July 2021 PNW Weather Discussion

[Jesse]

43 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

Where is King County again?

This map shows marine stratus from the BC border to Salem and from the coast to the Cascade valleys. Is that all King County? 

You really didn’t understand the discussion yesterday did you?

[Front Ranger]

9 hours ago, Phil said:

Eh, I’d agree the “drought hypothesis” fails as an explanation for the heatwave (that is loony tunes garbage) but it’s clear that May-September has trended drier across the PNW over the last several decades.

The cold season has trended wetter, which offsets the summer drying, but that doesn’t change the fact summer precip, hence soil/fuel moisture, has decreased.

This is true, but at the same time winter/spring precip is far more important for drought than summer precip in the PNW.

[TacomaWaWx]

8 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Looking a little juicier with the marine stratus here this morning as well. Not really feeling the big 90 today for our area. 

I'll echo Jim and say that it's subtly turning into a pretty tolerable month from about Clark County on north. 

Hopefully our stretch of average/slightly above weather lasts as long as possible. Has been nice recently but eventually it’ll break. 

[Front Ranger]

2 hours ago, CloudBFIWx said:

Completely and utterly useless garbage take to claim there is “no drought in the PNW/region” then only proceed to show a chart for Washington State only. Is OR, part of ID, and BC not part of the PNW? There are so many missing components here such as, could a wetter fall/winter offset a warmer/dryer spring/summer? Sure! It seems like that is conveniently missing from the article. 

Come on, this is cherrypicking at its best and he can do a lot better. Not worth the time. 

I don't think it's "cherrypicking" since WA is where he lives and it makes sense that's where he'd focus.

But I agree that he shouldn't be making statements about the PNW overall based just on WA precip trends.

To be fair, he also did not say there's no drought in the PNW, he said there's no trend towards increasing drought...which is true for WA.

 

[TacomaWaWx]

1 minute ago, Jesse said:

Was thinking the same thing. We will pay for having anomalies merely 2-5 degrees above average eventually. 

Yea…it looks not too hot here through mid July…but there’s still a full second half of summer to go…which is usually the hottest part of the summer so pretty much guaranteed to have atleast a couple stretches of warm/hot weather.  

[Front Ranger]

21 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Looking a little juicier with the marine stratus here this morning as well. Not really feeling the big 90 today for our area. 

I'll echo Jim and say that it's subtly turning into a pretty tolerable month from about Clark County on north. 

2015 on ROIDS for Andrew, though!

[TacomaWaWx]

2 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

2015 on ROIDS for Andrew, though!

It is pretty rough down there for sure. Could be a worse 7 day forecast up here. 

[Cloud]

9 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

I don't think it's "cherrypicking" since WA is where he lives and it makes sense that's where he'd focus.

But I agree that he shouldn't be making statements about the PNW overall based just on WA precip trends.

To be fair, he also did not say there's no drought in the PNW, he said there's no trend towards increasing drought...which is true for WA.

 

Eastern WA disagrees and perhaps now he should just focused solely on the Seattle area. Because E. Wa is still part of WA right?  Yes?

[BLI snowman]

8 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

2015 on ROIDS for Andrew, though!

+7.5 so far for SLE. And clearing skies down there again this morning for another 90+ today

[Cloud]

Last destination before leaving for home yesterday. Absolutely beautiful but way too crowded and people throwing trash everywhere! Ugh, humans.

Planning on coming back in the fall for the foliage and hopefully winter if Portland gets some snow. 

 

[ShawniganLake]

34 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

There is actually more and thicker stratus here than previous days. There has been a trend, over the past week, of there being less low clouds here than further south. Many of my recent mornings have been clear or only partly cloudy, all the while people to the south were posting about being socked in.

It would be no surprise if this trend continues today. Despite the sunshine, the sea breezes have been vigorous and have kept afternoons cool here. I also expect that trend to continue.

No stratus at all here the past 3 days.  Just wall to wall sun with a few high clouds. 

[Jesse]

Low clouds hanging tough here with a low of 57. Definitely a pleasant surprise. I still think PDX will hit 90 today though. 87-88 here.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, CloudBFIWx said:

Last destination before leaving for home yesterday. Absolutely beautiful but way too crowded and people throwing trash everywhere! Ugh, humans.

Planning on coming back in the fall for the foliage and hopefully winter if Portland gets some snow. 

 

Multnomah Falls!

[Front Ranger]

8 minutes ago, CloudBFIWx said:

Eastern WA disagrees and perhaps now he should just focused solely on the Seattle area. Because E. Wa is still part of WA right?  Yes?

That's just a 30 year period, though. Those are often cyclical. Probably better to look at longer periods for climate trends, which is what he did.

I'm far from a Mass apologist, I've been very critical of him at times. Sometimes I think he's wrong, sometimes he's right or making a solid argument. It's not all or nothing.

[Cloud]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Multnomah Falls!

The falls are so beautiful. Definitely treasures. I just wish people would respect what they’re there for and not trash the area…. But I guess it can’t be helped. 

[Link]

4 hours ago, Timmy_Supercell said:

Did he really just claim the northwest is not in a drought... Wait this reminds me of something he said in 2015. lol

This is how Robert Felix operates a lot on his website with his 'breaking news' articles.  I used to just read it for the shits and giggles. 

[Front Ranger]

22 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Yea…it looks not too hot here through mid July…but there’s still a full second half of summer to go…which is usually the hottest part of the summer so pretty much guaranteed to have atleast a couple stretches of warm/hot weather.  

Anomaly-wise though, it's very possible the hottest part of summer is over. Likely, in fact.

Also very possible many places saw their warmest 2 week stretch of absolute temps for the summer in June.

Or maybe Tiger and others will end up right, and that was just the warmup for a hellish summer inferno that goes on for months. We shall see!

 

[Cloud]

2 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

That's just a 30 year period, though. Those are often cyclical. Probably better to look at longer periods for climate trends, which is what he did.

I'm far from a Mass apologist, I've been very critical of him at times. Sometimes I think he's wrong, sometimes he's right or making a solid argument. It's not all or nothing.

Fair enough for now because when I have time today I’ll do more research on E. WA trends. If I had to guess, the Cascades will play a big role in the precip distribution even at a longer period. My point still stands because he seemed to be focused on the Seattle/W. Wa alone then paint a picture of it as the PNW. This is where we agreed that he shouldn’t have done. 

[Omegaraptor]

Just now, Front Ranger said:

Anomaly-wise though, it's very possible the hottest part of summer is over. Likely, in fact.

Also very possible many places saw their warmest 2 week stretch of absolute temps for the summer in June.

Or maybe Tiger and others will end up right, and that was just the warmup for a hellish summer inferno that goes on for months. We shall see!

 

June was a +6 to +9 anomaly across inland Oregon for the most part. Pretty hard to outdo that.

[Front Ranger]

3 minutes ago, Jesse said:

You really get off on feeling like you are somehow more objective than everyone else don’t you?

Once again, you resort to this ad hominem crap instead of actually addressing the points made. Weak.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, Jesse said:

Low clouds hanging tough here with a low of 57. Definitely a pleasant surprise. I still think PDX will hit 90 today though. 87-88 here.

What are these low clouds you speak of? Puzzling phenomenon of the north. 

[Jesse]

3 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

Once again, you resort to this ad hominem crap instead of actually addressing the points made. Weak.

Some things aren’t really worth the energy. James Jones put things together pretty succinctly yesterday. Good on him to be willing to put the time into a lost cause, and even he knew when to step away.

[Cloud]

11 minutes ago, Jesse said:

Some things aren’t really worth the energy. James Jones put things together pretty succinctly yesterday. Good on him to be willing to put the time into a lost cause, and even he knew when to step away.

This was my fault, I shoulda let it die when it was clearly on life support and with no clear interest in the discussion even though that was what Tim was trying to do. 

[Phil]

56 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

This is true, but at the same time winter/spring precip is far more important for drought than summer precip in the PNW.

I’d argue fewer marine layer days (and the resulting increase in surface insolation) are even more consequential for warm season soil moisture content out there.

Here it only takes a month with lackluster rain to trigger drought conditions, regardless of spring rainfall. Just two months are enough to trigger extreme drought.

[TT-SEA]

5 minutes ago, CloudBFIWx said:

This was my fault, I shoulda let it die when it was clearly on life support and with no clear interest in the discussion even though that was what Tim was trying to do. 

What did I do again?

[Phil]

57 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Yea…it looks not too hot here through mid July…but there’s still a full second half of summer to go…which is usually the hottest part of the summer so pretty much guaranteed to have atleast a couple stretches of warm/hot weather.  

Well FWIW, if the new EPS weeklies’ VP200 signature verifies, that late summer death ridge might end up roasting me instead of you guys.

[Deweydog]

So is Jim no longer a prescription drug addict?

[Front Ranger]

47 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

+7.5 so far for SLE. And clearing skies down there again this morning for another 90+ today

If the GFS is correct, today looks to be about as warm as it gets for the Willamette Valley in the foreseeable future.

[Cloud]

7 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

What did I do again?

You didn’t do anything Tim, just saying you were probably trying to get some discussions going yesterday with the Mass article but there weren’t any interest from the start, probably because it’s very polarized. So I brought it back up.  

[Front Ranger]

10 minutes ago, Phil said:

I’d argue fewer marine layer days (and the resulting increase in surface insolation) are even more consequential for warm season soil moisture content out there.

Yeah, we'll have to see if the recent increase in marine layer days (for *some* regions) is a blip or if the return to -PDO signals the end of the decadal trend towards fewer.

[Phil]

Shawnigan’s smoke has arrived here.

That must’ve been a crazy f**king situation out there. Have never seen the sky look like this in early July. Ever.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Never expected Cliff Mass to go full Trump train on us like this. 

[Cloud]

4 minutes ago, Phil said:

Shawnigan’s smoke has arrived here.

That must’ve been a crazy f**king situation out there. Have never seen the sky look like this in early July. Ever.

Well yeah, a town was 90% destroyed so I’d say it’s f*king crazy. 

[TacomaWaWx]

16 minutes ago, Phil said:

Well FWIW, if the new EPS weeklies’ VP200 signature verifies, that late summer death ridge might end up roasting me instead of you guys.

I will gladly give you the death ridge. Hopefully Jims right about this summer…but he’s pretty much always calling for the next anomalous cold every week or two it seems so it’s hard to tell with him. 

[TT-SEA]

8 minutes ago, CloudBFIWx said:

You didn’t do anything Tim, just saying you were probably trying to get some discussions going yesterday with the Mass article but there weren’t any interest from the start, probably because it’s very polarized. So I brought it back up.  

That was this morning... and it was a long read with lots of information.   I found it to be a little one-sided but gives us something to discuss.  

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, CloudBFIWx said:

Well yeah, a town was 90% destroyed so I’d say it’s f*king crazy. 

That was a tiny town and it went up in flames in 15 minutes.    That is not really the source of his smoke.   His smoke appears to be coming from massive fires in Manitoba and western Ontario.

[Phil]

5 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

Yeah, we'll have to see if the recent increase in marine layer days (for *some* regions) is a blip or if the return to -PDO signals the end of the decadal trend towards fewer.

Agree. Though I’d argue the return of Aleutian/GOA ridging (hence the more onshore gradient, generally speaking) has driven the increase in marine influence on the westside, rather than the “PDO”.

Which, BTW, was the signal on the long range EPS that I was paying attention to (rather than those blood red 850mb temp anomalies).

[Cloud]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

That was this morning... and it was a long read with lots of information.   I found it to be a little one-sided but gives us something to discuss.  

I can’t even tell time anymore so yea. It was a long read and I just happened to disagree with roughly 85-90% of the stuff he said. Though he did made some good points as well.

[Geos]

Marine layer seems a bit thicker this morning. Sitting at 57° right now. 

[TT-SEA]

You can clearly see the fires in Manitoba dumping smoke into the US...