Forecasting Kitsap

Archive for January 31st, 2009

Goodbye January, Hello February!

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

I’ve done some research, and I found that the past 10 February’s in the Northwest have typically trended drier and warmer than average. Looking at the long range models today (and yesterday for that matter. Gasp! Cosnsistency!), one would certainly think that streak could be in jeopardy. But for the time being, it seems as if February will at least start out the way it has for the past decade: mild and dry.

The forecast for tonight is a pretty dry one: both dry as in no precipitation, and dry as in boring. Skies will be mostly cloudy with a bit of fog forming overnight.

Tomorrow will be a bit cloudier than today and also a bit wetter as a system moves onshore tomorrow afternoon. For the most part, however, we’ll escape the majority of this rain and call tomorrow mostly cloudy, though there will certainly be some bouts with sunshine. Highs will be in the lower 40s.

Monday is a tough one as skies will clear out Sunday night, paving the way for fog Monday morning. Depending on how steady the dry, easterly wind blows, we may be stuck under a blanket of gray all day. I’m putting stock into some afternoon sunbreaks (probably the safest thing to put stock in right now, actually) which should boost temperatures into the mid and upper 40s.

The same scenario goes for Tuesday and Wednesday before more clouds and showers move in for the end of the week into the weekend.

So who’s been paying attention to the long range models lately? The latest run of the most popular American weather model, the GFS, suggest quite the pattern change to occur by early NEXT week. Remember when I talked about the believable range (7-10 days) yesterday? This particular pattern change I’m talking about is suggested to occur around day 9.

Uh-oh…