Daily Archives: July 14, 2009

Sizzling Heatwave to Fry Kitsap Next Week?

heatwave

Yeah ok, so the title might be a little dramatic, but I’m sure when the heat actually arrives (I’m a little past IF the heat arrives, and I’ll tell you why in a moment) it won’t seem dramatic enough (why do I have the feeling I’m still being dramatic about this?)

Clearly most of my readers are divided on the concept of long range forecasting with 41% of you believing that it is possible and 35% of you believing it is a waste of time. The other 24% are neutral about it. But for the past week or so, long range models have been hinting at quite an impressive streak of not warm, not hot, but steamy weather to flood into the Northwest mid-late week next week, perhaps breaking 100 degrees for several consecutive days in Southwest Washington/Northern Oregon in and around the Portland metro area.

What this heatwave would mean for the Kitsap area is still hard to pinpoint precisely, but according to the most recent long range trends, low to mid 90s look possible for most portions of the area with upper 90s/low 100s possible in the Cascade foothills. Now of course, this is the result of taking these models at face value.

What is most impressive about this possible (leaning on “likely”) heatwave is not so much the heat itself, but the length of the spell. The reason why I love Washington summers so much is because heatwaves are typically very short in nature here, lasting no more than 5 days if that. According to the models, this heatwave could last well over a week.

In July 2006, we experienced a pretty impressive heatwave for Western Washington standards with 4 straight days in the mid to upper 90s with overnight lows close to 70 degrees. I remember that well. Bremerton almost hit 100 degrees on Friday, July 21st with a high of 98 degrees and a low of 66. It was very uncomfortable!

Anyway, if you’ve been waiting for some decent summer weather you may get your wish in a little over a week. I’ll keep you updated on how things look for the heatwave every day. Still a lot can change, but summer time patterns aren’t quite as eratic as winter patterns, so if this were a lottery you’d have a much better chance at scoring some dough with this one.

Have a fanastic evening and stay tuned!

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

forecastingkitsap@live.com

7 DAY FORECAST

45

5 DAY FUTURE-CAST (LONG RANGE OUTLOOK)

45-long-range

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Northeast U.S. Having “Year Without Summer”

**WEATHER NEWS ALERT**

Stay tuned for a post this evening about a possible impressive heatwave by the end of this month. Long range models have been advertising some extreme heat in our area, and this time it looks like it could last a while.

Let me take a moment here to comment on some weird weather anomalies happening in areas other than Kitsap County.

Joe Bastardi, long range weather forecaster for AccuWeather.com, released a forecast in May about the Northeast suffering a “year without summer”. He made sure to note that this didn’t mean the whole summer season would be shot, but for the most part it would be an unusually cold, wet summer. I’m not typically a fan of AccuWeather’s forecasts, but because they tend to be Northeast biased in their forecasting, any forecasts that take place on the east coast have a better chance of verifying.

And boy is his forecast spot on so far. Here are some interesting statistics I found about on a weather forum describing the summer in portions of the Northeast so far:

“- We are halfway through meteorological summer, and NYC’s hottest temp has been 84. That is their average high right now. In addition, this was the first June since 1916 they failed to hit 85. July 1916 then turned hot, though…NYC has never gone this deep into a summer without hitting 85.

– Similarly, since June 1 Chicago has had three times as many days in the 60s (12) as 90s (4). Their highest temperature in July so far is 84.

– Boston has had only 5 80+ days since June 1. Their average high right now is 82.

– Portland, ME, whose average high is 79 right now, has not topped that temp yet this summer. In fact, they have had more days fail to hit 65 than days exceed 75.

– Even normally sultry Washington DC has only managed a high of 91 so far this summer. And they have had just as many days in the 60s (3) as 90s (3).”

And looking at the long range, their cool summer looks to continue. Such a weird year!

But I suppose we can’t say we’ve had it THAT bad here! Looking outside, you may feel a teensy bit despressed to find a blanket of gray shielding the golden orb we like to call “the Sun”. Don’t worry! The cloud layer is much thinner this morning and by this afternoon we *should* be back in the sunshine and highs will spike into the mid and upper 70s. We get a taste of the 80s with mostly sunny skies Wednesday through Friday before we gradually cool down again and do a repeat preformance of this week for next week: clouds and possible rain developing Sunday into early next week.

The program I’ve been using to construct my weather forecast maps is not working currently, so unfortunately I can’t provide a map right now. I’ll just do a text forecast below.

Again, stay tuned this evening for a special look at the long range, which seems to have some very interesting weather in store for later this month.

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

forecastingkitsap@live.com

7 DAY FORECAST (text verison)

Tuesday- AM clouds, afternoon sun 75/51

Wednesday- Mostly sunny 80/54

Thursday- Mostly sunny 84/55

Friday- Mostly sunny 85/56

Saturday- 78/54 Increasing clouds; partly sunny

Sunday- 74/52 Mostly cloudy with showers possible

Monday- 72/51 Mostly cloudy with showers

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