U.S. Climate Versus Weather Computers: Climate Wins
Why is the U.S. government provide hugely more computer resources for climate prediction than weather prediction? And why is far more emphasis given to climate prediction research than weather prediction research and development?In some past blogs I talked about the unfortunate lack of computer resources available to the National Weather Service (NWS), resulting in the...
Cold Records with Warm Temperatures
On Saturday it became toasty here in Northwest, with many locations gets into the 70s and lower 80s. Yet a number of locations exprienced daily minimum temperature records in the morning--here is the proof from the National Climatic Data Center records website. The blue dot indicate a tie for the record and stations with an...
Summer in May
It is a climatological oddity of Northwest meteorology that we often get a period of very warm, dry weather sometime in the second or third week of May, followed by a retreat into the dismal June Gloom. Well folks, we are about to have the heat wave--one that will bring near 80F temps to Seattle,...
The Windiest Place along the West Coast
As the U.S. West Coast enters the warm season, one area is getting very windy, particularly during the afternoon and evenings. Day after day this region will be hit by 20-30 mph winds, often with higher gusts. A region, where the afternoon is often too windy to be on the beach, with wind-driven sandy stinging...
Soil Temperatures and Gardening
The question that many amateur gardeners like myself often ask is:Why are my seeds not germinating and rotting in the soil?When will the soil be warm enough to sow my seeds or transplant my plants? Well, I don't pretend to be an expert in this, but I suspect it has something to do so with...
Warmth Returns
You don't need to be a meteorologist to know that we have been substantially cooler than normal the past five days--on both sides of the Cascades. Here is a sample from Seattle and Pasco. Roughly 5-10F below normal on the max temps. The reason? A persistent trough over the Northwest, as shown by this upper level...
Pioneer Weather Complaints
Some things never change.One can not be considered a Northwesterner if you don't grouse about our endless cool, showery weather during Spring. And it turns out that our pioneer ancestors---more than 150 years ago--were doing the same thing.Let's go back to 1855 and the town of Steilacoom on Puget Sound's waters. In a hard-hitting commentary...
Tornadoes and Tulips: The Mt. Vernon Connection
Or perhaps funnels and flowers. What is it with Mt. Vernon and funnel clouds during the annual spring Tulip festival? Remember last year? On April 29th several folks spotted and photographed a funnel cloud rotating over the famous blossoms (see picture below which I found in a story in the Skagit County Herald). Nice mini wall...
