Just a brief post about conflicting weather information:

Apparently in some station reports from the Bremerton Nat’nl Airport, 0.15” of rain or “mist” was recorded on Thursday, June 11th. While not impossible, I find that to be very hard to believe considering 1) the mist would have to be pretty heavy and last for a period of time to add up to as much as it did…and the satellite picture was partly clear by the afternoon hours 2) most stations–or at least the major ones–West of the Cascades and stations around the Shelton area were dry all day with 0.0” in the gauge and 3) records kept at the Airport are spotty at best and ever since the -19 degree reading in Bremerton a couple months ago and the 11.06” of rain recorded on Tuesday, May 5th I have been more and more cautious getting my numbers from that source.

This is where you come in. I know that I have some readers that live all across the peninsula and would like to know if there was anyone in the general area of the airport on Thursday that would have any information about a thundershower/mist/rainstorm that occured on Thursday. One commentor says at her house 12 miles from the airport a thunderstorm struck and dumped .25” of rain in her gauge. I have yet to find out when this occured, but this could be the culprit if it indeed did happen on Thursday.

Before I publish my blog posts about records I make sure all my information is accurate. This isn’t the first time I have posted a weather blog story about a record only to have the Kitsap Sun staff post a drastically different conflicting weather story an hour later. It’s really frustrating. We must be looking at vastly different sources, but whatever the case is it is confusing and distracting to the public. It’s not the Sun’s fault, it is the faulty nature of the location of our record books. I may just have to start using Sea-Tac’s record keeping from now on. The Bremerton Airport has proven itself quite unreliable…

~Matt

*Photo: After CK Graduation. L-R: Mom, Me, Dad, Grandpa

Well I’m ready to re-start my blog-writing routine now that all high school requirements have been met and graduation is over. June is such a busy month for many, and it has been an overwhelming one for me. I’m just glad most of the busy stuff is over!

Some of you have expressed interest in what is next for this blog now that I am graduated with high school. I plan on working a year in the area at Dr. Naumann/Johnson Orthodontics in Port Orchard and Silverdale doing sterilizing/lab work. It is impossible to find work in this area, so getting such a good job in such a great area is quite a blessing. About this time next year I will turn in my mission papers and serve a two year mission for my church probably in the late summer/early fall of 2010. I will then return home in 2012 and go to school at BYU (haven’t decided which one yet…) and possibly pursue my broadcasting degree there, though I may look to a really great school in Vermont that specializes in broadcast meteorology. And then hopefully in the not too distant future I’ll be forecasting the weather for a neighborhood near you! I love the Seattle area and hope to stay.

So I plan on keeping up on this blog for one more year and then who knows what happens after that…could there possibly be another weather geek out there like me that would be interested in hosting this blog? We’ll see what happens, but until then we’ve got a lot of weather to predict!

First I’m sure you’ve heard that we’re about to break a weather record in the Seattle area. I know what you’re thinking: “What?! But nothing has happened!” And that’s exactly why this period in 2009 may go down in the weather history books. Today marks day 27 of no measurable rain at Sea-Tac airport, but only day 26 for Bremerton if records are right. According to wunderground.com, we haven’t seen rain since May 20th, and even then we only saw 0.04”. But that was 26 days ago…Sea-Tac didn’t end up seeing measurable rain that day so we’re just a day behind. Regardless, I think we may exceed the record longest stretch of dry weather which is 29. We’ll see how far we go!

By looking at the short and long range projections, our only decent shot at a bit of precipitation is on Wednesday, but even that looks pathetic. At best I expect a few sprinkles which wouldn’t add up to anything. Other than that, mostly to partly cloudy skies are in order with highs in the upper 60s to mid 70s. Quite comfortable, really, but then again summer starts on Sunday and people want to see summer weather! My bets are we’ll see our true Washington summer weather in August. But that doesn’t mean we’ll have to wait until then to see some decent heat!

Have a great evening,

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

forecastingkitsap@live.com

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