Last weekend, I started getting emails from folks concerned about a "bomb cyclone" approaching Washington state. Some of the amateur Facebook and YouTube sites were also starting to beat the weather drums.
The reason? Several model runs at that time had scary forecasts, such as this one for 4 PM Thursday (tomorrow). The kind of strong low that would easily take out power to hundreds of thousands of local customers.
When I took a look at the situation, I realized the uncertainty of these forecasts was very, very large: the ensembles of many forecasts have a huge spread in solutions, and the forecasts changed radically run to run.
That is why I did not blog about it.
We are close enough now to have a good idea of what will occur tomorrow... the rapid development of a strong low off the California coast.
A low center that will dissipate almost as quickly as it developed.
Here is the pressure analysis for 4 AM this morning. An amorphous 1002 hPa low-pressure center off of northern California. Yawn.
Now look at the forecast for 4 AM Thursday morning: a 986 hPa low has formed. Impressive.
A deepening of 16 hPa in 24 h. Not quite the bomb rate (24 hPa in 24 h), but very substantial.
The developing low was quite evident on the visible satellite image this afternoon (see below, and I marked the low-pressure center).
The water vapor satellite imager tonight (8:30 PM) was quite impressive:
This storm is predicted to drive some large waves offshore (see wave forecast for 4 PM Thursday), with some getting to 25 feet, and some modest waves reaching the coast. No big deal.
The forecast totals through Sunday at 4 AM are impressive in the mountains:
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