Who ordered the cold and wet weather?

 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.  By Monday, it's pretty much right over the Northwest.  This will definitely mean cooler temperatures.  Sunday and Monday will only have highs in the mid-60s with lows in the upper 30s possible.


While the confidence of cold temperatures is high with these kinds of weather systems, the precipitation odds are much more difficult to pin down.  Right now it would appear that Tuesday would potentially be the wettest day of the event, with about a 1/4" of rain the most likely total, but amounts as high as 3/4" possible.  There's a good chance that the high on Tuesday will be stuck in the 50s.


After this, we start a slow warming/drying trend.  The low fills and drops south of our area, which will allow temperatures to rebound to around 80F by next weekend. Rainfall chances will be pretty low starting Thursday morning onward.


Here's a summary of the chances of rain (top graph) and the amount of rain (bottom graph) Newport (ITDA8)



For Deer Park, the graphs are similar


And for Spokane, the chances are a little lower, but the overall forecast is the same



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Very Snowy and Cold Next Week

Image
As we discussed in our previous blog, our mild winter weather is coming to an end.  We'll see some light snow tonight (Friday night), but then it should be snowing most of the day on Saturday, with snow showers continuing Saturday night and into Sunday morning.   The European model isn't too excited about the snowfall amounts with this system for the Spokane area (0.7"), but gives a healthy 3-5" to the northern valleys.  It has been very consistent with this forecast over the past couple of days. Meanwhile the GFS is much more excited about this storm, bringing 6" to Spokane and Sandpoint.  The difference is that the GFS lingers the storm over our area much longer than the European model.   There are lots of other models that give us snowfall amounts somewhere between the GFS and ECMWF forecasts above.  With temperatures right around freezing, this snow will be on the heavier wetter side.  Snow-liquid ratio (SLR) will be around 10:1, which means if you get 0.25&q
Read more

Wetter Weather Ahead

Image
In our last blog, we talked how broad low pressure was forecast to develop over the western US.  The details on this are starting to take shape.  I'll probably provide an update on this during the middle of the week, but here's where things stand now. First, we'll have a few dry and warmer days after our cold front on Saturday night.  High pressure will build into the area Monday through Wednesday.  Temperatures will be in the mid to upper 60s on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a little cooling on Thursday. But it won't last.  The low pressure in the above graph that is off the California coast will merge with the small low off the west coast of Canada.  This will create a broad area of low pressure over the western US by the end of the week. This weather pattern will bring us a cool and wet Thursday night and Friday.  The rain could reach our area by Thursday afternoon, but the best odds are for Thursday night, with showers on Friday.   That said, if the timing slows down,
Read more

Looking Ahead to Spring and Summer

Image
With the snow having melted and the road weight limit signs going up, our thoughts are naturally turning to Spring.  Will the mild temperatures and rain continue?  First, let's look at where we are on moisture. In the Northwest, things overall are on the drier side, with pockets of above normal precipitation. Zooming in a bit, we can see that the Columbia Basin overall has had above-normal precipitation, while much of the rest of the state has had near- or below- normal precipitation.  This makes sense.  We have had very little wind this winter (only one windy storm I can think of).  So the Cascade rain shadow hasn't been a factor this year. Looking even closer at a few locations, we see precipitation is very close to normal for mid-February.  In fact, it's rare that it is so close to normal (I know, that sounds strange).  Here's the Spokane Airport trace since October 1st.  The green line is the actual accumulated precipitation for this winter, while the brown line is
Read more