October 20, 2010

I don't believe anything yet...but


I don't want to get anyone excited.

And because of Typhoon Megi there is a loss of predictability over the Pacific. So the chances are it won't happen.

But with all of that said...look at the latest forecast for Sunday morning at 8 AM!

An extraordinarily deep low center just off Vancouver Island. 964 mb! And each model run brings the storm closer!

And look at the winds offshore in the next plot. Sustained winds offshore of 55 knots and more and certainly hurricane-strength gusts!


It could all disappear in the next run. But if it is still there in tomorrow night's forecasts, I would get excited. At this point we are only talking about very strong winds over the Pacific and the coast and strong winds over the Strait of Georgia. Not Puget Sound and south.
at

20 comments:

  1. UnknownOctober 20, 2010 at 10:27 PM

    I am going to be in the Hoh rain forest (on the coast) for the weekend and I am totally looking forward to seeing some fun weather! I keep trying to get my family members to look at the recent GFS model loop, and they are quite underwhelmed, but I am pretty excited about it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ToddOctober 20, 2010 at 10:47 PM

    No! My power generator isn't installed yet! This isn't supposed to happen until December :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. New Moon BirthOctober 20, 2010 at 10:51 PM

    Thanks Cliff, for the heads up! As i work with women having babies as a doula, I always make sure to be ready when you tell me about these big lows headed our way! they sure do shake the babies loose!

    ReplyDelete
  4. kermitziiOctober 20, 2010 at 11:09 PM

    In such a calm fall, the winter will come with vengeance, like in 1996, when we had a 36 inch snow in Vancouver BC, late December.

    ReplyDelete
  5. kermitziiOctober 20, 2010 at 11:12 PM

    Wait until December for the big snowfall. This is like 1996 when Vancouver BC got 36 inches in one day. The calm before the storm.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Diary of a cat householdOctober 20, 2010 at 11:16 PM

    ok; I am going to play dumb and clueless because I am most of the time about weather, but what does that mean for me here in chehalis?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Charlie PhillipsOctober 21, 2010 at 12:07 AM

    I didn't look at the the mesoscale models but just looking at the big GFS superensemble at NCEP it looked like the low kind of slowed down, hooked northward, and lost some steam as it approached. Would this give a lot of wind to the coast but not much to Puget Sound? Maybe I can see if I can convince my parents to be Jim Foremans for a day and take a trip out to La Push or something. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. typingtalkerOctober 21, 2010 at 2:42 AM

    "And because of Typhoon Megi there is a loss of predictability over the Pacific."

    Could you discuss, in a future post, why this is true?

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownOctober 21, 2010 at 7:53 AM

    Speaking of tropical storms, there have been a very unusual number forming off the coast of Nicaragua and Honduras this year. Those two countries sometimes go years without a nearby TS.

    ReplyDelete
  10. LorbeerTLCOctober 21, 2010 at 8:00 AM

    That's an impressive little system. I see the NWS is also calling for the snow level to be near the 3,500 foot level too. Thanks Cliff for the 'head's up'!
    -Tom

    ReplyDelete
  11. jr05452October 21, 2010 at 8:39 AM

    Cliff,
    How are you getting an 87 hr forecast when the WRF is only published out to 72 hrs??? That's cheating!!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. jr05452October 21, 2010 at 8:39 AM

    Cliff,
    How can you get an 87 hr forecast when the WRF is only published out to 72hrs?? That's cheating!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. windloverOctober 21, 2010 at 9:14 AM

    I'm excited! I love wind! Only thing I'm not excited about is if the wind does come and the power goes out...I don't get my wood stove until next week.....ugh!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Request For CommentsOctober 21, 2010 at 9:39 AM

    Professor Mass,

    So, do you have access to the model forecast information further out in time that is what is online at the www.atmos.washington.edu? Looking at your picture, I'm guessing this comes from the WRF-GFS extended forecast but I can only see it going out to 05 PDT Sun 24 Oct 10 where as your graph shows 08 PDT Sun 24 Oct 10 (http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?mm5d2_x_slp+///3)

    ReplyDelete
  15. EileenOctober 21, 2010 at 10:01 AM

    Those of us in high-wind areas with horses to care for greatly appreciate any advance notice to prepare for the possibility of a nasty storm event. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  16. JordanPOctober 21, 2010 at 10:10 AM

    And I will be in a tent Saturday night on a Boy Scout camp out.

    Weeee...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Shawn MederoOctober 21, 2010 at 10:37 AM

    For whatever reason the atmos HTML tables don't have links to the 87h data but you can access the images if you hack the URLs:

    Example:

    Take this:
    http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/load.cgi?images_d2/850t.72.0000.gif

    and change the 72 to 87:

    http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/load.cgi?images_d2/850t.87.0000.gif

    Walla.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Kevin PurcellOctober 21, 2010 at 3:50 PM

    I think Cliff is using the extended range Extended WRF-GFS meso model.

    Which is publicly available (that's to all for making that so!) but has the caveat: "These extended WRF-GFS forecasts are EXPERIMENTAL. They are subject to undocumented changes and incomplete forecasts"

    http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/extendedgfsinit.html

    These forecasts go out to 180 hours from the initialization time.

    BTW, the next run inited at 12UT Thu Oct 21 at 87h has the low further north of the north end of VI and filling in a little. The winds off the coast of WA are lower. And the maximum winds in the storm get into the "white" earlier and further to the west. So it seems to peak earlier and miss WA by more.

    http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?mm5d2_x_wssfc+///3

    Still it's a long way out ...

    ReplyDelete
  19. AnonymousOctober 21, 2010 at 6:28 PM

    It's only going to be a matter of time before one of those of 955mb bombs hit....I for one want to be alive to see it.

    ReplyDelete
  20. ChristopherOctober 21, 2010 at 7:23 PM

    I'm sure I'm not the only one, Cliff, who would love you to post some instructional materials, maybe even some videos, telling us what information is available on atmos.washington.edu, and how to use it. I fumble my way around there from time to time, but really have no good idea where to find what I'm =looking for. Any chance that you, or even a project for some of your upper level students, to put together some videos showing the neat things that are there and what they mean?

    I'm sure lots of other people would like that, too!

    ReplyDelete

Please make sure your comments are civil. Name calling and personal attacks are not appropriate.