Photography can be as poetic and compelling as the work of the written masters, and we are lucky to have such a visual poet here in the Northwest--one who specializes in the most dramatic type of local clouds: lenticular or mountain wave clouds. Her name is Darlisa Black and on occasion I have shown her work on this blog and in my book.Just...
Battling Extremes and the July 4th Forecast
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It is startling to see such weather extremes so close together.Here in the Northwest we are experiencing wetter and colder than normal conditions on most days, with some locations shivering under daily low temperature records. Yesterday, temperatures plummeted to 37 at Shelton, 39 in Olympia, and 38 at Yakima. In some cold hollows near...
Cascade Melt Out
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There are few more important questions for Northwest hikers: when will their favorite trails melt out and the hiking season begin in earnest? And few more important questions for those concerned about the local impacta of global warming: is the Cascade snowpack melting out earlier, thus providing evidence of the effects of increasing...
Summer Squall
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Yesterday (Saturday) the area experienced an event more common to the eastern U.S.: a summer convective squall.Forced by an short-wave trough aloft that was moving northward, the action occurred around noon to 3 PM, as the fast moving line of convection brought heavy rain, lightning/thunder to some, and winds gusting up to around 40 mph on the...
Saturday morning update
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Looks like most of the precipitation has shifted south towards Portland and southwest Washington---their turn. The model predict that precipitation will move north later today, so if you are in Tacoma northward, NOW is good time to get outside. Sunday looks better.For those interested in the amounts of precipitation we have received, here...
Wet Day and Hard Forecast
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It was quite wet today over much of western Washington as a SE-NW band of precipitation set up residence across the region for hours. Major contrasts too: from over 1.5 inches to a few hundredths.Take a look at the precipitation map for the 24h ending 9 PM. The dark green indicate more than an inch, while the whites are less than...
Now is the Time to Fix the Math Meltdown in Seattle Public Schools
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My weekend weather forecast and discussion of upwelling and thunderstorms is on KPLU A few days ago the Seattle Times ran another story on the math problems in Seattle, noting that about 70% of the students entered Seattle community colleges require math remediation.Now these are college-bound students that are unprepared...what about those that don't...
Why are coastal water temperatures cooling?
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The air temperatures are warming over northern California. The same with southern Oregon. But something awfully strange is happening with the temperature of the Pacific Ocean off of both of them--it is generally cooling as we trend towards summer. And this is normal.Why in the world would ocean temperatures get cooler during summer?First,...
Feeling a bit tropical outside?
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Seems a bit humid? More like the East Coast in summer than our normally low relative humidity?The dew points...a good measure of the moisture in the air...are quite high today, reaching into the lower to mid 60s right now (around 2 PM Saturday).Here are the current dew points at some local stations--no lack of 60s!And with temperature in...
