes 75F!   Sounds like pure hell!  

 

Last summer humidity was even worse during the Grants Pass fires as Mom kept all the windows closed since she was allergic to all that smoke so we had to constantly use the AC.  We usually only use it at night to sleep in the summer and leave it off most of the daytime as we have lots of shade.

 

The humidity was virtually everywhere south of Portland and places north didn't even notice until mid August I believe which is when Cliff Mass made a post about it as if he just found out and I felt like putting him into a headlock and scream "You just NOW figured it out?"

 

The night times for several weeks temps stayed around 65F as if we were New England and a few nights didn't go below 70F    I actually felt like Salem Oregon became Salem Connecticut except no thunderstorms until September.

[Timmy Supercell]

GFS has consistently shown some warmer weather approaching in the latter parts of April. At least the better runs anyway (12z / 00z) No need to get all your panties in a bunch

 

Portland/Troutdale KTTD 12Z GFS

http://i58.tinypic.com/2dlkzg0.jpg

 

Klamath Falls KLMT 12Z GFS

http://i62.tinypic.com/63zyi0.jpg

 

And looks like another real Spring for me down here. I have been spared from cold weather during my last 2 Springs in K-Falls. 2011 was a cooler than normal year, gave me a rather rude perspective on what Spring's are really like in southern east slopes. Can still see a few nights off/on where I would wake up to a dusting and get afternoon graupel showers but the weather is dominantly warmer.

[richard mann]

.... Should see more "blocking" develop in May/June..which is exactly when we DON'T want it.

 

http://theweatherforums.com/index.php?/topic/214-april-2014-in-the-pnw/?p=24324

 

My own estimation in any case (i.e. if less conversational.), of just when we ("the people" of the Greater far West.), will - or might, most likely see the initial development of any more substantial ridging during "May" and "June", .. is (would be.) during the end of the initial week of both of these months. 

[snow_wizard]

The ECMWF likes the idea of lots of dry weather coming up.  It would appear there is a solid threat of frost later in the week also.  If that model is correct the upper Midwest could see some amazingly cold low temps as an Arctic surface high moves over that part of the country next week.  Could cause some real problems for agriculture.

[TT-SEA]

The ECMWF likes the idea of lots of dry weather coming up.  It would appear there is a solid threat of frost later in the week also.  If that model is correct the upper Midwest could see some amazingly cold low temps as an Arctic surface high moves over that part of the country next week.  Could cause some real problems for agriculture.

 

 

There is no agriculture to effect yet.    

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Frost in April in the Willamette Valley is pretty much an annual occurrence. 

[Deweydog]

One of my neighbors just stopped by to borrow my pressure washer.  He said "nice out, eh?"  I agreed with him!

[snow_wizard]

One of my neighbors just stopped by to borrow my pressure washer.  He said "nice out, eh?"  I agreed with him!

 

 

He wouldn't have said that here.  At least it's slowly improving.

[chinook]

There is no agriculture to effect yet.

 

Perhaps the continued delay in which farmers, nurseryman and other folks in AG are hoping to disappear ...spades, plows etc. are anxious.

[Tyler Mode]

For my Battle Ground station, my last frost averages May 3rd the last 3 years.

 

For my station closer to downtown Vancouver, the average is today, ironically, April 6th.

 

Granted these usually aren't hard freezes, just touching freezing or so.

 

As for today, 64 degrees with mostly cloudy/partly cloudy skies.  Not great, but certainly noticeably nicer after the last few days.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

In 2012 my last hard freeze was a low of 28 on May 18th

 

In 2013 my last hard freeze was a low of 25 on May 1st.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Last freezes at SLE the past few years.

 

2013: April 30

2012: May 10

2011: April 19

2010: March 19

2009: April 4

 

 

Most recent freeze at SLE this year was March 23rd, so no matter what they will have a later last freeze date then 2010.