November 22, 2009
10:59 A.M.
Good morning everybody. Many of you guys weren't up late at night like me, but if you were, I'm sure you'd be asking the same question... "where is the wind?"
Well, the surface low, instead of taking a track towards the central Washington coast like the models showed, took a track towards Astoria. This southern track put us further from the low which gave us less wind and put the Olympia/Southwest Interior area right under the low, where there is also a weak pressure gradient and not much wind. Why was there this short term forecast failure? Simply because of one thing. We don't have a coastal radar. If we did, we would not have this problem. All of the high wind warnings that were put up would either be wind advisories or nothing at all, and devoted weather maniacs like me would have actually fallen asleep instead of staying of late to see if the winds were going to come.
On the plus side, one part of the forecast went very well. There was tons of snow in the mountains! More on that later... I g2g
Actually, the coastal radar would not have solved that difference in the forecast and actual verification by itself. More accurate models, forecast trends, etc. could all contribute as well.
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