Wednesday Night Windstorm

Round 2 of this windy week is looking stronger than part 1. The weather pattern is pretty classic for high wind in these parts. A deepening low pressure system that moves west to east along the US-Canadian border. 

  • Wind will increase Wednesday evening, gusting to 50 mph by about 10 pm. 
  • The peak wind should occur around 2am Thursday. Wind gusts to 65 mph are possible. 
  • By about 5am Thursday, wind gusts should be decreasing to about 45 mph

Here’s the European model forecast for peak winds. It’s worth noting that with Sunday’s wind event, the European (and all the other computer forecasts) were about 5-10 mph too light with the peak gusts. So the forecast below may be on the light side  




Another storm is right on the heels of the windstorm. But rather than more wind, this storm looks like it will bring us some precipitation. Could be in the form of wet snow on Friday morning, mainly in the northern valleys, but mostly it will be a rainy Friday. Probably on 0.1-0.2” of moisture, with much more possible for the Palouse. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The End is In Sight

Image
We're currently in the middle of a rather unusual heat wave at the end of summer.  And some records could still be reached.  For those who aren't a fan of the heat, there's good news:  an end to the heat wave is in sight. Here's the somewhat odd weather map.  There's a skinny but strong area of high pressure over the Western US that extends up into BC and the Alaskan Panhandle. A weak low off the Washington coast is sending waves of moisture into our area at times.  This caused all of the clouds last night along with a few showers and thunderstorms.   Meanwhile, the eastern US is still experiencing fall-like temperatures.  Low temperatures in the 40s dipped all the way south into North Carolina this morning.  State College, PA has already had 3 nights in the 30s. By Thursday of this week, the weather pattern won't have changed a whole lot.  Another surge of cool air invades the Great Lakes region, while high pressure continues to dominat...
Read more

Showers and Storms this Week

Image
The last week of July is (on average) the hottest week of the summer.  We are looking at 90s Mon-Thu this week, so this may be following the pattern.  The longest day of the year is June 20th, with 16 hours of daylight in Spokane.  By the end of July, we've already lost just over an hour of that.  Not that the length of day is the only factor of hot weather, but it obviously has an effect.  The days noticeably get shorter in August, losing about 3 minutes of sunshine each day. We were talking in the last blog about the potential for showers and thunderstorms this week.  As usual, things are becoming a bit clearer on timing and coverage.   Afternoon and evening thunderstorms will increase over the next few days over eastern Oregon, slowly creeping north each day. By Tuesday, the southern Washington Cascades could see an isolated storm.  Wednesday will see the potential for afternoon thunderstorms over most Washington mountains. Here’s the European ...
Read more

Weather After the Rain

Image
It took some patience, but eventually the rain fell in most places. It doesn’t make up for our dry spell, but it sure helped.  Here’s how much rain fell from the weekend storm.  Here’s a different view of the rainfall over the weekend.  It’s actually pretty close to the forecast graphics I was showing you last week.   So what can we expect for the next 10 days?  Kind of a temperature roller coaster.  After a showery Monday, we’ll warm up quickly on Tuesday, back into the lower to mid 80s.  A mostly dry cool front on Wednesday will bring some mountain showers, breezy winds and cooler temperatures.  We’ll be back in the 70s for Thursday and Friday with more mountain showers over northeast Washington. High pressure from the west will build into our area for the weekend, quickly sending temperatures climbing into the 80s, with 90s by Monday of next week. Beyond this things get more iffy.  There isn’t any clear cut agreement among the compute...
Read more