Inland Northwest Hay Weather

 The forecast from the last time we spoke is still pretty much on track.  We've started to see some folks taking their first cutting of hay.  And they should have great weather in the next few days for getting it raked, baled and picked up.  But they don't want to wait too long. The first half of the forecast is all about temperatures.  How hot will it get?  First, let's take a look at our current weather pattern.  I have to admit, it's one of the stranger weather patterns that I've ever seen.  And this is borne out by all of the wild fires that have sparked across northern Canada.  Very unusual.  The anomaly pattern below shows what we were expecting:  very strong warm anomalies over Canada and the northern US, with actually cooler anomalies across the southern states.  One feature we need to pay attention to is that low off the southern California coast. By Wednesday, our warm anomaly is at its peak.  This will be the wa...

 After a rather showery week prior to the Memorial Day weekend, the weather pattern has definitely shifted.  Dry air from the west has pushed the humid air out of our area, leaving us with cooler temperatures and much lower dew points.  This allowed our low temperatures to drop into the 30s in some locations, including a 35F reading at Springdale. This weather pattern is great for 1st cutting.  The low dew points mean low humidity, along with sunshine and breezy afternoons.  The ground is still pretty wet so it may take a little extra drying time.  But how long will this last? The image below shows atmospheric moisture anomaly.  Green/blue colors indicate more moisture than normal, brown is for drier than normal.  You can see how dry air pushed into Washington and Oregon, but there's higher moisture to our south and east.  This pattern will continue through the weekend.  Temperatures meanwhile will start to warm, into the 80s by this wee...

 This past week has brought the typical rounds of spring showers.  And as is usual, some folks got more than others.  Here's an accumulation of this past week's rainfall: So what's in store for the next two weeks?  We are going to see a change in the weather pattern.  Currently, we see warm anomalies (i.e. warmer than normal) over eastern Canada and the Aleutian Islands, with cool anomalies over California, the southeast US as well as Alaska.  The storm that was responsible for this weekend's showery weather is now slowly moving off to our east. By the middle of this week, cooler anomalies spread over much of the West coast, with a trough of lower pressure in the Pacific NW.  Typically this pattern should bring more showers to the Inland NW. But the computers are in good agreement that the vast majority of the rain will move from Oregon, across central Idaho, and into western Montana.  So much of the Inland NW will be on the western fringe of this...

Today is our last day of this hot, muggy period.  Yes, for those who haven't noticed, it has been muggy.  Dew points have been routinely in the mid to upper 50s.  While not as muggy as locations east of the Rockies, it's still pretty humid for around here.  But that's not entirely unusual for May. The end of a heat wave often (but not always) comes with a cold front.  And with a hot, humid air mass ahead of this front, thunderstorms are likely to be the result.  Storms are expected to develop today over central Oregon and Washington. Depending on the speed of the cold front, a few storms could hit northeast Washington as early as Sunday morning.  More storms will fire during Sunday afternoon, mostly in the Idaho Panhandle.  These storms will be rather wet and capable of downpours.  But they'll also be moving at a decent speed which will limit any flooding potential. After this, temperatures will drop back to where they should be for mid May: ...

First we had a rather cold start to spring, with snow well into April.  Then suddenly we've jumped into summer weather with temperatures in the 80s.  Doesn't seem like much of spring this year.  Should we just plan on summer weather from here on out?  Yes and no. In the short term, our weather is only going to get warmer.  Here's our current pressure pattern.  The red colors basically mean temperatures are above average, while blue colors are cooler than average.  Note the large area of red over the western half of North America, with the strongest anomaly in western Canada.  This is the reason we're in the 80s instead of our normal highs of upper 60s.  But the atmosphere is also very moist, so showers and thunderstorms are a threat for the rest of the week. By Saturday, not much has changed, except that the high pressure ridge is directly over us.  This will bring even warmer temperatures for the weekend.  90F is possible for Satur...

 As we said before, spring is a battle between winter and summer.  And while winter won the fight this weekend, summer is looking to make a comeback next weekend.  First, a quick recap. The heaviest rainfall from this weekend event turned out to be from the central Idaho Panhandle, across extreme northeast and northcentral Washington.  Some locations picked up an inch and a half of rainfall. As expected, Saturday was a rather gloomy and cool day with temperatures hanging out in the lower 50s.  A few folks didn't even warm up to the 50F mark all day. The Northwest is currently in a cold air mass (indicated by the blue shading on the image below). As this air mass slowly moves inland, it will actually dive southward into the Desert Southwest.  This is very unusual for this time of year, but typical for this past winter and spring.  This will knock Phoenix's temperatures from the 90s back into the 80s for a couple of days.  For us, it means showery a...

 After a week of suddenly summer weather, we're going to quickly drop back into spring, weather-wise.  So don't put those warmer clothes away for the season just yet. First, let's talk about that 90F day yesterday at Deer Park.  Records don't go back very far for that airport.  But Spokane airport beat it's record by 3 degrees on Tuesday with an 85F, which was set in the year 1900.  Having Deer Park 5 degrees warmer than Spokane is just weird.  Even stranger is that it was the hottest airport in the state of Washington.  Stranger still is that it was way hotter than California.  Sacramento only had a high of 63F. The reason for this strange pattern is a very deep cold low to our south.  Meanwhile, a ridge of hot air extends from the Rockies into northeast Washington and western Canada. That deep low over California is going to weaken a bit as it moves northward over the Pac NW this weekend. That is going to cool our temperatures down consider...