Mostly Dry This Week, Wet Next Week, and Watermelons

Tuesday, September 20, 2011
6:57 P.M.

Painting or time-lapse photo?

Autumn officially begins 2:05 A.M. PDT Friday, September 23, but we'll still have some nice weather for the next week or so. Looking at the models and National Weather Service discussions today, it seems as though we won't be quite as sunny as we previously thought on Wednesday and Thursday. Some of those powerful waves that I was talking about will scrape us with a few clouds and maybe some rain, but it looks like the effects from these will be minor compared our storm this past weekend. The storms themselves will be very powerful, particularly the one slated for Thursday, but they will make landfall in the Alaskan panhandle.

Valid 05:00 am PDT Fri, 23 Sep 2011 - 60hr Fcst - UW 36km 00z WRF-GFS 3-Hour Precipitation

As the model above shows, Vancouver Island will get swamped mid-week, but we should remain fairly dry with only a few periods of light rain, with more the further north you go. On the flipside, these storms will create some dents in the ridge of high pressure protecting us. I guess you can think of this ridge of high pressure as a big watermelon. These storms can be thought of hammers hitting the watermelon. Most of them will bruise the watermelon, but when the watermelon has been bruised enough or a massive storm comes in, the watermelon will break open, leaving the untamed hammers to pound the innocent populace of the Pacific Northwest.

Poor watermelon :(

While we will have nice weather Friday and Saturday, we will suffer another bruise to our dome of high pressure on Sunday. And on Monday, our watermelon will finally burst, and we will see sizable amounts of precipitation in the area. See below.

Valid 05:00 pm PDT Tue, 27 Sep 2011 - 168hr Fcst - UW 12km 00z WRF-GFS 24-Hour Precipitation

At this point, it looks like the lowlands could receive up to an inch from this storm. It looks like some isolated spots in the Olympics could receive over 6 inches of rain, but 3-5 inches will be more common.

After that, it looks like we will regain some sunshine, but highs will be in the upper 60s, which is normal for this time of year. We won't be getting a new watermelon anytime soon, but somebody might help stitch it up.

Thanks for reading :)

Charlie