July 02, 2025

Mountain Wave Fest East of the Cascade Crest

 Those living in eastern Washington had quite a treat this afternoon and early evening as an impressive show of mountain wave clouds extended over large portions of the region.

Some of the new wildfire cams really displayed the ethereal beauty of the wave clouds (see below).




Below is a nice visible image this afternoon, with lots of mountain wave clouds downstream of the Cascades.


The wave clouds (also called lenticular clouds) are the result of the greatly increased westerly (from the west) winds that developed last night.  Air from the Pacific was pushed up over the Cascade crest and then oscillated up and down downstream of the terrain (see schematic below).

When the air ascended, clouds formed.


The increased flow over and down the Cascades had another major impact: a major increase in wind energy from eastern Washington (green line below).  Ironically, wind energy is very poor around here when we really need it...during the middle of heat waves. 


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2 comments:

  1. John F. HultquistJuly 3, 2025 at 7:24 AM

    Near Ellensburg, KELN reported steady winds in the high 30s and a gust at 7:53 pm of 49mph. Things tend to move around, and got the area a Red Flag – aka watch for wind driven fires - warning.

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  2. FriendJuly 3, 2025 at 10:44 PM

    These westerly (and southerly) winds have brought notably dry air into the Bellingham area; the driest that I’ve observed during July in at least 5 years. The maximum dew point that my backyard weather station recorded today was just 53F and two (2) miles away, at KBLI, the maximum dew point was 52F. At my location, the typical lowest daily maximum dew point during July is in the high 50s; mid 50s at KBLI which often records slightly lower daily minimum dew point/relative humidity than at my location. Humidity in the lowlands between the Cascades and the inland waters north of Everett during the dry season is generally higher than to the south and KSEA recorded a maximum daily dew point of only 48F today. Interestingly, despite the unusual dryness of the air in absolute terms (i.e. dew point), daily minimum relative humidity values were not particularly low for the Puget Sound region today due to the cool air and clouds preventing high temperatures from rising much above 70F for most of the area.

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