Today hit around 80F in central Puget Sound, 90F in Portland, and about the same in eastern Washington
Tomorrow will be a minor step down, but soon the thermostat will be turned much lower, with highs in the 60s.
Worried about heatwaves? Don't be...the threat of real heat is over for 2021.
And as a sign of major change, a sharp upper-level trough of low pressure is now approaching the coast, with substantial showers associated with it....something shown by the National Weather Service weather radars at 9 PM (see below), which indicate rain on the Oregon coast.
Don't be surprised if you hear some showers, and perhaps even some thunder, in the early morning hours.
The key change is that the upper ridge of high pressure, which has persisted immediately to our east (see map for 500 hPa...about 18,000 ft ASL... today, below), will weaken
and the Pacific jet stream will strengthen in its wake (see upper-level map for Sunday)
The latest forecast from the European Center ensemble system of many forecasts shows the downward temperature trend this month.
The good news in all of this is that the cooling trend works against wildfire, and there is no hint of the dangerous pattern of last September with strong, dry offshore-directed (easterly) winds.
Just a sprinkle and a slight bit of thunder this morning. For the passage of a front, the rainfall was disappointingly trivial. It barely wet anything.
ReplyDeleteAh, perhaps that explains the dirty blotches all over my car, parked outside overnight in N. Seattle.
DeleteThank you for clickable maps and charts that can be expanded to be readable on a phone.
ReplyDeleteI like the cooling, but when can we expect some actual rain in the Seattle area? Our ground is now hardpan. Watering the garden these days is half about giving the roots something to drink, and half about washing the dust off the leaves. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteYup!.."Rainy day, rain all day, no need to get uptight, just let it groove it's own way...lay back and groove, on a rainy day"--Jimi Hendrix, 1968...We know where he got his inspiration for that beautiful tune!
ReplyDeleteWe pulled the window a/c for the season last weekend. I have an eerie sense that my wife will want to turn on the furnace shortly, and I'm not a fan of paying to heat the outdoors.
ReplyDeleteThat is also my question. When can we expect to have the tap turned back on. I gasped as I drove across Lake Washington a few weeks ago seeing how bare Mt. Rainier is right now.
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