Get your lightning rods handy, because there is a good chance that a large area of thunderstorms will sweep northward over Washington on Friday night and Saturday morning.
The action is associated with the landfall of an upper low on the southern Northwest coast.
At 2 PM Friday it will be offshore of northern California.
Crossing the coast around 5 AM Saturday.
And then weakens and pushes northward into Washington by 11 PM Saturday.
This kind of upper level trough passage is a classic thunderstorm/lightning producer in our region. The trough provides upward vertical motion that produces clouds and precipitation--it also can release instability that can initiate thunderstorms.
Let me shown you the simulated radar imagery produced by the NOAA/NWS HRRR model (yellow, orange and red signify heavier precipitation). Friday at 4 PM the model is predicting thunderstorms on the crest of the Cascades.
By 10 PM, as the trough begins to swing northeastward, an area of showers and thunderstorms surges northward into Washington, particularly the southern Cascades.
And these showers continue to move northward during the next five hours (3 AM Saturday shown). Some thunderstorms will be embedded in the precipitation.
The predicted rainfall totals through 5 AM Saturday are substantial in some areas, particularly the southern and central Cascades, where the HRRR model is going for as much as 1-2 inches (see below). Good for Seattle and Tacoma's water supply. But we do have to worry about lightning-initiated wildfires.
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