May 2024 Pacific Northwest Weather

[snow_wizard]

4 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

Time to PIP the GFS and manage it out

It's had quite a bit of success this season actually.

[snow_wizard]

1 hour ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

I don't want cold, I just want wet. But it seems we have to get cold to get wet around here.

I want cold and not wet.  Go figure....

[MV_snow]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

I want cold and not wet.  Go figure....

Unfortunately it’s been hard to pull off cold anomalies with full sun in recent summers. Maybe that changes this year?

[snow_wizard]

Just now, MV_snow said:

Unfortunately it’s been hard to pull off cold anomalies with full sun in recent summers. Maybe that changes this year?

We might see a bit of it.  I think the most likely times would be June - early July, and then late August.

The summers of 2010 and 2011 had some decent periods and they were in a similar context to now.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Currently 63˚F. Been as warm as 64 this afternoon. Official forecast for tomorrow's max is 79˚F.

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

I don't want cold, I just want wet. But it seems we have to get cold to get wet around here.

Not October - February...

[Cascadia_Wx]

26 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

Not October - February...

Yeah, definitely more of a warm season thing.

[Cascadia_Wx]

43 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

It's had quite a bit of success this season actually.

Hoping it can pull a coup against the Euro/EPS again. It has a couple times in the last few months.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Beautiful day. 68/38 spread here with sun. 

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

59 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

Not October - February...

Yeah I was talking about late spring/summer. In the south rains came on hot days. It’s been a challenge to get used to the difference here.

[Meatyorologist]

We tallied just 0.15" of rain here from this last troughing sequence. Basically the worst case scenario with lots of underperformances and very near-misses. It's quite unfortunate for this time of year, but what can you do. We still have a solid month and a half of a defined midlatitude storm train to contend with before it goess full cutoff randomness by July, so here's to hoping!

[Frontal Snowsquall]

Back into the 70s today at PDX. Looks like Troutdale was the hot spot around town with a high of 71.

 

[Meatyorologist]

@TT-SEA By the way things are really blooming right now. Saturday will probably be the best day of 2024 with the plants fully greened out alongside 80F weather under uninterrupted sunshine. If this ridge goes double-barrelled like some guidance suggests we will be starting to dry up by the end of the whole warm spell.

If Phil's proclamation for a return to troughing and seasonable westerlies by the 25th rings true, we'll get to see if a late Spring wet pattern can save the lawn. I haven't really experienced a Spring yet where we dried out and warmed up into the 70s/80s for a couple weeks only for the bottom to fall out during the latter portion of the season. Lately we've been unable to turn that 'Summer switch' back off.

[Meatyorologist]

18z Euro made a clear move upstream towards the 18z GFS and 12z CMC. I think we'll see that troughing return to the D5-10 range by either tonight or tomorrow.

[TT-SEA]

12 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

@TT-SEA By the way things are really blooming right now. Saturday will probably be the best day of 2024 with the plants fully greened out alongside 80F weather under uninterrupted sunshine. If this ridge goes double-barrelled like some guidance suggests we will be starting to dry up by the end of the whole warm spell.

If Phil's proclamation for a return to troughing and seasonable westerlies by the 25th rings true, we'll get to see if a late Spring wet pattern can save the lawn. I haven't really experienced a Spring yet where we dried out and warmed up into the 70s/80s for a couple weeks only for the bottom to fall out during the latter portion of the season. Lately we've been unable to turn that 'Summer switch' back off.

Rainfall at SEA in June just this decade:

2020:  2.28

2021:  1.91

2022:  2.67

2023:  1.22

The faucet rarely shuts off until July in the Seattle area.  

 

[Tanis Leach]

PDX, Vancouver, and TTD all hit 70+ today. Most of the non official that were on NWS were between 67 and 69. 

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

16 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Rainfall at SEA in June just this decade:

2020:  2.28

2021:  1.91

2022:  2.67

2023:  1.22

The faucet rarely shuts off until July in the Seattle area.  

 

Even I got a ton of rain June 2022. But then 4 months with nothing.

[TT-SEA]

Saw this little clickbait gem just now.   Of course this is completely false.  The oceans have been much, much warmer and at that time the Earth was covered in forests even at the poles and life was thriving with no arctic ice or glaciers anywhere on the planet.

 

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

Even I got a ton of rain June 2022. But then 4 months with nothing.

2022 was extreme... but you do realize this is a Mediterranean climate right?   Wet winters and general dry summers.   

[Frontal Snowsquall]

22 hours ago, Tanis Leach said:

Honestly, I think I'm going to punt the forecast by a day. For chances above 90 the downslope winds are slightly stronger, but 850s are slightly lower, so I'll hold 89 for Friday for now, since in my mind they wash out. Either way I'll take a closer look at the downslope effects tomorrow. 

 

I have noticed though despite the lower 850s, The Euro has gone up in temperature at 2m, due to the downslope winds, which it isn't amazing at modeling the strength. 

Mark is still going with 90 on Friday and Rod is too. I think anywhere from 88-92 for PDX. Rod is going with 83 tomorrow but Mark only has 80 as well.

 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Beautiful evening. 

[SouthHillFrosty]

Seattle in the summer is

[DeepFriedEgg]

No more rain until October please

[Frontal Snowsquall]

11 hours ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

Here is for Europe. Overall the trend is pretty similar as an average, -17.9% to -20.4%. We’re lucky that west of the Cascades we have the most positive snowfall trend. No other places have over 100% positive trend. It could be much worse for us, wow just look at England, Denmark and Eastern Europe.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

I'll tell you what. Our summer snowfall has gone down A LOT.

[Front Ranger]

2 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Saw this little clickbait gem just now.   Of course this is completely false.  The oceans have been much, much warmer and at that time the Earth was covered in forests even at the poles and life was thriving with no arctic ice or glaciers anywhere on the planet.

 

So hot they're spewing dead fish and trash onto the beaches!

[Tanis Leach]

2 hours ago, Frontal Snowsquall said:

Mark is still going with 90 on Friday and Rod is too. I think anywhere from 88-92 for PDX. Rod is going with 83 tomorrow but Mark only has 80 as well.

 

KOIN and KGW agree. KATU is going 91, then 90. 

 

What I'm seeing. While median 850s didn't change, too end 850s went up about a degree. Downslope the Euro is going with a 1023 high, to a 1016 low. WRF is doing a 1022 high to a 1014 low. HRRR is a 1025 high to a 1015 low. The Euro didn't change much over 2 days, while WRF and HRRR's gradient went up, without much change in 850s. 

 

Using a modified Temperature potential formula that would better (but not completly) account for this downsloping (aka changing variables in said formula), I come out with a 90 (rounded down) now; instead of 89 (rounded up) just using raw data. Knowing PDX will overperform (and downslope is superadiabatic), I'll jump my forecast to 91 Friday. 89-92 is probably range right now. 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

13 hours ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

And this includes the Feb 1996-Nov 2003 snowless dark ages?

[snow_wizard]

Wowzers!  GFS is all in for another cold shot.

[Meatyorologist]

GFS looks active after D6

[Cascadia_Wx]

3 hours ago, Tanis Leach said:

PDX, Vancouver, and TTD all hit 70+ today. Most of the non official that were on NWS were between 67 and 69. 

Thank you asphalt. Although I think VUO only hit 69. 69/38 spread there which is pretty decent.

[Phil]

5 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

It's had quite a bit of success this season actually.

Eh..it’s performed the worst out of all global numerical guidance. A broken clock is right twice a day.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Euro sticking to its guns. Even better best days of 2024 to come.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Meanwhile the GFS/GEFS has shifted back in a troughier direction. But still a lot of spread.

The 00z EPS comes out way too late these days, but will be interested to see it in the morning.

[TT-SEA]

4 hours ago, Frontal Snowsquall said:

Here is for Europe. Overall the trend is pretty similar as an average, -17.9% to -20.4%. We’re lucky that west of the Cascades we have the most positive snowfall trend. No other places have over 100% positive trend. It could be much worse for us, wow just look at England, Denmark and Eastern Europe.

Wouldn't be hard to calculate the actual change at SEA and PDX.    Might be a situation where it goes from 4 to 5 inches which is a massive 25% increase. 

[TT-SEA]

00Z EPS mean does not look troughy later next week.  WB is running very slowly.   Takes forever to load one page.  

[Meatyorologist]

22 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Euro sticking to its guns. Even better best days of 2024 to come.

84F with brilliant sunshine and green everywhere without any dry vegetation is nice. If we keep it limited to the weekend it'll be a welcome, brief change of pace with great timing to enjoy on my days off. So long as we crash back to earth next week instead of going for round two.

[Cascadia_Wx]

5 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

84F with brilliant sunshine and green everywhere without any dry vegetation is nice. If we keep it limited to the weekend it'll be a welcome, brief change of pace with great timing to enjoy on my days off. So long as we crash back to earth next week instead of going for round two.

Agree with this sentiment. You know I’ll be out enjoying it in some part of the region in some form, even if I use this place as an outlet to grumble about double digit positive anomalies or airport temps wildly exceeding guidance.

It did seem like enough of a purely subjective statement that it called for a little prodding, though.

[TT-SEA]

Just now, Meatyorologist said:

84F with brilliant sunshine and green everywhere without any dry vegetation is nice. If we keep it limited to the weekend it'll be a welcome, brief change of pace with great timing to enjoy on my days off. So long as we crash back to earth next week instead of going for round two.

Are you telling him nice weather fits your schedule?  Not a good idea. 

But timing is great with a weekend and it being Mother's Day.   We are doing boat on Saturday with the entire family (even my mom) and then dinner on the deck on Sunday.    Looking forward to a taste of summer. 

I am sure there will be more rain ahead too.   If it stays warm in May then June is likely to be cooler and wetter than normal.  

[TT-SEA]

12 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

My issue is with gloom when the days are long.  I just hate it for some reason.  In the winter it's dark 2/3 of the time anyway.

Exactly my sentiment.