October 18, 2010

Major Change to Stormy Conditions Ahead

I generally like to wait until I am sure about things before advertising a major change and now I am. The models are all going for a major shift to stormy and wet weather this weekend.

But don't worry...we have a few more days of sun and warmth ahead!

Three days--with sunny afternoons, highs in the lower 60s, and dry...but with fog in the morning. Yes, it is fog season and you get the fog because of the clear skies (clear skies allow radiational cooling to space).

The source of our beautiful weather....a high amplitude ridge of high pressure over us (see the examples for tomorrow and Wednesday below). But then something is going to happen...and you can see a sign of it in the second upper air chart...a trough will be moving in later in the week and in force over the weekend.


In contrast, here is the upper level chart for 11 PM on Friday. No more ridge. A strong trough offshore and a very strong jet stream heading right towards us in the Pacific (note the winds are parallel to the lines and the greater the number of lines, the stronger the winds).


And here is the 24- precipitation ending 5 AM on Saturday. Wet!

On Saturday there will be showers and then another system on Sunday! And lots of winds over the eastern Pacific. More later...

7 comments:

  1. Yay! Finally...Fall is arriving! I love stormy weather!

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  2. Define "stormy". Just rain and wind or can we expect some thunder? I lived back east when I was growing up and I really miss the thunderstorms. :)

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  3. We'll take what ever rain numbers you can give us for Saturday PM. Our family plans to participate in the Black Cat Fun Run at Pt Defiance and dryer would be better!

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  4. ditto Windlover! I hope we get some decent storms this winter... last winter just seemed incomplete with basically no snow!

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  5. Just saw on TWC that typhoon megi in the western pacific is 890mb and getting stronger. Kinda looked like it was still heading west. Imagine if that would have got entrained in that jet headed towards us soon.

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  6. Smokejumper, my friends in Taipei are getting pounded by outer bands of Megi (15W) right now, and following the Western Pacific weather predictions, Megi IS going to get caught up in that strong flow to come our way. Would love to hear Cliff talk about how long it will take to get to us... my guess is middle of next week based on what happened with 14W but I'm no meteorologist.

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