UPDATE: As of Monday morning, rain gauges are reporting more than one inch of rainfall in the past 24 hours in Seattle. If you’ve been reading Cliff Mass’s blog, you knew to break out the waders for today. But he’s also worried about Thanksgiving:
I hate to mention this, but the latest model runs are suggesting the potential for a major precipitation/flood event on Thursday/Friday. The ground will be saturated from the earlier rains and then a persistent atmosphere river just stays over us.
ORIGINAL STORY: Saturday afternoon, the Northwest’s mid-November rains will push in, preceded by winds announcing the change of regime.
“A succession of frontal systems will plow through the region every day or two, Sunday through Thanksgiving Day, for more rain…wind…and mountain snow,” forecasts the National Weather Service.
Northwestern California and western Oregon will get the worst of the rainy drubbing, says UW meteorologist Cliff Mass, with some wet spots collecting more than ten inches. Seattle looks to duck that kind of downpour, at least at this point in the weather modeling, but it’s going to rain pretty consistently, you know, forever.
“Why so much rain?” asks Mass, rhetorically. “A large, cold trough will form over the eastern Pacific, establishing a persistent flow of moist air from the west and southwest.” This isn’t that balmy Pineapple Express, so temperatures will reach the upper 40s, maybe 50.
In short, it’s a good time to invest in rubber boots (maybe even duck boots) and go to the movies. SIFF Cinema’s Italian movie festival is underway, and the Northwest Film Forum is screening The Sheik and I, in which Caveh “I Am a Sex Addict” Zahedi earns a fatwa.
