April 2024 Weather in the PNW

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

14 hours ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

What a beautiful evening out there. I’m curious about frost chances tonight.

We hit 30.7, widespread frost. 

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

1 hour ago, Phishy Wx said:

over here the rule of thumb for the old timers is wait until the snow is off of the north face of Mica Peak (just S/SE of Liberty Lake)

Usually mid may ish

After mother's day. But I do have some hardy stuff already in the garden. 

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Phishy Wx said:

apparently the Dubai mega flooding was cloud seeding gone wrong.  Opps!

That may have added to it, but the setup was ripe to produce heavy rainfall regardless.

I’ve generally been unimpressed w/rt evidence of effectiveness of cloud seeding. Seems to make more of a difference in marginal situations as opposed to setups ripe for deep convection and heavy rain.

[High Desert Mat?]

Over here the rule of thumb is to wait until all the snow is off Black Butte before planting. Short growing season. 

[Cascadia_Wx]

28 minutes ago, Phil said:

That still doesn’t compute. I get autumn is more exciting in the PNW but September pretty “blah” everywhere.

I used to love September around here too. The heat of summer starts to fade, nights get cooler, afternoon shadows get longer,  those first crisp mornings hit, usually we get our first fall rain event at some point in the month.Or even just an abrupt all day marine layer with drizzle and sudden highs in the 60s. Often get the first really foggy morning at some point the last half of the month. Leaves start to change. Just a lot to like.

It’s not as great these days with September being an extension of smoke season more often than not. There have still been some decent ones in recent years, but they are more few and far between than they used to be.

[Cascadia_Wx]

49 minutes ago, Phil said:

What site are you using? 5min obs are working fine for me.

Looks like they started working again in the last few hours. PDX had a few 39s but I’m guessing they were counterfeit and the low will hold at 40.

[Phil]

There are a bunch of them strung together on a light wind shift so there’s a slightly better chance they reached 39. Tho not guaranteed.

If it was gyrating back/forth between 39 & 41 that’d suggest they’re hugging the rounding threshold and likely didn’t make it. Guess we’ll find out soon.

[Phil]

13 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

I used to love September around here too. The heat of summer starts to fade, nights get cooler, afternoon shadows get longer,  those first crisp mornings hit, usually we get our first fall rain event at some point in the month.Or even just an abrupt all day marine layer with drizzle and sudden highs in the 60s. Often get the first really foggy morning at some point the last half of the month. Leaves start to change. Just a lot to like.

It’s not as great these days with September being an extension of smoke season more often than not. There have still been some decent ones in recent years, but they are more few and far between than they used to be.

I’m probably biased.

Looks like Aug and Jan have the ugliest trends up there.

[the_convergence_zone]

35.6 with light frost here. Impressive for mid April. I bet the recent dry weather helped with that. 
 

September and early October are an awesome time in the mountains here with all of the high elevation terrain snow free and showing fall color. Most of my favorite days in the mountains have been around that time of year. As Cascadia says, need a decent rain to knock down the smoke most years. But even last year I had two days up around Mt Baker in mid-September that were fabulous since we were in an onshore flow regime. 

[TT-SEA]

Beautiful morning... coming into NB from PT appointment earlier.

[Phil]

September has changed so much out here it’s incomprehensible. When I was a kid in elementary school it regularly produced legitimate autumn weather. Now it’s nastier than June.

Though we had some awful Septembers in the 19th century (including the record of 104°F in the 1880s) so there’s probably an element of internal variability to it.

[Phil]

If that isn’t a J***e pattern on the LR GFS then I don’t know what is.

[LowerGarfield]

12 minutes ago, Phil said:

I’m probably biased.

Looks like Aug and Jan have the ugliest trends up there.

Is there any place for April? It and May look similar. 

[Cascadia_Wx]

4 minutes ago, Phil said:

If that isn’t a J***e pattern on the LR GFS then I don’t know what is.

Let’s hope so. Only one below normal month in the past year now, raging Jesse patterns notwithstanding. We’re due.

[Cascadia_Wx]

13 minutes ago, the_convergence_zone said:

35.6 with light frost here. Impressive for mid April. I bet the recent dry weather helped with that. 
 

September and early October are an awesome time in the mountains here with all of the high elevation terrain snow free and showing fall color. Most of my favorite days in the mountains have been around that time of year. As Cascadia says, need a decent rain to knock down the smoke most years. But even last year I had two days up around Mt Baker in mid-September that were fabulous since we were in an onshore flow regime. 

Cool. We actually sort of agree on something. Although I like it even better when there’s a dusting of snow up high in addition to the fall colors, which also can happen in September or October.

[TT-SEA]

6 minutes ago, Phil said:

If that isn’t a J***e pattern on the LR GFS then I don’t know what is.

It will inevitably change or get watered down.  

[Cascadia_Wx]

I know it’s been said, but what an absolutely gorgeous spring morning out there.

[Cascadia_Wx]

31 minutes ago, Phil said:

There are a bunch of them strung together on a light wind shift so there’s a slightly better chance they reached 39. Tho not guaranteed.

If it was gyrating back/forth between 39 & 41 that’d suggest they’re hugging the rounding threshold and likely didn’t make it. Guess we’ll find out soon.

Never underestimate the crapulence of that station.

[TT-SEA]

Looks like the 12Z ECMWF is going with a much troughier solution later next week... less focus on CA and more on the PNW.  This makes sense from a climo perspective at this time of year but we have seen the models do this recently only to move it back to CA as it gets closer.    Personally I would love for next week and the weekend to be stormy because we will be in Charleston.   I would hate to miss out on a warm period here.    

[Phil]

59 minutes ago, LowerGarfield said:

Is there any place for April? It and May look similar. 

South FL. Don’t see May anywhere, though. 

[Omegaraptor]

Low of 31 here! 

[Phil]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

It will inevitably change or get watered down.  

FWIW, one of the leading Apr-Jun EOFs during p8-1-2 transitions in waning niños is troughing at the coasts and a ridge in the middle of the country. There are other possible outcomes (subseasonal responses are always state dependent), but I could definitely see that pattern verifying.

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Never underestimate the crapulence of that station.

The fact these urbanizing UHI stations are relied on so heavily in surface climate datasets is a joke.

It’s obvious sfc datasets are corrupted because the vast majority of “observed” warming has occurred at night, even in areas where cloud cover has declined. Also, satellites are in near perfect alignment w/ sfc datasets over the oceans, but on land sfc datasets are warming up to 2X faster than satellite data in some areas.

Yes, GHG-induced warming will also skew slightly higher at night (for a multitude of reasons that require lots of jargon to explain), however it’s a minuscule difference when you actually calculate it, even if you are extra generous w/ how you construct the “fractal” of diurnal/nocturnal fluxes.

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Never underestimate the crapulence of that station.

They hit 39!  

[Phishy Wx]

ThunderGraupel!

41, DP 30

[the_convergence_zone]

20 minutes ago, Phil said:

The fact these urbanizing UHI stations are relied on so heavily in surface climate datasets is a joke.

It’s obvious sfc datasets are corrupted because the vast majority of “observed” warming has occurred at night, even in areas where cloud cover has declined. Also, satellites are in near perfect alignment w/ sfc datasets over the oceans, but on land sfc datasets are warming up to 2X faster than satellite data in some areas.

Yes, GHG-induced warming will also skew slightly higher at night (for a multitude of reasons that require lots of jargon to explain), however it’s a minuscule difference when you actually calculate it, even if you are extra generous w/ how you construct the “fractal” of diurnal/nocturnal fluxes.

They are useful for communicating warming to the public. The 2 meter temp in urbanized areas is what the majority of people experience. Obviously scientists have to be careful to make the distinction of local vs. global climate change and sometimes they are not as careful as they should be. My personal weather station tracks closely with Sea-Tac airport so I think it is fine enough as a representative site for Seattle. 

What bothers me more is that like all surface obs these ASOS stations are prone to sensor drift and bias but they don’t seem to have good QC measures in place to catch that early and it’s often the general public alerting the NWS to an issue. 

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, the_convergence_zone said:

They are useful for communicating warming to the public. The 2 meter temp in urbanized areas is what the majority of people experience. Obviously scientists have to be careful to make the distinction of local vs. global climate change and sometimes they are not as careful as they should be. My personal weather station tracks closely with Sea-Tac airport so I think it is fine enough as a representative site for Seattle. 

What bothers me more is that like all surface obs these ASOS stations are prone to sensor drift and bias but they don’t seem to have good QC measures in place to catch that early and it’s often the general public alerting the NWS to an issue. 

I've never even heard/read anything about "local climate change" and rarely even UHI in mainstream media.

The messages that have been hammered home by most scientists (and activists) almost always are based around global warming - even if local stats and trends provide the reference. 

[TT-SEA]

Beautiful day for the Mariners in Seattle...

[Meatyorologist]

16 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Beautiful day for the Mariners in Seattle...

In a few ways!

[Meatyorologist]

Starting to get to that time of year where we look out for warm core convection. Next week looks like our classic mid-Spring +ENSO cutoff bonanza with lots of potential outcomes, including negtaively tilted troughing. Could be something to grab onto. Haven't had a really good thunderstorm setup since May 2020.

[Meatyorologist]

The Euro has a beast of a trough for Maine late next week with highs in the 20s all the way down to the coast.

[Front Ranger]

41 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Beautiful day for the Mariners in Seattle...

Looks like a video game screenshot. 

[RaleighHillsRunner]

5 hours ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

I know it’s been said, but what an absolutely gorgeous spring morning out there.

I second (or third?) this Been great running weather in the morning lately. 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

62F and beautiful out there.

[MossMan]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

Beautiful day for the Mariners in Seattle...

And they are even playing a little less vomit worthy as well! 

[Cascadia_Wx]

23 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

62F and beautiful out there.

Looks like EUG hit 36 this morning.

[Deweydog]

LIVE LOOK IN from the weather deck.

#itscoming

[T-Town]

7 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

LIVE LOOK IN from the weather deck.

#itscoming

God’s Country. Where in Tacoma is that?

[Phishy Wx]

11 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

LIVE LOOK IN from the weather deck.

#itscoming

what are you hiding from? is that a 1% enclave? how nice is the gate guard?

[Deweydog]

Just now, Phishy Wx said:

what are you hiding from? is that a 1% enclave? how nice is the gate guard?

Your mom. Yes. Not as nice as today.