Tonight, I wanted to talk about the most serious aspect of the KUOW affair: the extraordinary willingness of the station to spread incorrect information to defend itself. But considering that some of you are not interested in this, I decided to put it into a separate blog:
http://kuowgate.blogspot.com/
This week the National Weather Service sent me a marvelous video of the construction of the new Langley Hill radar. Check it out here:
I love the part where they build the dome and put it on top of the tower!
July 4? Looking good! Tomorrow (Thursday) will bring lots of clouds and some showers, particularly in the convergence zone and along the western slopes of the Cascades. Friday and Saturday should be sunny and warm. Sunday--clouds and perhaps some showers...and then major improvement on July 4th... just in time for picnics, parades, and illicit incendiary activities.
But let me give you some good news, particularly since the front page of the Seattle Times on Thursday talks about the dangers of snow on our trails. It really looks that we are going to transition to true summer weather next week. Here is the National Weather Service 6-10 day forecasts for temperature and precipitation--higher probability of warmer than normal and drier than normal weather. More on this on Friday....
I see this morning that the snow level is at 5500 feet. According to an article in the Seattle Times snow remains over all of the trails out of Paradise and Sunrise on Mt Rainier. July 4th is upon us. Since we're past the solstice, the days will begin to rapidly shorten and the nights and their coolness lengthen. I understand the mechanics of residual "heat" in August and September in normal years, but this isn't a normal year. I'm wondering if I'm going to be disappointed in getting to Indian Henry's Hunting Ground on Mt Rainier and miss out entirely on it's annual display of profuse wildflower glory... I may have to settle for viewing a grander Nisqually glacier this time around.
ReplyDeleteJohn...don't give up yet....summer will start soon and melt out---although delayed---will occur...cliff
ReplyDeleteGood weather on July 4? Surely that just can't be! . . . EVERYONE knows that we usually have bad Fourth weather in the Seattle area . . .
ReplyDeleteExcept that that's simply not true. Seatac has recorded any July 4 rainfall only twice beginning with 1999 on July 4 (and one of those -- 2006 -- it still reached 75 and rainfall was quite minor). I suspect people have the 1990s in the back of their minds where in an anomalous seven year period (1992-1998) it rained five of those years on the Fourth and only reached the mid-60s on one of the times it didn't.
In The Economist of 18 June, page 87 they reported on the report from the National Solar Observatory (NSO)saying that the latest sun cycle hasn't started again as the immediate past would dictate and we COULD be going into a Maunder/Dalton minimum cycle. Have you seen any promising work about the north pacific decadal and the strength of our solar radiator?
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteAs Cliff says, melt will happen but late of course. 1999 was the last really, really big snow year and the wildflowers in the Olympics were stunning, just a month or more late. In my 17 years working at Olympic NP, the big snow years have been really good wildflower years.
Hi Cliff-are there any UW extension courses or online courses that you can recommend to learn more about meteorology? Thanks,
ReplyDeleteLeo
Have heard that many have or are about to dig up their tomatoes and throw them away. Heard from one farmer who said all of hers turned white, after a night in the 30s last week.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting my Winter Vegetables this weekend. Cabbage family stuff and other greens.
KW
Thank you for putting your KUOW stuff on another blog
ReplyDelete