May 2021 Pacific Northwest Weather Obs

[Phil]

Can someone put the GFS out of its misery already?

Every d*mn run it spits out these phantom ULLs over the NPAC and NATL. Hr165-216 over the NW-Pacific is a special kind of stupid.

[TT-SEA]

5 minutes ago, Phil said:

Can someone put the GFS out of its misery already? Every d*mn run it spits out these phantom ULLs over the NPAC and NATL. Egregious.

No doubt... its been such a wet and cold spring and the GFS keeps saying it won't be that wet or cold.

[TT-SEA]

Picked up .50 here tonight with some bands of heavy rain... I believe that puts us over 4 inches in the last 11 days.

[Phil]

10 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

No doubt... its been such a wet and cold spring and the GFS keeps saying it won't be that wet or cold.

The Euro/EPS has been slaughtering the GFS/GEFS in terms of z500 skill scores. It’s downright embarrassing.

Not sure what a wet/cold spring (or lack there-of) has to do with that fact.

 

[MossMan]

My deck just turned wet. Still 0.00” so far on the day though. 
46 degrees. 

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, Phil said:

The Euro/EPS has been slaughtering the GFS/GEFS in terms of z500 skill scores. It’s downright embarrassing.

Not sure what a wet/cold spring (or lack there-of) has to do with that fact.

 

Not much... but there have been lots of rug pulls on deep troughs and rain events.

[TT-SEA]

Just noticed the ECMWF seasonal outlook is generally warm all summer.   The next wetter than normal month it shows is October.

[Phil]

6 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Just noticed the ECMWF seasonal outlook is generally warm all summer.   The next wetter than normal month it shows is October.

Literally every EPS seasonal forecast over the last decade has depicted a western blowtorch for J/J/A. Including 2016, 2019, and 2020, which were far from torches out there (mean ridge position was not over PNW in any of those years).

Not sure if it’s some kind of terrain feedback or what. But it’s usually not worth looking at.

[TT-SEA]

Also... the new ECMWF weeklies update is pretty warm from mid-May through mid-June.

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, Phil said:

Literally every EPS seasonal forecast over the last decade has depicted a western blowtorch for J/J/A.

Not sure if it’s some kind of terrain feedback or what. But it’s usually not worth looking at.

Summers have been mostly cold in the west for the last decade... so that is surprising.  

[Phil]

2 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Summers have been mostly cold in the west for the last decade... so that is surprising.  

It’s been wrong for 2 consecutive years now.

And 3 of the last 5 years. A broken clock is right twice a day.

[Phil]

EPS weeklies. Large amount of spread this run..can barely pick out any coherent wavetrain from the mean after D20.

Until the very end, that is. Which is interesting. But you’re not going to derive much if anything useful from the mean for temp anomalies w/ this. 

 

[TT-SEA]

4 minutes ago, Phil said:

It’s been wrong for 2 consecutive years now.

And 3 of the last 5 years. A broken clock is right twice a day.

Sounds like most of the seasonal forecasts on here.  

[MossMan]

7 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Also... the new ECMWF weeklies update is pretty warm from mid-May through mid-June.

Good! Taking the first trip over to Lake Entiat in a few weeks, hoping it’s nice and toasty over there! 

[TT-SEA]

Just now, MossMan said:

Good! Taking the first trip over to Lake Entiat in a few weeks, hoping it’s nice and toasty over there! 

I think Phil is hinting at lots of cold troughing.   Bring your snow shovel just in case!

[Phil]

The only consistent signal on the EPS weeklies is a GOA/Aleutian ridge. But even that is mediocre in coherency.

[MossMan]

Major dumpage now. 

[Phil]

12 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

I think Phil is hinting at lots of cold troughing.   Bring your snow shovel just in case!

Phil needs sleep. He’ll continue this discussion sometime tomorrow.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Buy Doge. Holy crap! Gonna be able to throw all this in my books soon!!

To the moon!! And watching the endless n/s precip gradient from way out there.

[TacomaWaWx]

Good f*cking lord that was some of the heaviest rain/hail we’ve had here in awhile. Was too loud to sleep through. 

[snow maniac]

Still only .16 of rainfall in 15 days, sure hope we some real rain soon

[TT-SEA]

.80 here now since yesterday afternoon and raining hard.    SEA has had nothing though in the rain shadow.

[snow maniac]

My location is in a perfect spot we’re I don’t see or see very little precipitation from weather when it comes from the west, Northwest or North. The Olympics rain shadows me well.

[BLI snowman]

55 minutes ago, snow maniac said:

Still only .16 of rainfall in 15 days, sure hope we some real rain soon

I hear the rain forest is still seeing rain.

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

I hear the rain forest is still seeing rain.

Its been very wet here recently... after a record dry March/April.    So it has definitely changed.    Unfortunately its not coming from large stratiform rain events that spread the wealth.

Side note... its been dumping rain for the last 20 minutes and now just about up to an inch with this system so far.    This afternoon could interesting as well.   Maybe some thunderstorms in the c-zone.

[TT-SEA]

Looks like we just got into the rain shadow out here now and the rain has stopped... but there is lots of heavy rain north of Seattle that will be slipping south into King County later today.   Randy is getting soaked right now!  

 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Heavy shower moving through. Up to 1.36" on the month. May is already wetter than April was. We will still likely end up below average, but at least we are not headed for a May 2018 like disaster. 

[Kayla]

SPC has us under a Marginal chance for severe storms here this afternoon turning to heavy snow tonight. Classic Bozeman spring weather.

Likely 1-1.5" of precip coming over the next 24-36 hours which is very welcome.

[BLI snowman]

31 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Its been very wet here recently... after a record dry March/April.    So it has definitely changed.    Unfortunately its not coming from large stratiform rain events that spread the wealth.

Side note... its been dumping rain for the last 20 minutes and now just about up to an inch with this system so far.    This afternoon could interesting as well.   Maybe some thunderstorms in the c-zone.

Just another 50 inches to go before you hit your average!

[SilverFallsAndrew]

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Just another 50 inches to go before you hit your average!

Still running wetter than normal here for the year out here... well on our way!    But there have been so many nice days as well.    And this coming week is starting to look really nice too. 

SEA is at 17.38 inches for the year compared to 17.31 inches normally... so just about perfectly normal there now.

[MossMan]

47 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Looks like we just got into the rain shadow out here now and the rain has stopped... but there is lots of heavy rain north of Seattle that will be slipping south into King County later today.   Randy is getting soaked right now!  

 

Yep! Up to .52” so far on the day, .70” for the month, 23.45” since Jan. 1.

40.8 degrees...Brrrr! 

[bainbridgekid]

Pretty impressive for May 7th.

 

[Omegaraptor]

Hillsboro up to 0.04” MTD

[SilverFallsAndrew]

3 minutes ago, Omegaraptor said:

Hillsboro up to 0.04” MTD

1.47” here

[TacomaWaWx]

Got down to 43 here this morning...0.15” since midnight and 0.46” MTD. 

[TacomaWaWx]

Wouldn’t be surprised if the C-zone and some thunderstorms drifted into pierce county and my area today with NW flow. Some of the models picking up on that idea. Could be an interesting weather day for king and pierce county. 

[MossMan]

Raining hard in north Everett currently. 

[MossMan]

Rain has now stopped in north Everett! Light to the west, dark to the east. 

[Chewbacca Defense]

Here are a couple of pictures of the rainbow last night, credit to Randy Small photography/Whatcom County Weather FB page

 

I am bummed I missed out on it and the sunset, got the second round of the Covid vaccine Wednesday and felt like hell yesterday.