Seattle meteorologist Cliff Mass clues us in to what will be happening in the next week or so. Hint: Wind and Rain
Forget El Nino, StormFest is about to Hit the West Coast
Things often calm down after January 1 during El Nino years....but not this year...with the U.S. West Coast from central California to Washington State about to be pummeled by a series of storms. Rain, snow, wind? Plenty for everyone.
A view of the latest infrared satellite imagery shows an amazing line-up of one storm after another stretching way into the Pacific. A traffic jam of storms.
Let's examine our stormy future, using a series of sea level pressure forecasts from the UW WRF weather forecast models (solid lines are sea level pressure, shading in lower atmosphere temperature).
At 10 PM today, a strong low is just off the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
10AM Saturday brings an energetic low center into northern CA.
10 PM Sunday? Another storm hits central Oregon! And another system is in the wings.
I am not copying the images - you can go to Cliff's site and see the coming carnage. The bright side?
There is a silver lining of all this action of course: it will provide an immense amount of water to fill our reservoirs and enhance our snowpack, a snowpack that is now in pretty decent shape (see latest summary below). Water resources should be fine next summer.
Classical reference in the title: Turtles all the way down
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