Although the inland Pacific Northwest is escaping most of the serious storm action, one storm after another is revving up over the eastern Pacific, and such storms, with very strong winds near the surface, can result in the generation of big waves that move to our coast.
Rapidly growing, intense storms are often called meteorological "bombs" and several such "explosive cyclones" will be active to our west this week.
This time of the year, there is a further concern, with very large midwinter "King" tides.
Let me show you some of the forecasts from the UW WRF modeling system, with the maps presenting sea level pressure (solid lines), surface winds (the black wind pennants), and low-level temperature (shading, blue is cold, orange/red is warm)
Monday has a large impressive low off our coast! Very large area of powerful southwesterly winds.
On Wednesday, there are two offshore low systems
And Friday has a huge elongated low west of the Northwest coast.
Strong winds help build waves. Big systems with long stretches of strong winds (or fetch) build waves.
Now let me show you some of the wave forecasts from the NOAA WindWatch3 wave prediction system. The highest waves are indicated by the reds and browns.
Monday night around 8 PM the NOAA system is predicting waves exceeding 20 ft reaching our coast! Large waves will be widespread over the northeast Pacific.
And similarly large or larger waves are predicted around 11 PM on Wednesday.
So expect some good wave-watching on the coast.
What about the high tides? The astronomical predictions (no weather input) forecast some relatively high tides during the next few days, so there will be some coastal flooding/impact concerns.
We had a weather bomb up here in South Central AK. Barometric pressure as low as 28.37. Drop a half in h of pressure in 18 hour. A weather station in portage ak recorded .48 inches of rainfall in one hour.
ReplyDeleteLovely site with great graphics, big waves are coming!
ReplyDeletehttps://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/overlay=significant_wave_height/orthographic=-124.04,42.91,1136/loc=-172.812,36.285
Even though this December will end up with a little more than normal precipitation at BLI, 2023 will still go down as the third driest calendar year on record at that location after recording its all-time driest water year during 2022-2023. December 2023 will be the wettest month since November 2021 and the first month with above normal precipitation since June 2022. It will take many years of at least normal precipitation to replenish groundwater supplies in Western Whatcom County as many shallow wells have dried up over the past couple of years.
ReplyDelete"It will take many years of at least normal precipitation to replenish groundwater supplies in Western Whatcom County as many shallow wells have dried up over the past couple of years."
DeletePlease provide objective and substantive evidence for this assertion.
NWS noted in their forecast discussion this afternoon that this will likely be one of the five warmest Decembers for Seattle, possibly top-three. I believe it; it's been a balmy one.
ReplyDeleteIt has indeed been exceptionally warm this month. The monthly mean temperature at my location will be ~10F warmer than December 2022. It's also been wetter than normal and yet the snowpack is barely 50% of normal. This is ver reminiscent of the last strong El Nino in 2015.
DeleteWhatcom County has been gaining population (~30,000 in 10 years). I've no knowledge of the situation, but if I was interested, I would begin to look at where these new citizens are locating. Are new wells being drilled? How deep are the ones that are now short of water? Are there new businesses using water? In some counties there are restrictions on new wells, lawn irrigation, car washing, and such things.
ReplyDeleteSometime in the next 3 to 5 years the area will have more precip than it can handle. That is a better bet than Power Ball. :)
I find myself-perhaps selfishly, wanting a couple of those "bombs" to move inland, just to remined me of what our more "normal" Winters feel like! I actually miss the "action" that those types of storms show us mere mortals.
ReplyDelete