Last night a weak disturbance passed by us to the north. As a result the pressure trough over western Washington shifted eastward and the onshore pressure difference increased to near 2 millibars. The result...a weak influx of marine air that brought clouds to the coast, the Strait, and SW Washington. Thus, today will be a few degrees cooler than...
Big Day for the Coastal Radar and our fine weather continues
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It was an extraordinary day today. At a community forum in Seattle organized by Senator Maria Cantwell, the coastal radar issue was discussed in depth. The full cost of the radar is in the proposed budget...and if passed by Congress...the radar will happen. This is getting close to a sure thing. The National Weather Service was there in force, including their Director Jack Hayes and head of Science and Technology, Don Berchoff. The NWS is now an enthusiastic supporter of the acquistion and they have hired a team to do site surveys on the coast this week. By January or February a decison on siting should be done...AFTER...
Sound Breeze!
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During the warm season, the subtleties of local weather are to be savored, and none is more frequent than the Sound Breeze.Official definition: the Sound Breeze is the northerly wind that develops during the midafternoon over the northern half of Puget Sound and which maintains itself until approximately 8-9PM. Over the central Sound the breeze can...
No Weather
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This is going to be an extraordinary weekend...dry, generally sunny, with temps in the lowlands around 70F. The satellite picture this morning showed some low clouds on the coast that pushed into the SW interior...but that will rapidly burn back (see image). Just to remind you of the rain, I have attached a plot of the average May rainfall (blue)...
Lightning!
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Sometimes the weather gets downright scintillating around here...and last night was a good example. An intense convergence zone formed north of Seattle, with heavy rain and even some small hail/graupel. My house was inundated, with 1.25 inches over the day. The strong convection in the convergence zone produced about a half-dozen lightning strikes...
Front and convergence zone
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A fairly wet spring front is now moving through--the radar shows it clearly (see image). You every notice that the heavy rain never seems to spread over the Cascades? Why? blockage of the radar beam by the terrain. Most of the time you see the radar image from the lowest elevation angle (.5 degrees above the horizon). Many of us are hopeful that...
Finally...a nice weekend
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It is interesting that we almost always have a mid-May break of nice weather...even during the worst years. And then we descend into the June low clouds before the major shift after July 4th. You can almost set your clock by it. Today will be sunny and warm in much of the state...and the latest visible satellite image shows clouds limited to...
Community Forum on the Coastal Weather Radar
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There will be a major local meeting on the acquisition of a coastal weather radar for Washington State on Thursday, May 28th at 10:30 AM, hosted by Senator Maria Cantwell, a key supporter of this acquisition. (see below for more info)I encourage those of you who would like to learn more about the coastal radar and/or would like to express your support of this acquisition to attend. The head of the National Weather Service, Jack Hayes, will also be there. At this gathering they will release a report that analyzes the need for a radar on the Washington Coast. (I haven't seen this report yet!) Although we do have...
Complaints
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Well, even the weather-hardened crowd that follow this blog are complaining. Take a look at the last two weeks...generally much cooler than normal, with the last few days being way (10-15 F) below the norm (graphic...red and blue lines are average max and min temps). The mountains are getting substantial new snow...for example, heavy snow at Stampede...
Convergence zone has set up already
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The convergence zone is already evident over the N. Sound (see radar image). And nice rainshadowing to the south. The showers are also evident over the western slopes of the Cascades. The visible satellite image shows the CZ band as well and offshore you see a field of instability clouds...heading our way that will reinforce the CZ. The best convergence...
More showers and a convergence zone.
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As promised, the cool, showery pattern is back (see graphic). The same pattern we have been plagued with much of the last five months...northerly flow from Alaska aloft, trough over us. Why? Well, such patterns are more frequent in La Nina years, and we have been in a weak to moderate La Nina since December. So that may be part of it.The winds really...
A nice weekend and Mother's Day
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After four days of below-normal temperatures (see graph), we can look forward to a near or slightly warmer than normal weekend. The cold, wet weather has brought considerable new snow to the Cascades and the higher-elevation snowpack was enhanced (see photo at Crystal Mt.). Water will not be a problem for the western side of the State this year.The...
Major Advance for the Coastal Weather Radar
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After the depressing events yesterday with Seattle's selection of an extremely poor high school math book series (see my previous post), it was delightful to get some extraordinary good news today: funding for the coastal radar has been added to the President's budget. Senator Maria Cantwell, a key supporter of the radar, broke the news today in a press release available on her web site (http://cantwell.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=312626). The implications of this inclusion are substantial...the National Weather Service is now supporting the radar and if the requested funding is approved by Congress (about 7...
Tragedy in Seattle
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Tonight the Seattle School Board finally voted on the acquisition of high school math textbooks, and the results were both disappointing and tragic. In a four to three vote they agreed to adopt the Discovering Math series...extremely weak discovery/fuzzy math textbooks. Found to be "unsound" by a panel of mathematicians hired by the State Board of Education, the books are obviously deficient to anyone who knows about mathematics. What really is upsetting is that that the Seattle School District has now picked poor math curricula three times...since they selected very weak math books at the elementary (Everyday...
The Big Storm
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Well, I don't want you to forgot about the big Seattle math decision this week described in the previous blog, but I HAVE to discuss the big storm moving in later today.It is really extraordinarily intense for this time of the year...reminds me of a strong November to January event. Ironically, we didn't get many strong windstorm/rainstorm events...
Seattle's Big Math Decision
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Many of you know that I feel strongly about math education and work closely with a group called wheresthemath.com. As a UW professor I have seen declined math abilities of incoming students, and some students can't follow their dreams of a meteorological career because of poor high school math backgrounds. And my own children have suffered from poor textbooks and math curricula.The Seattle School District will be making a landmark decision on Wednesday for the selection of high school math texts. Their review panel (which didn't have a single mathematician or technical professional from the community) is favoring...
Winter (sort of ) in May
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Looking at the weather maps, I had a sense of deja vu....is this January? In fact, the maps didn't look like January in January. This winter has generally been colder than normal with a major ridge of high pressure in the eastern Pacific and a cold trough over the Northwest. Rare has been the classic situation with strong, wet southwest flow heading...
