Ngl it’s nice to be out of the weather spotlight for a bit. It seems the ocean has casted it’s gaze at California and left us to carry on here like the mere mortals we are.

The pacific ocean is busy, and we’ve been in a consistent pattern here with the remnants of large pacific storms bringing beneficial rains northward… we’ve had a bit of wind, but nothing extreme or disruptive for January. We all know what’s possible around here!

I won’t even bother to make a post for wind over 40MPH as most of our trees will gladly accept 45MPH gusts.

Forecast for the week:

rain —> sun breaks —> blustery wind —> calm —> rain —> sun breaks —> blustery wind —> calm —> and then repeating again😆 and all that is happening between 44F and 52F.

Pattern is not changing as of Monday 1500 Pacific.

California however! Oh WOW

Another Massive swell producing / rain producing beast of a storm is on the models. (Image posted is Wednesday’s predicted wave height / direction).

Not as big as the bomb cyclone last week, but still nothing to write off. Waves to 38ft and a broader precipitation fetch are going to be quite disruptive for California and southern OR.

Have you read about the Great Flood of 1862? 🤔 I’m curious if this pattern were to continue, what we’d be seeing in terms of flooding.

California will be getting all the headlines for the next 10 days (I’m ok with it).

Still watching for any windstorms for us on the south end, and we’re looking good for now.

Will update again if I spot anything weird, as always.

#cawx #orwx #wawx #whidbeyisland #wxmeme #southwhidbeywx

Image 1: The previously mentioned storm has fully come to birth on the #GOES17 at 1500 on Jan. 3rd, 2023. Just a remarkable system headed into Northern CA here. Big wave maker. Big snow maker. Hopefully this can make a dent in the west’s current drought numbers.

Image 2: Thursday evening wind estimates for the puget sound. Locally just a gorgeous day yesterday and today. Remarkable visibility! Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, The Olympics, Tahoma all came out to say hello. Even caught a few #Lenticulars off the Sequim side of the Olympics too!

Wednesday and Thursday we revisit rain and wind potential.

I’m posting a quick heads up for a Thursday evening system. We have some time to track it, but we’re flirting with windstorm potential with gusts to 45mph on the European model. Still a ways to go, so nothing to be concerned about yet – just keeping an eye on it to see where the wind estimates are trending tomorrow.

I’ll update us on that incoming weather tomorrow AM when the fresh model runs are up.

#cawx #orwx #wawx

The “bomb cyclone” has a few other notable names, including: Explosive Cyclogenesis, Meteorological Bomb, Weather Bomb, and my personal favorite… Bombogenesis

For all of these seemingly radical terms, the only criteria to qualify a low pressure system for this echelon is that it sheds 24 millibars of air pressure over 24 hours?

That’s it? That’s all it is?! What happened here? 😆 Who comes up with these meteorological terms?

#bombogenesis #weatherbomb #bombcyclone #wawx #orwx

Wow! Time to reflect on a pretty wild run of weather. We avoided some ice, some wind, but didn’t avoid the flooding issues, especially along the beachfronts.

Chances of rain today and tonight, and next week looking much less extreme for us, with no major wind events or major storms on the models for the next 7-10days.

Things can change quickly this time of year, and my crystal ball 🔮 thinks we will be revisiting polar air, snow, and for sure a windstorm, and whatever else the pacific throws at us this winter.

Will update when I’m seeing anything of note — until then — get out and enjoy it!

Zoomed way out 2100 Monday Dec 26th 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀

The view from #GOES-17 is telling tonight! This winter is every weather nerd’s dream come true 😅

#nasa #wawx #orwx #cawx #warain #lanina #weather #goes #goes17 #atmosphericriver

First of all, thanks to everyone for following, liking, sharing, and commenting on these posts. Hope your enjoying some light tonight on one of the longer nights of the year.

Went looking for Santa’s slay on the visible satellite imagery and all I could see was the previously mentioned Monday/Tuesday system picking up momuntum just north of Hawaii.

Windstorm potential is holding, we’ll see tomorrow if predicted wind gusts go over 55MPH for us Tues, which is what it’s printing for us today.

The position of where said low pressure system makes landfall will determine what our pressure gradients will be looking like—

Will update tomorrow!

Image: Monday / Tuesday system will demand attention as we move past the holiday.

Icestorm update: we made it! Temps have warmed well above freezing and we’ve been spared from the big mess and danger of what could have been a tough situation for us.

SeaTac was shutdown, passes were closed. Solid 1/2inch of icy glaze in Seattle, Trucks and cars sliding across freeways — but we were just north of the mess, hiding in the rain shadow and making it out unscathed!

🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀

Winter, however, is not done with us. Temps looking downright warm Christmas Eve and Christmas compared to what we just went through.

The Monday / Tuesday system is requiring attention the next few days. NorthPac is firing on all cylinders, spinning up major low pressure systems. Two atmospheric rivers on the model, one over the holiday with windstorm potential on the Mon/Tues AR.

Will refine the windstorm potential on the Monday Tuesday system over the holiday as we should get better data on that tomorrow.

#wawx #lucky #whidbeyisland #southwhidbeywx

Images of Trees during freezing rain events. This is a Thursday morning update on tonight’s possible impactful system…

Models are, once again, all over the place on the freezing rain event.

During the last snow event, on Mon/Tues, the ECMWF (euro) was pretty much spot on. This long range model has the most funding and resources, but I’ll save that for another post.

We should start tonight with cold, light snow in the darkest hours. As the warm, moist, pacific storm moves into puget sound, the bitterly cold air looks to undercut the system, and at least 0.1 inch of freezing rain is expected in the early morning, and could linger longer. It could also get scoured out faster than the models are predicting, which would be a blessing for anyone traveling anywhere tomorrow AM.

In any case, it may be prudent to expect a number of issues across the island tomorrow. Particularly power outages, downed trees, and possibly black ice on the roads. Things will be variable and changing quickly however.

Thankfully, the freezing air will be exiting (at some point), and we should be warming to above freezing, with rain on snow/ice at some point tomorrow.

This should help mitigate any prolonged road issues, keeping impacts to a half day or so…

These ice storms are even more difficult to predict than sea level snow, there’s many variables that we just can’t predict with the supercomputer models and soundings.

I’m dedicating a bit of time today to stage the generator, do a bit of food prep, topping off the gas tanks, and grabbing some extra propane.

Maybe it’s all for nothing.. but freezing rain is not one to play around with. As seen in these examples.

Stay safe everyone!

Photos aren’t mine, and for educational purposes only 😇

#waice #icestorm #freezingrain #wawx #whidbeyisland #whidbeywx

Let’s talk about freezing rain. Friday AM is not looking great for us. I want too dig into it a bit…

Image 1: freezing rain depicted Friday AM

Image 2: temperature Friday AM at sea level

Image 3: temperature Friday AM at 5000ft

Freezing rain is one of the more dangerous weather phenomenon. It happens with an “upside down” temperature column. When you think of mountains, it conjures ideas of colder temps at higher elevations. Same with, say, aircraft, as the temperatures at 30,000ft are typically very cold compared to sea level.

Freezing rain is rare, because it happens when the temps aloft are above freezing and the temps at the surface are below.

So in this situation, the precipitation falls as rain, but as it gets near the surface, it freezes, or is close to freezing, and then lands on roads and trees as either ice or slush, and then quickly freezes on whatever it lands on.

It really only takes 0.1 inch of freezing rain to cause problems. Power outages are common. Covered hoop houses can collapse. Accidents on the road from black ice.

The Friday system has all the components of a freezing rain event — and we might get lucky by avoiding it, but it’s something to be aware of moving into Friday.

It looks like we will be transitioning to rain after the freezing rain which is a good omen in this case.

We may be seeing news headlines from Portland (mentioned in previous post) and other areas this Friday with this event.

We start with snow late Thursday and transition to freezing rain (hopefully not for long) and then rain into Friday.

Temps on the weekend almost touching 50F with chances of an atmospheric river being higher every model run.

Stay tuned!

#wawx #freezingrain #whidbeywx #whidbeyisland #southwhidbey #southwhidbeyweather #southwhidbeywx

Sled day! Get it while you can 🥰

Report from the ferry: shenanigans with offloading Clinton 2WD cars causing a bit of a scene on the hill. Not too bad, but expect some travel issues if you’re traveling.

Island transit always a good option if you need wheels and don’t have 4WD and need to run errands.

UPDATE: sounds like island transit cancelled their routes today… might have a break before things refreeze tonight in the PM here

Tracking the late Wed / Thurs system a bit later today.

Enjoy the snow ☕️ ❄️ ⛄️

#wawx #whidbeyisland #wasnow #whidbeysnow

Steady snow falling near bayview corner at 10pm Monday.

Models are still disagreeing on tomorrow’s system let alone the Wed/Thursday system.

There’s a lobe of warm, moist air trying to battle its way north from the coast via Olympia and up into puget sound Tuesday… we may go into the 40s for some rain and then back down into the 20s tomorrow night with some solid chances of more snow.

Multiple systems this week and the models are all over the map, struggling with snow levels and temperatures across puget sound.

Massive lobe of polar air is parked across BC with a plume of warm moist air from Hawaii 🍍 pointed at the Washington coast.

That mass of polar air dives east of the Rockies and will be a nuisance for Texas and then eventually kick out over the east coast.

Portland might be making news headlines too with Goege winds possibly setting up a freezing rain event.

I wouldn’t count out a refreeze on the roads here around the island tomorrow night either - stay safe out there!

#wawx #whidbeysnow #whidbeywx #southwhidbeywx #whidbeywx

Nice puget sound convergence zone setting up this Sunday afternoon.

Fraser river outflow winds are merging with warm pacific subtropical air from the south and another northwest push from the strait! #pscz

Everett seems to be the snowy spot (same as last system), based on live data from #mPing.

This may shift north or south through the night or might park itself in the same spot as last time.

#wawx #wasnow #southwhidbeywx

No seriously.. predicting snowfall at sea level in puget sound is the 10th degree black belt of meteorology. At one point we had 2ft of snow predicted, then the next day it was an inch, at one point it was all rain… the next is a mix of ice and snow — all we can do is watch and wait 😆

Personally I think we will see a dusting or an inch, everything from the last post is still true! First system arriving late Saturday into Sunday. Puget Sound Convergence Zone sets up Sunday - if we’re under the #PSCZ we might be living in a snow globe Sunday —

More systems through Wednesday - rain expected, snow expected. No wind storms so far at least (Sunday evening gusts to 40MPH greenbank north)

#wawx #weirdwx #seattlesnow #whidbeywx #southwhidbeywx