July 2021 PNW Weather Discussion

[Geos]

12:30 and it's still cloudy and only 60* here in Shoreline. Thinking today will play out a lot like yesterday.

[Phil]

Elsa says hi! Wish I could share this with y’all.

(warning: graphic material, not recommended for north bend audiences).

[Timmy Supercell]

A little smokier today, but AQI's have not exceeded the 150 range so far this summer. I think we're doing better off than a couple other summers we had.

[Timmy Supercell]

15 hours ago, MossMan said:

67/53 on the day, currently 57. 

What I would do for highs around 80 right now! 

[ShawniganLake]

22 minutes ago, Phil said:

It’s possible, but it’s not the most likely outcome, either.

As I’m sure you know, above avg temps are not climo. By definition.  

Never said anything about temps.  A trough sliding by to the north could increase onshore flow and end up cool

[Phil]

1 minute ago, ShawniganLake said:

Never said anything about temps.  A trough sliding by to the north could increase onshore flow and end up cool

Ah, misread you then. Sorry.

[Omegaraptor]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

Elsa says hi! Wish I could share this with y’all.

(warning: graphic material, not recommended for north bend audiences).

Interesting. What’s that stuff falling from the sky? 

[TacomaWaWx]

1 minute ago, Omegaraptor said:

Interesting. What’s that stuff falling from the sky? 

I saw something similar about 23 days ago but nothing since. 

[Phil]

12z EPS is essentially unchanged from 00z.

More suggestive of typical waffling from the op run(s).

[Timmy Supercell]

I set 6 new record highs last month, even more impressive to both begin and end a June setting records.

Matched one Tuesday as well. May break one tomorrow.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Marine clouds burning off and a very pleasant day so far. Should get into the low 80s and then the 90s come back starting tomorrow.

[TacomaWaWx]

7 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Marine clouds burning off and a very pleasant day so far. Should get into the low 80s and then the 90s come back starting tomorrow.

Marine layer is giving way here too was a nice morning. 63 here but should shoot up into the low 70s. 

[TT-SEA]

18 minutes ago, Phil said:

12z EPS is essentially unchanged from 00z.

More suggestive of typical waffling from the op run(s).

Yeah... but the EPS does not show anything epic either.   Basically the same idea as the ECMWF.

 

[snow_wizard]

One thing I'll sure say is if you want to live east of the Cascades the Kittitas Valley is the place to move.  With the onshore flow it has consistently been running 10 to 15 degrees lower than just about anywhere else over there.  I've been comparing the Kittitas Valley to the Wenatchee Valley for the past week and the difference has been 10 degrees every day.  In the winter the flow is almost always offshore so the marine influence doesn't spoil the winters.

[snow_wizard]

Looks like another overperforming inversion today.  The NWS discussion the other day shed some light on that.  It appears that with strong onshore flow coupled with a weak trough over us the inversion is much stronger than if we have a weak ridge.  Thank goodness for this little secondary trough moving through today.

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

One thing I'll sure say is if you want to live east of the Cascades the Kittitas Valley is the place to move.  With the onshore flow it has consistently been running 10 to 15 degrees lower than just about anywhere else over there.  I've been comparing the Kittitas Valley to the Wenatchee Valley for the past week and the difference has been 10 degrees every day.  In the winter the flow is almost always offshore so the marine influence doesn't spoil the winters.

I have noticed the same thing driving through there in the summer over the years.   The temperature always drops when heading west at the top of the Vantage hill through Ellensburg.    The problem with that area is the screaming west wind that occurs even with weak onshore flow.   Its would be really annoying to have a roaring wind all the time.   I swear its windy almost every time we stop in Ellensburg.  

Today is not a good example though since there is currently a ULL centered right over that area now.  

[snow_wizard]

72 in Salem today at 2pm.  That has to feel mighty nice for them.

[snow_wizard]

I love how people are accusing me of seeing what I want.  The same people that said more epic warmth and a record warm summer were a lock a week ago.  This is when the GFS was showing SEA would have no days below 80 for the entire period of the run.  How did that work out?

The point is we really don't know what the rest of the summer will bring.  All I've been saying is where we have been means nothing going forward.  It's just like cold in the early part of the winter doesn't mean the whole winter is going to be cold.  With the atmosphere becoming decidedly Ninaish in the tropics there is no reason to expect we will have another big heat wave.  It could happen, but it very well may not.

One thing I do have a feeling about is we will probably see cold hit pretty early in the cold season.  Second year Ninas are much more likely to bring cold early than first year ones.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

The Jack Fire has jumped Hwy 138 and the Umpqua River. 

The Bootleg Fire has roared to 17,000 acres. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I love how people are accusing me of seeing what I want.  The same people that said more epic warmth and a record warm summer were a lock a week ago.  This is when the GFS was showing SEA would have no days below 80 for the entire period of the run.  How did that work out?

The point is we really don't what the rest of the summer will bring.  All I've been saying is where we have been means nothing going forward.  It's just like cold in the early part of the winter doesn't mean the whole winter is going to be cold.  With the atmosphere becoming decidedly Ninaish in the tropics there is no reason to expect we will have another big heat wave.  It could happen, but it very well may not.

One thing I do have a feeling about is we will probably see cold hit pretty early in the cold season.  Second year Ninas are much more likely to bring cold early than first year ones.

Been pretty warm where I live. Don't see that changing. 

[Deweydog]

5 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I love how people are accusing me of seeing what I want.  The same people that said more epic warmth and a record warm summer were a lock a week ago.  This is when the GFS was showing SEA would have no days below 80 for the entire period of the run.  How did that work out?

The point is we really don't what the rest of the summer will bring.  All I've been saying is where we have been means nothing going forward.  It's just like cold in the early part of the winter doesn't mean the whole winter is going to be cold.  With the atmosphere becoming decidedly Ninaish in the tropics there is no reason to expect we will have another big heat wave.  It could happen, but it very well may not.

One thing I do have a feeling about is we will probably see cold hit pretty early in the cold season.  Second year Ninas are much more likely to bring cold early than first year ones.

Sounds D**n near rational, Jim!  Nicely done!

[Phil]

So much for a robust MJO. 

Instead w1 IO regime bifurcates into a CCKW or shallow MJO with low pass remaining back in the IO. Unpredictable at best, though statistically this is not a warm signal in the west, either.

[snow_wizard]

Where did all of the emojis go?  I wanted to do the puke one and it's not there.

EDIT: They came back.

[snow_wizard]

Just now, Deweydog said:

Sounds D**n near rational, Jim!  Nicely done!

I think part of me being so hyperbolic was to offset the ridiculous we're going to fry forever tone that was going on here.

[Front Ranger]

20 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

72 in Salem today at 2pm.  That has to feel mighty nice for them.

It has sure quieted Andrew.

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I think part of me being so hyperbolic was to offset the ridiculous we're going to fry forever tone that was going on here.

That does not help either.  Saying a July 1954 is incoming to offset those saying it will be like 2015 just hurts your credibility too. 

[Phil]

 

[Deweydog]

6 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I think part of me being so hyperbolic was to offset the ridiculous we're going to fry forever tone that was going on here.

It’s like a window to our current societal state. 

[joelgombiner]

Not to beat a dead horse into the ground... but there's been a fair bit of discussion on here about whether the record-shattering June heat wave can be attributed to climate change. 

I find the following discussion on Real Climate to be more coherent and detailed than anything I've seen from Cliff Mass. 

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/rapid-attribution-of-pnw-heatwave/

They explain how attribution studies work, which atmospheric models are used, and what can go wrong with the process.

I personally find it more convincing than Cliff saying he did a study one time (without providing any reference or details) which proves the extreme heat isn't attributable to climate change, or Cliff posting some arbitrary time series and making a statement based on eye-balling the graph. 

[Phil]

Only caveat here…we have descending easterly shear (oncoming -QBO) which is not necessarily favorable for a stout NPAC High (speaking statistically only..each year is unique).

Still, Niña/-QBO winters tend to be zonal in the absence of a source for wave driving/stratospheric disruption. Though the years which do manage profuse wave driving are often top notch for mobile polar high production and cold loading.

[TT-SEA]

Low clouds cleared to reveal some scenic mid level clouds overhead... which I also saw in Randy's picture earlier. 

[ShawniganLake]

16 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

That does not help either.  Saying a July 1954 is incoming to offset those saying it will be like 2015 just hurts your credibility too. 

If July ended today, 2021 would be warmer than 2015 at Shawnigan lake. 

[Phil]

4 minutes ago, joelgombiner said:

Not to beat a dead horse into the ground... but there's been a fair bit of discussion on here about whether the record-shattering June heat wave can be attributed to climate change. 

I find the following discussion on Real Climate to be more coherent and detailed than anything I've seen from Cliff Mass. 

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/rapid-attribution-of-pnw-heatwave/

They explain how attribution studies work, which atmospheric models are used, and what can go wrong with the process.

I personally find it more convincing than Cliff saying he did a study one time (without providing any reference or details) which proves the extreme heat isn't attributable to climate change, or Cliff posting some arbitrary time series and making a statement based on eye-balling the graph. 

As of today, our GCMs are wholly inadequate for diagnostic/attribution studies of synoptic processes. Our computing capacity is nowhere near sufficient to process all of the physics involved. Even the most sophisticated parameterization scheme(s) fail to realistically simulate the small scale processes though which synoptic evolutions emerge.

[joelgombiner]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

As of today, our GCMs are wholly inadequate for diagnostic/attribution studies of synoptic processes. Our computing capacity is nowhere near sufficient to process all of the physics involved. Even the most sophisticated parameterization scheme(s) fail to realistically simulate the small scale processes though which synoptic evolutions emerge.

Translation: the models suck. 

I tend to agree with you, but your point is not what Cliff argued. In fact, he argued that the models unambiguously prove that the synoptic pattern was *not* made more likely by climate change. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

22 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

It has sure quieted Andrew.

They'll probably still hit 80. 

[Front Ranger]

22 minutes ago, joelgombiner said:

Not to beat a dead horse into the ground... but there's been a fair bit of discussion on here about whether the record-shattering June heat wave can be attributed to climate change. 

I find the following discussion on Real Climate to be more coherent and detailed than anything I've seen from Cliff Mass. 

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/rapid-attribution-of-pnw-heatwave/

They explain how attribution studies work, which atmospheric models are used, and what can go wrong with the process.

I personally find it more convincing than Cliff saying he did a study one time (without providing any reference or details) which proves the extreme heat isn't attributable to climate change, or Cliff posting some arbitrary time series and making a statement based on eye-balling the graph. 

I agree that he should have provided more details or a link to his study.

I disagree with saying the time series was "arbitrary" or that the statement made was simply from eye-balling the graph. The time series was the long term period of records, so not arbitrary, and the linear trend line for the graph was not based on "eye-balling". It was the literal trend over the period of record.

[Phil]

9 minutes ago, joelgombiner said:

Translation: the models suck. 

I tend to agree with you, but your point is not what Cliff argued. In fact, he argued that the models unambiguously prove that the synoptic pattern was *not* made more likely by climate change. 

I disagree with anyone making *definitive* claims regarding the role of climate change(s).

My suspicion is a LIA climate regime could not have produced such an anomalous event, but that’s not scientifically demonstrable on my part. And even if I’m right (which is debatable at best) diagnosing the role of anthropogenic forcing is another matter altogether. Given the numerous mega-droughts across the Holocene (many far worse than today’s) I’d argue the question needs additional context. But again..none of this is scientifically demonstrable.

[Front Ranger]

8 minutes ago, joelgombiner said:

Translation: the models suck. 

I tend to agree with you, but your point is not what Cliff argued. In fact, he argued that the models unambiguously prove that the synoptic pattern was *not* made more likely by climate change. 

Live by models, die by models. It definitely goes both ways. We tend to see people picking the ones that support their preferences more than anything, and scientists are certainly not immune to that.

[Omegaraptor]

If anthropogenic climate change is caused by greenhouse gases, then you’d expect to see the climate gradually change over the last half century as greenhouse gases slowly rise. However, if you look at the frequency of big cold events in the PNW, it isn’t a gradual change - around 1998, it’s like a switch was flipped, and a sudden nosedive occurred. The simplest explanation and the one I believe in (not that it’s definitively correct) is that it was a natural shift in the Pacific Hadley Cell regime.

Tying a singular event down to anthropogenic climate change is much harder. What caused the atmosphere to set up in the incredible way it did? Would this be possible with pre-industrial greenhouse gas concentration? Would it be possible during the circulation regime a century ago? Those questions are extremely hard if not impossible to answer, at least from my perspective.

[TacomaWaWx]

1 hour ago, snow_wizard said:

I love how people are accusing me of seeing what I want.  The same people that said more epic warmth and a record warm summer were a lock a week ago.  This is when the GFS was showing SEA would have no days below 80 for the entire period of the run.  How did that work out?

The point is we really don't know what the rest of the summer will bring.  All I've been saying is where we have been means nothing going forward.  It's just like cold in the early part of the winter doesn't mean the whole winter is going to be cold.  With the atmosphere becoming decidedly Ninaish in the tropics there is no reason to expect we will have another big heat wave.  It could happen, but it very well may not.

One thing I do have a feeling about is we will probably see cold hit pretty early in the cold season.  Second year Ninas are much more likely to bring cold early than first year ones.

I still like you bud. Don’t take it personally I just have a different opinion than you do. Really hope your right about this summer. 
 One thing I will say is it’s still been above normal. July’s running above average and will be above average by mid month even with highs underperforming a bit.