Inland Northwest Hay Weather

If you have hay bales lying in the field, you may want to pick them up today if possible. For the past 10 days the computers have been dancing around the idea of some sort of shower activity for the Fourth.  In the blog two days ago there were still three possible scenarios: The rain would stay well south of our area (the US model idea) There could be some showers that make it up to Spokane from the south on the evening of the Fourth (European model idea) There was actually a better chance of rain on the Fifth of July (Canadian model idea).  At this point it appears that scenario 2 and 3 are more likely. The showers will remain to our south throughout today (Friday). By the evening hours, the chance of rain increases. Below is the European rain probability for 5-11pm. But the odds are that any rain would be closer to 11pm than 5pm.  From 11pm to 5am, the European model has fairly high chances of rain (67% in Spokane, 53% in Colville, 86% in Sandpoint).  From 5-11am o...

Way back on June 23rd, I mentioned that some of the long range computer forecasts were hinting at the potential for storms on Independence Day, but they were in the minority.  Nine days later and that's still the case.  The consensus is that any storms that do form on the 4th will move from northeast Oregon, across the Palouse, and into the Idaho Panhandle.  This is what we typically see in the summer. But the European ensemble model run from last night and today has been trending toward a higher chance of showers making it up to Spokane, and possibly farther north.  Here's the latest chance of rain from the European model on Pivotal Weather. There's high confidence of storms south and east of Lewiston, ID.  But 53% of the forecasts also expect some of the showers to make it up to Spokane and possibly northeast Washington.   The US model says that the chance of rain is much lower.  It would take storms from northeast Oregon and move them into the ...

If you’ve seen the forecast, you’re probably thinking that summer starts on Monday (or has already started).  As we’ve said before, summer starts on the Fourth of July in the Inland Northwest. Yes, we will see some 90s for the first few days of this week as high pressure moves in from the Pacific.  But most of the time, these hot spells that move in from the Pacific are short-lived, and this will be one of those.  By the evening of the 3rd, the high pressure is well east of us, with cooler air moving in from the west. This will cool us back down into the 80s starting Thursday and continuing through the weekend.   But then, we’ll see the true start of summer.  Our old friend the 4-corners high will develop around the 8th.  See the Big H in the desert southwest? That is the indication that we usually look for to start the hot summer days.  More 90s than 80s. How about rainfall?  The first chance of rain will be around the 2nd or 3rd of July.  B...

In the previous blog I mentioned that there was too much uncertainty in the computer forecasts to look very far into the future. Unfortunately that’s still the case.  I’ve shown the graph below on a previous occasion, but it can be a little confusing so I try not to mention it. So I’ll try to explain. There are three computer centers that produce multiple computer forecasts.  The US, the Canadian, and the European. All together they produce 100 computer forecasts. You can easily average them all together, but this can hide possible scenarios. So another way is to look for clusters of solutions. Below shows four possible scenarios for July 2nd. It doesn’t take a meteorologist to figure out that each one is different.  Some have the hot high pressure (orange color) over the Northwest.  This would bring hot and dry weather.  But the other two have the high pressure to our east.  This would mean a cooler forecast for us, along with a threat of showers. And each...

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...

We usually try to avoid looking for climate extremes in random date ranges, preferring to stick with looking at entire months or years. But I thought I’d violate that unwritten rule just to see how this spring compares to past years. So I looked for the number of days that were dry or only had a sprinkle during the last 30 days. I looked at Spokane data since it has a much longer history. Below are the results.  So in the past 30 days, Spokane has only had measurable rain on 2 of them. That puts this year second on the all-time list, just behind 1918.  It’s worth noting that 2021 is also near the top of the list, and 2023 is also in the top 20. Oddly enough, 2022 is on the other end of the list (not shown), with only 13 dry days in this period.  Suffice to say, we could use some rain.  And we’ll get some this weekend, but probably not as much as we want.  The latest computer forecasts continue to back off a bit on our forecast rainfall amounts.  The track o...

Typically at this time of year, most of us are looking for some dry days to put up hay. But this year, rain will be a welcome sight. And it still looks like we will be blessed with some rain this weekend. So let’s look at some details.  First, the timing. It still appears that the rain could start as early as Friday evening, but is a guaranteed done deal by Saturday afternoon. Here’s the rain probability for Deer Park.  93% of the computers agree that it will be raining at 2pm on Saturday. It’s rare to get that much agreement on a forecast of rain, especially at this time of year.   You can see decent chances of rain throughout Sunday and even Monday as well before we dry out and warm up. But the extended forecast doesn’t look hot yet and may provide another chance of rain late next week.  How much rain will we get this weekend?  That is typically the toughest part of the forecast. First I’ll show you the National Blend of Models (NBM).  It expects the bulk...