Parade of Fall Fronts

 As we've been talking about in recent blogs, the weather pattern is becoming rather fall-like in a hurry.  Suffice to say, while September can be rather sunny and warm in the Inland NW, the 2023 version is not one of those.  And we're looking at a rather stormy week next week.  Rainy fronts every 24 hours or so followed by breezy winds.

Sunday: The first member of the parade will be rather weak, typical for this time of year.  Most folks will just get a sprinkle during the morning, although a few could get a decent short rain.  Here's what one computer thinks the radar will look like Sunday morning.

The rain won't last long and Sunday afternoon should be mostly dry.  But the next storm will be quickly on its heels.  Again, a computer forecast of the radar for sunset Sunday.

Monday: While the forecast above looks rather ominous, there's still a lot of disagreement on what happens to this storm.  About half of the computer forecasts bring rain to eastern WA by Monday morning.  But the other half insist that all of the rain from this weather system will stay in western WA and the Cascades, giving a dry day to eastern WA.  This is probably best demonstrated by the temperature forecast for Monday.  Some of the wet forecasts suggest we might not reach 60F for a high.  But the dry forecasts would say that hitting 80F or better is possible.  Suffice to say, confidence of the forecast for Monday is rather low.

Tuesday:  The cold front will move through the area during the early morning hours, bringing light rain to most folks.  Here's what the European model expects as far as rainfall amounts. The Basin won't see much with this pattern, while the northern and eastern mountains will get the most rain.

Wednesday: Another weather system moves through, bringing more rain to the area.  This system looks like it may be a bit wetter.  But I wouldn't start laying bets on those kinds of details that far out.  Here again is what the European model expects for Wednesday.

For the second half of next week and through next weekend, things continue to look wet.  It won't be raining all of the time.  But there is a chance of rain about every day.  Here's the probabilities of rain at Colville, Deer Park, Spokane, and Ritzville for the next 10 days.  You can see that things aren't expected to dry out until the first week of October.

This kind of active weather pattern should keep nighttime temperatures from dipping down to freezing for the most part.  But I wouldn't be surprised if a few spots reach freezing for a couple of hours later next week.