First, we had strong winds, taking out the power to a quarter-million local residents. And then snow.
The vigorous system that moved through on Sunday and a second disturbance behind spread substantial snow over the regional mountains above approximately 4000 ft., with 1-2 feet on the ground in many locations.
The image at 8 PM at the Paradise Visitor Center on Mount Rainier (about 5000 ft) was a snowy dream, with the moon illuminating a winter wonderland.
Want to see how much difference a year makes?
Below are maps of the regional snow water equivalent (the amount of water in the snowpack) for last year (left) and this year (right) for 11 PM on October 26.
Can you tell the difference? 😊
Virtually nothing last year. Bountiful snowpack this year.
And by tomorrow at 5 PM, there will be even more (see additional totals below).
Not enough to think about downhill skiing, but a good start, and a welcome beginning to the winter snowpack after a low previous year.
A very strong atmospheric river will approach the region on Friday-Sunday, but I will leave that to my blog.
Seattle Times Errors Again
As long as I am talking about atmospheric rivers, I can't help but note the major errors in recent Seattle Times stories on this topic. Consider the atmospheric river graphics they provided a few days ago (below).
Not very good.
It starts by stating that atmospheric rivers are "flowing columns of condensed water vapor".
Water vapor is not "condensed". It is vapor... .a GAS. Most of the water associated with atmospheric rivers is not condensed water (that is, clouds or precipitation), but water vapor.
Water vapor that is forced to condense into clouds and precipitation as it is forced to rise by local terrain.
They claim that the water vapor is found one mile above the ocean. This is simply false.
The claim that atmospheric rivers "generate a series of storms" is wrong. Atmospheric rivers are the result of larger-scale circulations and storms. The Seattle Times confused the chicken and the egg.
This error-filled Seattle Times graphic is not an isolated example of poor research and writing. I could show you a dozen more. Ok, how about one?
Below is their graphic about the convergence zone and rainshadow. They have the air approaching the Olympics from the southwest (which is fine), but then they show cold air from the Fraser River Valley. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
And then they make the same mistake about "condensed water vapor" coming off the Pacific and repeat the error of the water being about one mile off the ocean.
The quality of the scientific "journalism" in the Seattle Times is now so poor that you really can't trust what you read in it. Just a shame.
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I worked at a newspaper in the early 90s in the composing room. I would see glaring errors all the time on subjects I knew well. If I pointed them out, I always heard the same response, "It sounds/reads better like this," even in the case of an event that was lied about when the photo they used showed me standing in the center of it all! Same response. They never let facts get in the way.
ReplyDeleteKnowing this, I'm hardly surprised to read your take on local media response to weather.
Yes it's obvious - they keep using the word "condensed" because they like the way it sounds. They have no idea what it means.
DeleteHmm.. I wonder how many other subjects they write about and get things very wrong? Just a few here are there maybe?
Your newspaper should have been publishing accurate information. Lying to its readers was a very bad thing to do. For a business that relies heavilly on trust and the delivery of accurate information, they didn't seem to have much regard for either one, preferring to let inaccurate spin win the day for the sake of appearences. I'm glad you were there to call out their errors. If only they had listened.
DeleteAgreed, in my years in the fire service every time I would read about an incident that I had personal knowledge of many key points written about the incident would be wrong. These incorrect statements were not due to information being hidden or unavailable. If the reporter had taken the time to research and ask the right questions the articles could have been much more accurate.
DeleteRecently the Times published a chart that showed reservoir levels in several watersheds feeding the Yakima River (if my memory is correct) at alarmingly low levels. I know they have been feeding the drought narrative and you say it isn't so. Data is data, do you disagree with the reservoir data they presented?
ReplyDeleteThe raw numbers were fine, but their implications were problematic. Talking about percent full is deceptive. They should have been been talking about % of normal. Percent full is much, much lower than percent of normal...which they should have been stressing. The Yakima Reservior are rapidly gaining water right now.....
DeleteWith the Yakima Reservior filling up as we speak, does that mean we should soon see the major water restrictions that have been in place in Central Washington for the past month or so be lifted?
DeleteAnyone putting faith in traditional media like the Seattle Times has their head buried deeply in the sand.
ReplyDeleteWhat's sadder still is that a respected, internationally renowned expert on PNW weather is a phone call away.
ReplyDeleteHave you heard anyone expressing concern about the large amounts of water the data centers are now using in Eastern Washington? I've only just heard about it recently and know nothing about it.
ReplyDeleteThe water use tends to get exaggerated. The power use is more significant. Per a recent Department of Energy study looking at both resources (link at the end), data centers are using around 5% of the all electricity consumption in the US. The 176 TWh consumed in 2023 (it's expected to be around 225 TWh this year) is roughly equal to 60W for every single person in the country, non-stop.
DeleteIf you think about the sleek smartphone that is perhaps in your hand, which is cool when it is idle and slightly warm when you're using it...it is actually consuming as much energy as an old style incandescent light bulb, which gets hot enough to cause burns if you touch it for just a second or two. It's just that energy consumption and heat (at much lower temperatures dissipated in a relatively large volume of cooling air or water) isn't occurring in your hand, but at the myriad servers the phone depends on to serve content and process data so the phone doesn't have to handle all of that itself.
The energy usage is equivalent to roughly 20 nuclear power plants. The consumption is expected to double over the next 5 years.
The data center water usage does sound somewhat impressive at 66 billion liters, or equivalent to 51 gallons per person (or 328 soda bottles) for 2023. That is also expected to double over 5 years. On the other hand the average American uses 82 gallons of water in their home every day, or almost 600 times as much water as data centers. Depending on which source we look at, if you add up water uses in the US, it is around 1000-2000 gallons per person per day including agriculture, power generation, industrial, government, and business use.
So data centers use about 5% of all of the electricity we consume, and about 0.01% of all of our water we withdraw.
It was a bit hard to trace down a good visual point of comparison, because the rivers all of us know are too big, but the Ballard Locks fish ladder is a start: all the data centers in the US use 3-4 times as much water as the fish ladder on average.
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-releases-new-report-evaluating-increase-electricity-demand-data-centers
I suspect many slept through 9th grade science and thus are confused by the condensed versus vapor terms. I'm not surprised except that a person writing about weather, for a "reputable" news organization, ought to have progressed.
ReplyDeleteAbout the "one mile above" – In roughly 65 years of reading about weather, I have never encountered this phrase.
The 15 Mississippi Rivers comes from a NOAA site. There is says "... an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River." Raise your hand if you have ever been to the mouth of that River. Not helpful in any case.
Hello @cliff Mass I'm hoping you'll do a post on Hurricane Melissa. Our windstorm seems benign compared to 185MPH winds!
ReplyDeleteI think that the ST is trying to get at something with that "layer of warm air 1 mile above the ocean," but I can't figure out what it is. Maybe trying to reference the jet stream? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Times should have a "journalist" sign up for your ATMOS 101 class. I did - and am now less at the mercy of sensationalists and amateurs when it comes to the coming weather events!
ReplyDeleteFrankly, everyone on their Climate Lab team should take the class and/or read Professor Mass' book. Perhaps then they wouldn't make so many errors that have to be called out.
DeleteWas anyone else curious about the Mt. Rainier picture. Last night the moon was barely in its first quarter, but it looks like a solid globe in that photo. Maybe a water drop on the camera lens.
ReplyDeleteCliff, why is it that the Seattle Times always lies about weather and climate? It’s not like they occasionally get some minor detail wrong; instead, everything they say is grossly inaccurate and easily proven to be false. On the other hand, you always provide hard empirical evidence to back up your assertions along with clear explanations of the mechanisms of atmospheric science. When you correct what the Seattle Times says, the climate lab people never seem to learn anything, and the commenters always disparage you but never provide any technical refutation of what you say. The commenters prefer to believe the words of the climate lab people who have no scientific credentials whatsoever over the well reasoned scientific perspective that you provide.
ReplyDeleteIt’s obviously impossible to reason logically with these people. They’re hellbent on destroying our energy systems and our economy. I mostly ignore them knowing that the laws of physics and economics will prevail.
They don't "want" to destroy anything - they don't care about things like that. They are in business to make money, and drama sells. People crave drama (see the COVID odyssey for a great example) and they give it to them, cranked up as high as they can. It's really entertainment more than anything - it's just a circus.
DeleteWhooped em again Josie. Got em Cliff. I'm old and love this movie. Keep it coming. Winter is coming, so, lots of topics on the horizon.
ReplyDeleteI was interested when the Vancouver Sun, up in Vancouver BC last week printed a story about the Blob, just a few days after Cliff wrote how the Blob was dying.
ReplyDelete"The blob is back in the Northern Pacific Ocean: What does that mean for B.C.? "
Climate scientists say the marine heat wave could be altering the jet stream, potentially leading to a wetter than normal winter in the Pacific Northwest.
Author of the article:
By Tiffany Crawford
Published Oct 25, 2025