I am giving a talk next Tuesday in Forks on the Great Cyclones of the Northwest (details below)
Here are temperature predictions for two cities, one for Seattle and the other for Los Angeles. Can you guess which is which? One doesn't get out of the mid-60s (with lots of clouds!). The other will be in the 70s with plenty of sun.
The last few months have been dominated by a recurring pattern in which a ridge of high pressure builds over the Pacific Northwest, while a trough of low pressure descends into southern California.
And it is happening again. Consider a sequence of upper-level maps ( for 500 hPa pressure, about 18,000 ft).
On Thursday morning at 5 AM, a major ridge is found over the Northwest (red colors indicate high pressures/heights), while a weak trough is over LA.
By Saturday morning, a very strong trough/low is found over southern CA.
And by Monday morning, the low trough over southern CA is even stronger:
The newspaper reflects the difference. The LA Times talks about rain and mudslides in California.
While the Seattle Times crows about the warmth.
This weather boon will not last forever, with a few showers coming in on Saturday across the Northwest.
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I will be talking at the UW Olympic Natural Resources Center at 7 PM on Tuesday, May 6. Open to all and free. My topic will be "The Great Storms of the Northwest Coast." They zoom it as well.
Nice! Robert Rosmond was my grandfather and a proud Husky!
ReplyDeleteWow! Its not every day that Seattle has better weather than Los Angeles. Especially not outside of the summer months.
ReplyDeleteJust to be certain, is the Forks talk scheduled for Tues. 5/6, not 5/8?
ReplyDeleteYes. Tuesday 5/6.
DeleteWhat are the driving forces of this persistent pattern? Is it La Nina? Natural variability? Climate change? It also looks like the models have been showing a rain "mirage" where it looks wet several days out but closer to the time the rain is less and less and even all but disappearing! Not good. Even the Euro model has been doing this and that's usually accurate but not lately.
ReplyDelete