Recent Stories with tag weather

And now a video preview of what you're likely to see tonight, once the roads ice back up. People, charge your cameras! If you're driving, a safety tip: Avoid really steep hills. 

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Our Flickr pool's shawnmebo is already back with snow day shots! That's fast!

UW meteorologist Cliff Mass has been putting out updates fast and furiously regarding the snow forecast for today, which is changing hourly as snow accumulates. Now he's concerned about "serious snow."

His latest post (titled "Humility") says we're pretty much guaranteed "2-4 inches south of the city, with roughly 1-2 inches on the north side. More as you head towards the Cascades and south." (Let's go to the radar!)

But looking at the way things are setting up, that might not be the worst in store:

The 11 AM surface map...just available shows a 1002-mb low over the NW tip of the Olympic Peninsula and the latest visible image show VERY unstable air offshore. If the low goes south of us and draws some of that cold, unstable air in...and it meets the cold stream from the north, we are talking about serious snow (6-12 inches).

Mass was earlier led astray by models which had the low farther south of Seattle, bringing us a blast of cold air but not much in the way of snow. ("Clearly, this was not a great success for the models--clearly more is getting farther north than forecast this morning.")

Might as well head home and fire up the hot chocolate, and wait to see what transpires. 

1972 "was a bad year if you hate snow," writes our Flickr pool's shawnmebo. "Let's see what Steve Pool has to say about it." Today a bunch of Canadian cold air heads our way, bringing lots of snow in the mountains. Cliff Mass waves off concerns of Snowpocalypse 2010...mostly, noting that tomorrow we see something "close to a pattern that brings snow...but the models are emphatic that it is too warm over most of the lowlands for snow. The freezing level is at around 2000 ft and the snow level is around 1000 ft. This is close."

Half Moon Bay getting hammered, as of this afternoon, courtesy of WestportCam

Thanks to 30-foot swells, the AP reports, "the Coast Guard has closed the Columbia River bar and most other entrances to coastal ports in Washington and Oregon." Cliff Mass notes that ocean buoys give readings of waves 40- to 45-feet in height. Says Mass, in a post titled, "Giant Waves":

This is really turning into an extraordinary event. I can't remember over many years seeing this situation...a very deep system, slowly dying, that is sitting right off our coast for days.

Let's go take a look! First up is Ocean Shores:

Then we swing by La Push:... (more)

Storm-watchers will be packing up and heading to the north coast this weekend, as a major low may bump right into us on Sunday. It's "what we call an extratropical cyclone in the business," reports Cliff Mass, with barely disguised anticipation.

You can watch an animated model here, but the short story is that if conditions are right (or wrong, depending on your perspective), the coast will get hit with sustained winds up to 45 knots, with 30- to 40-foot waves. That would likely bring power outages from downed trees and tree limbs, and attempts by surfers with poor risk/reward estimation to hit the beach.

Meanwhile, inland, all we get is a pretty good chance of showers on Saturday, increasing on Sunday. Mass explains why it doesn't look like we'll get in on the action:

I should note a rule of thumb of local meteorologists: to get strong winds over Puget Sound and the southern interior the low pressure center must cross the coast south of central Vancouver Island (my book has more on this).

AUGH! Cliff Mass had us hoping for a sunny Sunday, but "new shit has come to light." His new Sunday forecast says to expect more clouds and rain by early Sunday afternoon.

On the bright side, all seven of our Seattle farmer's markets are in full swing this weekend.

A few local stories we didn't cover this week but which nonetheless happened: the author of Drugstore Cowboy was arrested for robbing a drugstore; a UW study found that HIV treatment dramatically reduced transmission rates; and failing Washington banks made the Wall Street Journal.

WSDOT announced the tunnel may take a year longer to complete than thought.

Our top two stories were about the Sonics fan fracas over on Starbucks' Facebook page and whether your grocery store makes you fat. Mayor McGinn had questions about the tunnel, and kept hammering away about cost overruns. Seattle made it on a Top 10 Cities list and hosted the world's largest 3D TV (from LG) at SID 2010 (photos!).

If all goes as planned, all major Puget Sound roadways will be tolled within the next 10 to 20 years, primarily to deal with congestion. Seattle is still arguing over in-city "road diets." The closure of the NE 45th Street Viaduct draws near (June 14). What's going on with the unsold condos at Thornton Place? The owner and their PR firm didn't respond to my calls, so not a lot, I'm thinking.... (more)

I don't make these things up, people. This is exactly how these two tweets appeared in my general feed. Some people have the I Ching, I have random-but-meaningful combinations provided by Twitter.

In the unlikely event of summer arriving, I give you the link to that Red Cross Babysitter's class. In the hopefully unlikely event that your power goes out, I give you Seattle City Light's instructions on how to live through it.

My personal advice, as always, is to seek shelter at any establishment with a good happy hour and a strong scotch or bourbon selection, and let someone else take care of the lights.

A late February snow from 2009.

Some cold and wet is sneaking past our nice El Niño pre-spring this week. Cliff Mass says it'll bring snow in the mountains by tonight and through the early part of the week. Depending upon the mysterious workings of our Puget Sound convergence zone, lowland areas may see snow showers on Monday morning and Tuesday. Later in the week, temperatures will pop back up a bit, but it's going to be more like real March weather out there.

Today about wraps up our sunny spell. Tomorrow afternoon we return to more conventional Pacific Northwest weather fare. Cliff Mass says, "On Tuesday a weather system will approach with a chance of showers later in the day. Then we switch into a cloudier, wetter pattern...but not too extreme." So if you have an "errand" to run, better get to it. And bring your camera.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C. (All photos: Michael Austin)

While Cliff Mass explains why we just had our warmest January ever recorded, enjoy a picture of the blizzard that's blanketed Washington, D.C., courtesy of our D.C. bureau. The word is that it's bad...very bad.

Closer to home, West Seattle Blog found a local Prius tie-in to the Toyotathon Recall that's been in the news all week. However, Toyotas alone can't be responsible for the four crashes in 90 minutes that WSB reported on. This is precisely why I only take the water taxi over there. Safer.

We had politics all over the place this week. A Publicola investigation resulted in the resignation of one of Mayor McGinn's top advisors. The 520 replacement "A+" design got raked over the coals by citizen groups and various politicos, while Eastsiders and business-types cried "How long, O Lord, how long?" Judges told the state legislature to fork out for education, and the Seattle School Board to reconsider those "new math" textbooks. Our homegrown pot initiative got its official name: I-1068. Tim Eyman went down to Olympia, predictably.... (more)

This tree behind The SunBreak's office is budding on January 21. Even the resident squirrel looks alarmed. (The squirrel isn't in this photo, I'm just saying.)

We turn of course to UW meteorologist Cliff Mass. "The warmest January on record was in 2006 when the daily average was 46.6F. So at this rate we are on track to beat it...IF...we stay warm," he writes on his blog. "We are experiencing April temperatures in mid January ... Many of our days have hit highs 5-13 F ABOVE NORMAL, and our minima have generally been higher than the normal maxes."

This weekend temperatures may dip toward normal, but next week brings a pineapple express that will re-balm-ify things, and may put this January in the record books.

The El Niño weather pattern has brought an extra helping of rain, in addition to unseasonable warmth. West Seattle is cleaning up from a Beach Drive hillside slide, and out at Hurricane Ridge, a 100-foot section of the road is migrating downhill. A six-week closure is planned, so the Ridge road won't open again until March.... (more)

Rain is general over Washington (see webcams), and meteorologist Cliff Mass is watching the weather models like they are presents on Christmas Eve. At the moment, wind is running 50 knots about 3,000 feet above Seattle--not gusts, sustained--and Mass says a series of disturbances could bring hurricane-force gusts to the Washington coast. KIRO TV says Hurricane Ridge could see 90-mph gusts today.

The National Weather Service is keeping most of Western Washington on flood watch through Saturday afternoon, and even if you're a blue-tarp camper, now is not a good time to visit the banks of the Skokomish River.

From KING 5: "Skies were clear overnight allowing temperatures to drop into the mid 20s to mid 30s this morning. Light winds and moist ground have produced widespread fog and freezing fog this morning especially from Tacoma southward." We are promised rain for this afternoon, but right now, it's got my iPhone all mixed up.

AccuWeather claims it's 33 degrees right now, but it doesn't feel like it. A quick tour of Capitol Hill water features confirms that below freezing is the order of the day. Here are some Red Cross safety tips, while I'm at it, on dealing with frozen pipes. Cliff Mass says last night might have been the coldest night of the whole winter, for many. Seattle's severe weather shelters are open for business.

"Taillights through the rain" courtesy of The SunBreak Flickr pool member Great Beyond

As of Friday evening, mayoral candidate Mike McGinn was looking like a winner, with a lead of 2,384 votes over Joe Mallahan. This makes the news of 860 ballots found in a ballot drop box with a vandalized lock less earth-shattering. In general, the election results were pleasing for King County's right-thinking lefties, with R-71's "everything but marriage" approved, I-1033's "government-spending straitjacket" rejected, and Prop. 1's "homelesss housing" passing handily even in a recession.

On the same day as the police procession to honor slain Seattle police office Timothy Brenton, just as his memorial at Key Arena ended, in fact, police confronted a "person of interest" in the shooting of officer Brenton, who was shot by police after drawing a handgun. (Monfort's now in critical condition.) The Seattle Times reports that bomb-making materials, linking Christopher Monfort to the October 22 pipe-bombing of SPD patrol cars, have been found in his apartment. Seattlepi.com worked up their own profile.

Arson flared up twice in Greenwood, making a total of seven arson-related fires over the past few months. Just two weeks ago, four Greenwood businesses were burnt out. This time, the businesses were an accountant's office and a guitar shop.... (more)

This is a webcam screenshot from out by Forks, Washington, fictional home of Twilight. Cliff Mass reports that the National Weather Service has put out an advisory for swells of at least 25 feet reaching the beach. The buoys off the coast are seeing some significant vertical displacement. The giant waves will hit every 15 to 20 seconds, and should an unsuspecting vampire stroll out to take a closer look during a lull, tragedy could strike. The high surf advisory (which needs a more dangerous-sounding name) is in effect until 4 p.m. Saturday.

Parella Lewis

"Why," I wondered, "is a TV weather forecaster part of the Washington's Most Wanted team?" This seemed like a form of modern metaphysical poetry: heterogeneous ideas yoked together by violence.

I met Parella Lewis in a Starbucks before she was due in at Q13 offices, determined to get to the bottom of this, like a newshound in an ersatz Jonathan Lethem novel. She was dressed for the weather. Point: Lewis.

I had researched, of course. First question/broadside: "I see that you are from Louisiana. Yet you never mention Jimmy Buffett." Turns out Lewis was born in Mississippi, is "not a cajun," but does love crawfish, in boiled or etouffée formats. She came to crawfish late, in her 20s. Relevant? Too soon to tell. Her anti-Buffett stance (not loving Jimmy is anti-) makes sense: the man's a pirate, an outlaw.

Lewis was on a two-track media-and-mayhem course from early on. She began in radio, which accounts for that cadenced enunciation you hear, while in college. But her goal back then was police work, despite the fact that she's medium height and willowy. (Since Wayne Cody, everyone in Seattle TV is thinner than me.) She attended the police academy, graduated in '99, and went to work as a reserve officer on the Lafayette force, logging 30 hours per month as a crime-buster.

She talked her way into undercover work early, and soon reported to her parents (her father is a preacher) that she'd be working as "an undercover hooker." This turned out to require a "gun in your back pocket, and a wire on," as well as detailed knowledge of Louisiana's Napoleonic Code. There was an awkward moment when she was solicited by ex-high schoolmates who, fortunately for everyone involved, didn't recognize her.

Yet, in the meantime, an appearance on a local TV telethon catapulted her out of radio and into the local TV market. Would she trade in her police uniform for forecasting courses? She would. Leaving Louisiana, she moved to Little Rock and then Indianapolis, becoming well acquainted with tornado weather. (A nearby tornado brought a finish flag to the 2004 Indy 500 at lap 450.)

Seattle, across the country, far from family and friends, was not her ideal destination. Even our bad weather doesn't match up. In Louisiana, floods mean "bodies float away regularly," said Lewis--tombs and crypts keep the dead six feet in the air.

Here, the tricky part is not where the funnel will touch down, but the effects of micro-climates on whether it's raining when you look outside or partly sunny. Lewis, in about 30 seconds, gave me a mini-lecture on the interaction of ocean air with the effects of the Olympic and Cascade mountains. Automatically, her voice shifted into that incantatory weather-forecaster mode.... (more)

Photo courtesy of The SunBreak Flickr pool genius Slightlynorth

We've got strong winds above Seattle right now, over 25 knots, says UW weather guru Cliff Mass. He's is of course delighted. Cliff likes weather. Your balmy day with clear blue skies...*yawn*.

This latest forecast calls for "SUSTAINED" winds of 40 knots over the waters of the Puget Sound. Mass also calls out those on "southern side of the San Juans, northern Whidbey Is, or on the NE Olympic Peninsula coast," and forbids them from even thinking about being on the water.

Mass's weather blogging is always a good read, but it's also intriguing to see how a forecast develops. Back on Wednesday, Mass saw the Pineapple Express on the way, and felt confident enough to forecast rain and much warmer temperatures, along with breezes. By Thursday he'd perked up at models that showed real wind arriving this evening. Now he's refined the forecast once again. As predicted, the early snow in the mountains is no match for the tropical air.

Let's see, we've done Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon. What's next? Whatever it is, SDOT is gearing up to handle it. Besides showing off their new operations room in the above video, they are explaining winter to you on their blog. "Seattle is not Snoqualmie Pass!"

There's also a pdf of a Snow Map, which includes Seattle's snow and ice routes, lists important telephone numbers and web sites, and offers preparedness tips. I know many of you would like to offer SDOT preparedness tips of your own, but please be patient! The map may turn out to be useful because, as West Seattle Blog reports, SDOT is committing to "bare pavement" on certain routes.

Here is something I can't stress enough: "Property owners, both in residential and business areas, are responsible for shoveling their sidewalks and steps." However badly SDOT stumbled in handling the snow last year, we, the Seattle citizens, were worse about keeping sidewalks clear. Many never bothered to make a stab at it, despite my glances of disapproval. This... (more)

The windows are open and the curtains are fluttering, the combination of cold air and wet roads has turned the sound of traffic along I-5 just down the hill into a dull roar, and the middle-aged cat has curled up on a hot water bottle to warm her toes and aging joints. At last, fall feels like it's arrived! Probcast has lows tonight down to 51, with an 80 percent chance of rain tomorrow with a low of 46 degrees tomorrow night.

The first week of fall, with highs in the 70s, was a respite for those odd Seattleites who prize sun over showers, but for all the Northwest natives, the smell of wet wool drying by the door and the pitter-patter of raindrops on the windowpane lulling you to sleep bring back beloved childhood memories the same way apple pie and Christmas day do for the saner of our countrymen (and -women).

So don't let the promise of seven bleak months of soul-crushing gray and wet weather get you down. Embrace it! Time for warm drinks, cozy socks, oft-forgotten bumbershoots, pumpkin carving, leaf raking, and, just to start everything off on the right foot, heavy beers. Which is what I will be drinking at Brouwer's Cafe tomorrow afternoon, seeing as how the first taste of fall always puts to the mood for a pint of something like Old Rasputin... But whatever. Enjoy!

There was one non-negotiable must-see at Bumbershoot Monday, and that was the Lost writers panel. Sorry Say Hi, Black Joe Lewis, Grand Hallway, and the Lonely Forest, you were playing at the wrong time; there was no way to catch any of your sets and also be back at the Leo K. Theatre early enough to snag some seats. I wasn't alone: the nerds had shown up early, and there was a long line of folks who were just not going to get in. For those of us who made it, however, we were treated to a lively discussion between Entertainment Weekly's Lost guru Jeff Jensen and Lost executive producer-scribes Carlton Cuse, Eddy Kitsis, and Adam Horowitz.

The show is three weeks into filming its sixth and final season, which Kitsis claimed would be "all killer, no filler." The writers showed the three teasers previously viewed at Comic-Con (and subsequently all over the tubes), which seem to indicate that perhaps time has been rebooted following Juliet detonating a hydrogen bomb in the season finale. Everyone will have to wait... (more)

Despite the talk of a monsoon this weekend, I ain't care. If fewer people venture to Bumbershoot this year, that is fine by me. It just makes for more music, comedy, and performances for the rest of us.

This year I am all about Monday. The music lineup is solid. Ignore the Black Eyed Peas (please--maybe that will make them go away), and take your pick from The Lonely Forest (3:15-4:15pm, EMP), Champagne Champagne (4:45-5:45pm, EMP), Trucksaurus (7:45-8:45pm, EMP), Portland Cello Project (6:45-7:45pm, Northwest Court), Say Hi (2:30-3:30pm, Broad Street), Mirah (4:15-5:15pm, Broad Street), Metric (9:30-10:45pm, Broad Street), The Cave Singers (6:45-7:45pm, Mural Amphitheatre), Janelle Monae (5:45-6:45pm, Fisher Green), and Franz Ferdinand (7:45-9:00pm, Memorial Stadium). Any or all of the above is sure to please.

While the overall Bumbershoot music lineup seems to be flailing at best (above company excluded), their comedy offerings only get better, and on Monday you've got tons of great laugh options, including... (more)