September 2015 in the Pacific Northwest

[BLI snowman]

Pretty serious flooding in Friday Harbor today.

 

 

 

I'm going there this weekend!

[Deweydog]

Entertaining stuff today.

To us, maybe, but to a certain television personality/global warming advocate it's some pretty hard truth with probably some serious soul searching to come.

[Black Hole]

Random winter weather post. I thought this was pretty funny, but the 'Godzilla el nino' will win as Cliff Mass pointed out.

[richard mann]

(.. cross-reference.)
 
http://theweatherforums.com/index.php/topic/889-summer-2015-colder-air-mass-movement-and-distribution-projections/?p=84257

[ShawniganLake]

Here is a clip from an email I just received from BChydro talking about the unprecedented storm damage seen during the windstorm.

 

"On Saturday, August 29, the Lower Mainland and parts of Vancouver Island were hit with a significant windstorm. It was quick and intense, and surprised national weather agencies.

 

710,000 customers in the Lower Mainland and parts of Vancouver Island lost power at some point on the weekend due to this storm – this represents half of all BC Hydro customers in these regions. It was the largest outage in BC Hydro history. Drought-weakened trees fell across hundreds of our power lines, causing widespread outages. To give you a sense of the damage sustained in the storm over the course of three days, crews replaced approximately 200 power poles and 500 broken cross-arms on pole-tops, fixed 25 damaged transmission circuits and replaced 10,000 metres of wire and more than 1,200 pieces of electrical equipment.

 

We dedicated the full resources of our company to this effort. This includes BC Hydro staff and contractors based in the Lower Mainland in the emergency centre and in the field. Additional crews were brought in to support restoration efforts from Prince George, Kamloops, Smithers, Terrace, Courtenay, Fort St. John, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Victoria, Williams Lake, 100 Mile House, Campbell River, Duncan, Qualicum, Salmon Arm, West Kelowna and Vernon. Crews responded to 2,400 "trouble calls" or individual work orders (in a normal month there are 2,000 for the entire province). Over a span of 72 hours, power was restored to over 700,000 customers. Never before have we restored power to so many customers so quickly."

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Corvallis hit the upper 30s this morning. PDX MAY have hit the 40s.

[Jesse]

Interesting retrogression pattern around day 10 on the 12Z GFS.

 

It would be nice if we could avoid weeks of ridging after this ten day cool spell. We shall see....

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Looks like PDX hit 49. We are a month ahead of last year. 

[GHweatherChris]

Lets save any good retrogression for when it could count.

[Jesse]

Lets save any good retrogression for when it could count.

Patterns tend to repeat themselves throughout the year.

[GHweatherChris]

Patterns tend to repeat themselves throughout the year.

Not for anything that good the last few years.

[stuffradio]

Patterns tend to repeat themselves throughout the year.

I've found patterns (with the exception of the RRR), only tend to repeat themselves for a limited time such as weeks, or a limited number of months. Then there is a sudden pattern change, and that pattern repeats itself until the next pattern change.

[Jesse]

Not for anything that good the last few years.

 

That's why it would be nice to see some patterns that favor cool weather lasting for more than 7-10 days. Break out of this rut.

 

If the ridge returns in earnest starting next week, I won't be convinced that we have moved on from the broken record of ridiculous torching yet.

[BLI snowman]

Mildly interesting: Ignacio is forecast now to come in a little further south as an extratropical storm towards just north of Vancouver Island next week. GFS shows it totally falling apart once it hits that colder water though.

 

[TT-SEA]

Mildly interesting: Ignacio is forecast now to come in a little further south as an extratropical storm towards just north of Vancouver Island next week. GFS shows it totally falling apart once it hits that colder water though.

 

EP122015W1.gif

 

 

That is the why the models are all over the place for next week.

[Jesse]

Some strong cells firing up around the region today.

 

Mainly over mountainous areas at the moment.

[Jesse]

Had a nice little shower move over earlier. Heavy rain and some small hail. Dropped the temperature to 58. Love this weather.

[TT-SEA]

Sure looking forward to the ridging ahead... we have earned it!   

[Guest Winterdog]

 Currently having a nice wrap around thunderstorm.  Heavy rain, temp 56F.  

[MossMan]

Wow very heavy rain and thunder currently. Finished cleaning up from the windstorm 5min before it started!

[Phil]

According to NOAA, the PDO in August was the 18th highest on record since 1854. Statistically speaking, that's fairly impressive.

[Tyler Mode]

3 consecutive days with highs in the 60s.  That hasn't happened since June 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  It's nice!  Low of 42.4 this morning, my coolest since June 17th.

[Tyler Mode]

A nice dumping of snow down to 6,200' at Sunrise today!

[Front Ranger]

38 in Shelton this morning. Missed the record from 1956 by one degree.

[GHweatherChris]

38 in Shelton this morning. Missed the record from 1956 by one degree.

Has to be the El Nino.. no other explanation.

[bainbridgekid]

The giant Canyon Creek Complex fire got snowed on today.

 

They also had a flash flood watch for the burned out fire zone.

[bainbridgekid]

38 in Shelton this morning. Missed the record from 1956 by one degree.

Woulda broken it if it weren't for the D**n blob.

[Tyler Mode]

Just a skiff of snow at Paradise this morning at 5,400'

[Geos]

Nice snapshots of the Mountain Tyler. Will be up camping at Mount Rainier in a week at the 5,000 ft level. Hopefully this is just a tease of snow and it doesn't become a regular thing until later in the month! Although waking up to a little snow on the tent would be kind of cool.

 

Edit: Found two other camera views.

 

 

 

 

[TT-SEA]

Absolutely love the 12Z ECMWF.

[Jesse]

The models say enjoy our week of fall while it lasts. Summer returns in earnest soon.

[Deweydog]

Apparently fall ball is big in Europe too!

[Jesse]

Apparently fall ball is big in Europe too!

Worth mentioning that the Euro has been wildly different in the 6-10 day range the last several runs. The 00z had a huge trough over us from hour 192 on.

 

But if any solution will verify it will likely be the stain pattern the 12z is showing. Because we can't stay cool for more than ten days at a time anymore.

[Jesse]

Nice snapshots of the Mountain Tyler. Will be up camping at Mount Rainier in a week at the 5,000 ft level. Hopefully this is just a tease of snow and it doesn't become a regular thing until later in the month! Although waking up to a little snow on the tent would be kind of cool.

 

Edit: Found two other camera views.

 

SunriseMtn_090515amsnow.jpg

 

SunriseLot_090515amsnow.jpg

That's probably the most snow they'll see up there until late-November.

[Kayla]

In the meantime... Lot more shower activity out there today than I or anyone expected it seems. Nice strong band about to move through here in the west hills.

[Jesse]

Euro ensemble mean looks a lot different than the op from day 7 onward.

[Jesse]

In the meantime... Lot more shower activity out there today than I or anyone expected it seems. Nice strong band about to move through here in the west hills.

I see that. Nice little surprise. We have been in a great pattern the past week. Almost reminded me of the good old days, pre-2014

[Kayla]

I see that. Nice little surprise. We have been in a great pattern the past week. Almost reminded me of the good old days, pre-2014

 

Actually really surprised of all this activity. Some really strong cells popping up on a day when the models showed almost nothing. PDX may have already reached their high for today with all this cloud cover and showers over the area now. 

[TT-SEA]

In the meantime... Lot more shower activity out there today than I or anyone expected it seems. Nice strong band about to move through here in the west hills.

ECMWF detailed maps have shown showers over SW WA and NW OR this afternoon for about 5 days. I have been watching in the models looking for a dry day. No surprise at all if you look at the right map for surface details.

[Kayla]

ECMWF detailed maps have shown showers over SW WA and NW OR this afternoon for about 5 days. I have been watching in the models looking for a dry day. No surprise at all if you look at the right map for surface details.

 

For Saturday?? From what I always saw was a dry day west of the Cascades. Either way, National Weather Service and media missed this one. 

 

Only 59º here now at 2pm