Forecasting Kitsap

**A SEVERELY BORING WEATHER WARNING has been issued by the KWS (Kitsap Weather Service) and will remain in effect until…further notice. Please stay tuned for further warnings, advisories or immediate evacuation plans to the country’s mid-section for some adrenaline-fuelin’ storm chasin’.**

Wow folks…we’ve certainly hit a dead end in the road to active weather. To pour more salt on our already gaping wound this winter in the PNW lowlands, take a look at some of these impressive weather events from the eastern 2/3rds of the country this past month (ending yesterday):

12/4/2009: Earliest ever snowfall in Houston
12/8-10/2009: Blizzard in the Plains States, Midwest and parts of Canada
12/18-20/2009: Mid-Atlantic/southern New England blizzard. Washington, DC (DCA) had its snowiest December on record.
12/24-27, 2009: Blizzard in the Plains States and Midwest
12/26-27/2009: Biggest snowfall in 130 years in St. Petersburg, Russia
12/31-1/4/2009: Major snowstorm in northern New England and parts of Canada. Burlington had its biggest snowfall on record
1/1-5/2010: Major lake effect snow outbreak
1/3-4/2010: Major snowfall in parts of East Asia. Beijing had its biggest snowfall since 1951 and Seoul had its biggest snowfall on record

You have GOT to be kidding me. Snowfall in flippin’ Houston but not Seattle?! Heck, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Tallahassee have seen some sticking snowfall (1”<) this winter. So depressing. Does this have anything to do with  the El Nino out there? Eh…kinda, but we haven’t seen El Nino’s typical effects at all this season so far. We’ve had numerous wet, rainy days and temperatures have remained pretty seasonable, spiking to above normal levels from time to time, but nothing so out of the ordinary it would make headlines (For those confused, the December cold snap was, technically, still in the fall season. I’m talking about the weather “post 21st of December”.)

El Nino probably is messing with our winter right now despite it’s masked effects of clouds and rain this time around (2006-2007 wasn’t exactly a typical El Nino either). But with it’s current moderate to strong status, our chances of lowland snow and cold are appearing more dismal by the day. And looking at the latest long range models, a “warm and dry pattern” touted by many meteorologists at the start of the fall season doesn’t look to be verifying well for the PacNW either, especially after ending one of the coldest Decembers since 1990. Granted it was dry, our wet pattern has revamped and 2009 ended about an inch above normal for rainfall. Typical of an El Nino? Nope.

So the $1,000,000 question is this: what’s in store for the rest of the winter? How will Vancouver B.C. look for the Olympics? First answer: not so good. Virtually every weather model a weather junkie can look at is proclaiming “Rain! Seasonable temperatures! Mist! Fog! Low clouds! Depression!” until at least the 21st of the month. But, as I expected in my 2009-2010 forecast, El Nino will be more pronouncly felt around here by the end of this month into February and March, so that means more snoozer weather and bad news for the Olympics.

I’m not saying all hope is lost for a dramatic pattern change between now and February, but the crystal ball looks anything but optomistic. Hmmm…maybe I’m being too opinionated here. I’m sure SOME of you like this kind of (tortureous) weather!

Until further notice…let the SEVERELY BORING WEATHER WARNING continue

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

Questions? Comments? E-mail me at: forecastingkitsap@live.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 7:28 pm by Matthew Leach and is filed under Seasonal Outlooks, Storms/Active Weather, This Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.