This spring, we have escaped sustained heat and it appears this pattern will continue. But that does not mean there won't be some transient warm days. You will enjoy some nice warmth on Wednesday, followed by a substantial incursion of cool, marine air. And once started, the cooling will be shockingly fast.
Consider the predicted temperatures for Seattle from the UW high-resolution ensemble of many forecasts, with the black line being the average of all of them...probably a very good forecast.
Around 73F on Tuesday and low 80s on Wednesday.
But what is really interesting is the spatial pattern of the predicted warmth, and for that, nothing is better than the super high-resolution UW WRF model forecasts. In these forecasts, we solve the atmospheric equations on a grid with points separated by 1.3 km. This allows us to predict very small-scale weather features.
The temperature forecast for tomorrow (Tuesday) at 5 PM shows a toasty Portland, but only in the low 70s from Seattle to the south Sound. Upper 70s in eastern WA.
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At some point we won't escape the heat once it starts this summer until next fall. So let the heat games begin.
ReplyDeleteI could do with delaying the start of the heat games for a while, but perhaps if we start them sooner, they can come to an end sooner.
DeleteBased on the wind barbs it appears that the upcoming warm day is due to offshore/downslope flow. Is this due to a thermal trough migrating up the coast or an incoming low pressure system?
ReplyDeleteMay can be like this!...I can remember specifically, that on May 23, 1969, I attended a Jimi Hendrix concert in Seattle. The temperature that day had hit 90*....a record that stood for many years. Rather amazingly, during the evening concert at the "Coliseum", a sudden drop in temperature, followed by an intense thunderstorm, meant that me, and 12,000 other, got soaked when we walked back to our cars after the concert!
ReplyDeleteFeels a bit muggy too this (Wednesday) afternoon.
ReplyDeleteIt felt especially muggy at the immediate coast (Grays Harbor) on Tuesday. Less so on Wednesday, and even less tonight. The immediate coast may have only climbed into the 60s for daytime highs, but it was still less than pleasant with the mugginess. I should add that it didn't cool down that much at night, and the normal coastal breeze was absent. It finally came back today, and boy does it make a difference.
DeleteI'll be presently surprised if this one creates a thunderstorm. Most of our marine pushes seem to produce only low clouds and a breeze. I can't fathom it, but I think the marine layer is usually too shallow to generate instability as it moves over the sun-heated land. Which contrasts greatly with what happens on the East coast. But we'll see.
ReplyDeleteFairly strong temperature inversion this morning in Western Whatcom County with temperatures >10F warmer at 5000’ than near sea level at around 3AM.
ReplyDeleteFriend- Indeed, 10 degrees warmer at 5000 feet!? That explains why we did not get any convective showers last night...
ReplyDeleteThe high at my place was 86.5, on the Bothell- Mill Creek line.
ReplyDelete