Inland Northwest Hay Weather

 After our rainstorm yesterday, the forecast is looking dry and warm for the near future.  Temperatures are expected to reach into the upper 80s and lower 90s for the next few days.  But what's more important is that we will have a low brush by us to the north this weekend, dragging a  dry cool front  through our area .   That will accomplish two things.  First, we'll get some breezy southwest winds on Saturday.  Winds will be around 15 mph with gusts to 25 mph.  Good hay drying weather. This will also usher in some much drier air.  Right now, dew points are in the 50s, which is rather humid for this area.  But the dry cool front will bring dew points into the 30s.  Again, this is good for hay drying. The downside to this will be trying to get a light dew when you want to bale your alfalfa.  Nighttime relative humidity will have a tough time recovering into the high values (i.e. greater than 80%) needed for dew. This ...

Most folks consult their calendars to see when summer starts.  And it will be listed as approximately June 21st.  This is know as the start of Astronomical summer.  It's the date when the day is longest in the northern Hemisphere.  According to timeanddate.com , 21 June in Deer Park has 16 hours, 2 minutes, and 26 seconds of daylight.  But we all know that twilight lasts much longer than that.  Essentially, there's a glow on the northeast (for sunrise) and northwest (for sunset) horizon starting around 3am and ending close to 11pm, which is Nautical Twilight. But why is the longest day the start of summer?  Seems like that should be the middle of summer.  But that's like saying noon is the hottest hour of day, which we know isn't the case.  The reason is that the earth keeps heating up faster than it can cool itself until the sun gets much lower in the sky, around 5pm.  The same is true for summer.  The Northern Hemisphere will cont...

 As we talked about yesterday, temperatures dropped into the 30s in many places this morning.  Here's a map of the minimum temperatures observed.  Some notable temperatures include 34F at Priest Lake and Davenport, 37F at Almira, 33F at Springdale, and even a 32F at Yaak in northwest Montana. Many of you are probably familiar with the cold spots, including Deer Park.  The temperature is measured at the airport.  How representative is it of the surrounding area?  Recently the US Bureau of Reclamation installed one of their AgriMet sensors just east of town, very close to the airport.  This morning, it was 6 degrees warmer than the airport observation.  That's quite a temperature gradient over such a short distance.  Which is an other example of how microscale the weather can be. It will be chilly the next few nights, but this was probably the coldest night for awhile.  And after our cold Tuesday, temperatures will be on the rebound. In ou...

 No one can disagree that we had a very mild start to the month of June.  All of the first 13 days of the month warmed up to at least 70F.  But now?  Not so much.  We won't see 70s for the next 4 or 5 days.  This mornings low temperatures will largely in the 40s.  Davenport dipped to 41F. All of this is compliments of a large, cold upper low that has settled over the Northwest. The dry air associated with this large upper low is keeping precipitation to a minimum.  It's also going to mean some rather chilly temperatures tonight.  Many locations will drop into the 30s.  While I don't expect freezing temperatures tonight, I'm probably going to disconnect the hoses from my frost-free hydrants, just in case.   Today and Monday we'll see some light rain showers, mainly north of Newport and Chewelah, but a shower anywhere can't be ruled out.  Tuesday still looks like the best chance of rain.  Not a slam dunk, but probably a...

 After some rather warm spells in May and early June, the atmosphere has decided to throw a cold punch our way in mid-June.  For those who have lived here awhile, we all know that this is nothing new.  Consistent hot weather typically doesn't set in until July. As we talked about in earlier blogs, this morning was rather chilly.  We didn't see anyone dip into the 30s, but lots of reports around 40F. We'll see a brief warm up for today and Saturday compliments of a small ridge of high pressure. But also notice that area of deep cold low pressure over Alaska.  As the first cool front moves through tonight, there will be a chance of a sprinkle or light rain shower.  The weekend will also have a low chance of a light sprinkle shower, but probably not much more than a trace of rain.  So if you have hay down, there still should be a good chance of getting it put up in the next couple of days. During the weekend, that Alaska low is going to dive into our area...

 As we expected, the showers this afternoon were mainly in the Panhandle, but there were a few north of Chewelah and Newport.  But most folks got wind instead of rain.  Will that hold for tomorrow as well? The computers are consistent with the threat of showers and thunderstorms tomorrow, mainly north of Newport again.  But the undecided part is how far south will they come. The GFS model from this morning was showing more than 0.10" of rain for Deer Park.  But this evening's run has backed off on that idea, just a bit. The European ECMWF model is also keeping things just north of Deer Park. The FV3 model is a bit farther south, similar to what the GFS was showing this morning. So the chances of rain increase markedly as you go north from Mead, to Deer Park, to Newport. The cold front passing through today will drop temperatures quite a bit tomorrow, in the 60s, before rebounding back into the 70s for the rest of this week. After a few dry days to end the week, ...

 June started off with a week of warm, dry weather.  But as we expected, moisture moved into the area for a couple of wet, cool days.  So can we start thinking about first cutting weather? The forecast is going to start off a short warm and dry spell.  Temperatures are expected to surge back into the mid and upper 80s through Tuesday with mostly sunny skies.  This is complements of strong high pressure that is nosing into western Canada and the Pac NW from the Pacific.  You can see the area of dark red shading. But this pattern doesn't last long, as a cooler weather system dives down from Alaska and sweeps by our area late Tuesday and Wednesday. These kinds of weather systems that follow this track usually bring more wind than rain.  Tuesday afternoon is expected to be rather breezy before this weather wave arrives.  The computer models are showing some light showers for Tuesday and Wednesday.  But the chances are pretty low, only 20 to 30%....

After the warmest May ever, folks are probably wondering what (if anything) that will mean for our upcoming summer weather.  The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) of the National Weather Service issues their climate outlooks once each month, on the third Thursday of the month.  On the last day of the month, CPC updates their outlook for the upcoming month.  So lets see what they are expecting for this summer. Here's CPC's expectation for June.  They expect June to be wetter and warmer than normal.  You may find that a big strange, and it is.  In the Northwest, cool and wet usually go together, as do warm and dry.  Warm and wet is a bit unusual.  But we need to remember that they don't have to occur at the same time.  You can have a heat wave, followed by a wet period, which is what we're expecting for the first 10 days of the month. For the months of July, August and September, we see that CPC expects a warmer and drier than normal summer for u...