The fronts we experience in the interior of western Washington and Oregon, or east of the Cascades are generally pretty wimpy affairs, having been highly modified and weakened by the coastal mountains (including the Olympics) and then the higher Cascades. Wind shifts are generally weak, precipitation intensity moderate, and the structures...
The New Radar Documents A Frontal Passage
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Monday Morning Update:Here is the storm total precipitation ending 10:30 AM on Monday from the new radar....notice the enhanced precipitation on the windward (SW) slopes of the Olympics:In science, major advances in understanding often come with a new instrument, one that casts light on a previously unobserved phenomena. Certainly, that is true...
Sweating in the Pacific Northwest
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Note: I made some changes to the html code that should make the blog work far better for IE9 browsers. Let me know if anyone is having problems with performance of this blog on any browser...cliffBicycling to work today, I found myself wiping the sweat from my brow as I entered my building. It really felt like the East Coast...
The Big Day Arrives. The Washington Coastal Radar is Operational!
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Today I received a wonderful email from Brad Colman, head of the Seattle National Weather Service Forecast Office: the new coastal radar, located just north of Hoquiam, is now fully operational and the data is flowing to the outside world.This radar, on top of Langley Hill, has been updated to include dual-polarization, which will allow...
Microclimates
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When nights are longer, winds are light, and the skies are clear we often see larger local differences of temperatures at night, and particularly at daybreak when temperatures are coldest. Consider the temperatures around Puget Sound this morning at 7 AM (sunrise was 6:53 AM):Click to make bigger!Quite a range! Temperatures...
Seattle Lags Behind In Math and This Can Be Fixed!
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One of the most frustrating aspects of working on the improvement of math education is dealing with an educational establishment that makes decisions based on fads and opinions rather than empirical facts.Now, let us accept that there are different approaches to teaching mathematics, with a major divide between the "reform, discovery approaches" and...
The End of NW Drought
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The second half of summer has been really dry over the Northwest. Take a look at the plot of actual versus normal precipitation at Spokane and Sea-Tac Airport for the last 12 weeks: we have had little rain the last month and are down 1-2 inches for the period compared to normal. Not a serious issue since we are usually dry this time of...
Resolution
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Numerical weather prediction models are generally solved on a three-dimensional grid, with the distance between the points--the grid spacing-- a measure of the resolution of the model. We often talk about the horizontal resolution of a weather forecasting model ... the horizontal distance between the grid points. This resolution...
When is a record not really a record?
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Today the Seattle Times has an article noting that Seattle (Seattle Tacoma Airport) has beat the all-time record for the number of consecutive days of 80F and higher in September. Today (Monday) should be much cooler since marine air has pushed into western Washington overnight, with low clouds extending to the Cascades. The heat wave is...
Smoke Signals and Lost Dog
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Before I deal with the main blog topic, I would like to ask those of you in North Seattle to be on the look out for a lost black/while cockapoo: information is here. Thanks for any help.During warm days there is a profound change in winds up and down the Olympics that is normally invisible, but become apparent when there is a ...
Latest on La Nina
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A number of you have asked about La Nina and the upcoming winter. It is always prudent to wait until mid-September before making the call, a call that in any case has considerable uncertainty. The U.S. Climate Prediction Center has just upgraded the status from a La Nina Watch to a La Nina Advisory--they are basically committing to a forecast...
Large Diurnal Temperature Range
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An interesting aspect of the current weather regime is the large diurnal (daily) temperature range--the difference in temperature between the daily highs and lows. At a number of Northwest locations we have seen highs in the 80s and 90s, while temperature have plummeted at night into the lower 50s and even some 40s, with some dropping into...
