Tomorrow starts a new month: March. And, for the past several years, March’s have been quite active, cold, and wet. Last March is a good example of one of the coldest March’s we have had in the past 10 years with temperatures running nearly 3 degrees below normal, conversley March 2005 was unseasonably mild with temperatures running a good 3 degrees above normal. What does March 2009 have in store? Well, many forecasters are predicting a colder and wetter than normal March, and by looking at the short and long term models, those forecasts may not be far off.

The title of this blog post is “Dèjá Vu” mainly because we could go through a very similar pattern to last week starting tonight through next weekend. Remember last weekend when SaturDAY was dry, but then the rain moved in SaturNIGHT into Sunday? Well, expect the same deal this go around. Today was generally dry, but that is going to change as a new round of rain is moving into the area. It started raining in Hoquiam at 3 PM and will continue to move into the Kitsap area by this evening.

Rain continues through tomorrow, though it won’t be relentless. Highs will be the biggest story as some forecast models are suggesting highs will be in the upper 50s and lower 60s. Because this storm system is bringing some warm, southerly air with it I almost expect highs will be quite a few degrees above the normal high of 51º.

Monday through Wednesday we play generally the same tune: times of clouds, sun, and rain with highs starting out in the 50s on Monday but ending in the 40s Wednesday. The atmosphere will be rather unstable and timing each individual system will be almost impossible, so be prepared for variable skies and weather conditions over the next few days.

And then there’s Thursday. This is where the Dèjá Vu thing comes into play again, because if things pan out the way predicted on the models, we could be in for a repeat of the Thursday snow. Some very chilly air is expected to seep into our area Wednesday night and with moisture around we could be in for some more lowland snow around the area. This is obviously not a slam dunk yet, but just know the potential is there.

Friday onward looks drier and a bit warmer.

One thing that I’ve noticed some meteorologists do is cancel winter after mid February. Some claim that winter weather ends in the Northwest after February 15th. But sometimes the windiest, rainiest and even coldest weather of the winter has occured in March.

Bottom line? Don’t put away the ice scrapers QUITE yet 🙂

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

7 DAY FORECAST

Updated 9:35 AM:

**Click here for the latest school closure/delay information**

I don’t think I mentioned this in my last post, but the National Weather Service radar is down and has been down for a couple days. They expect it to be fully repaired until this afternoon at the earliest, so weather geeks around the region are missing an important tool that will tell us when the snow is coming and where it is right now.

On Silverdale Way I woke up to about 1.5” of snow, but the roads were completely clear. Temperatures have plummeted into the upper 20s and lower 30s and they’ll continue to fall until sunrise, so even though some roadways may look completely fine, it’ll still be very icy.

Any more snow headed our way? Well, because we don’t have radar it’s hard to say, but the satellite imagery does suggest we do run the risk of an inch or so more of snow before this is all over, and to add to the headache it will be very random and showery in nature. By afternoon the snow risk greatly decreases as temperatures will warm above freezing and precipitation will be moving rapidly to the east.

The rest of the forecast remains largely unchanged. A break in the weather until Saturday night when more rain enters the area and stays here until mid week next week.

Stay safe and warm!

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

7 DAY FORECAST

After a loooooooong vacation, we are back to Western Washington normal.

It was actually pretty funny to hear some of my friends/teachers say: “Thank you for bringing the rain back, Matt. I kind of missed it…” Missed the rain?? It’s not every day I hear that in the halls of CK (or anywhere in Washington for that matter)

So exactly how long will we be “in the norm”? For quite a while, actually, though there will certainly be a few breaks along the way—you know, for variety.

The extremely heavy band of rain has passed us and passed us VERY quickly. It took less than an hour for the system to pass through the area, though it would be a mistake to think that was the last impulse as another band of rain will move through the area tonight. The rain and clouds will keep temperatures generally in the 40s.

Tomorrow will start off quite rainy but as the day progresses we’ll dry out and the showers will be scattered. We’ll also be quite breezy as well, so remember…if you have a comb-over consider this a fair warning! 🙂 (Refer to last night’s post if you don’t know where that reference came from).

Wednesday the clouds and rain return, but I’m keeping my eye on the aftermath of Wednesday’s rain as cold air behind the system will drop snow levels VERY low—500-1,000′ low, so don’t be surprised if you see some sloppy wet snowflakes smack your windshield Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I am not seeing any accumulations, though, so that’s a plus for some of you (watch there be accumulations just because I said there wouldn’t be. That describes my luck VERY well!).

Thursday will be a cool and showery day with highs in the mid 40s, but clouds return for Friday with highs climbing back into the upper 40s and lower 50s.

Saturday looks decent, but late Saturday night some more rain moves into the area and plagues our side of the state for the extended forecast period.

Some more good news? The mountains will finally be back into their snow mode. While high temperatures up in the passes won’t be incredibly cold, we’ll still see some snow.

Have a good evening!

P.S. I’ll try to get a video forecast uploaded on here tomorrow afternoon. I haven’t done one of those in a while!

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

7 DAY FORECAST

The weather has certainly been slow lately so I decided to post a video I recently came across. This is a hilarious commercial put out by the Weather Channel on YouTube. I think you’ll enjoy it, but hopefully none of you can relate to it!:

So remember…know first! 🙂

Speaking of splitting hairs, the split-flow pattern which has taken hold of our weather numerous times this winter is finally backing down and this week, as predicted, will be a more active week than the ones previous. The good news for some is the air at the surface will be chillier than it has been, but not cold enough for lowland snow.

So far, the Bremerton Airport has recorded 0.08” of rain in the gauge, whereas farther south near Shelton the rain gauge reads 0.21”. This is definitely a sign of things to come as the new week will feature more rain and clouds.

Tonight will be cloudy with rain off and on. Lows will be mild in the lower 40s. Rain spreads into the area in the early morning hours tomorrow, stops by mid morning and then returns for the afternoon. Highs will be in the lower 50s.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be very similar with partly sunny skies and periods of rain, mainly in the morning and evening. Highs will be in the lower 50s as well.

The clouds and rain return for Thursday and Friday before the sun comes back out for the weekend.

So, have a good week and remember to check the forecast before you go outside! 🙂

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

7 DAY FORECAST

Today was certainly a beautiful and mild day, but the clouds didn’t COMPLETELY burn away until later in the afternoon—a bit behind schedule, but hey, we got to see sun even though the clouds didn’t clear all the way. So exactly how impressive is this dry streak? Scott Sistek of KOMO 4 says it best:

It’s been a pretty impressive streak of calm weather around here. In the 43 days since flooding rains ended on January 7th, we’ve only had 14 days with measurable rainfall, and of those 14, we’ve only had two days with more than 0.10″.   Typically for these 43 days, we’d expect more along the lines of 25 days with measurable rain. That’s a bonus week and a half of dry weather!

Isn’t that just incredible? And while it seems like I keep saying this over and over again, the dry streak looks to end by later this weekend as our normal Washington weather returns.

In the meantime, expect sunshine and highs in the low to mid 50s (maybe even upper 50s in some places!) through Saturday. Clouds increase Saturday night and by Sunday we are back into the clouds and rain.

Rain, clouds, sunbreaks, and highs largely in the 40s is in the forecast through mid week next week before a colder push of air enters our region late next week dropping highs in the lower 40s and snow levels down to about 1,000′ (I know what you’re thinking…no snow talk yet ;))

Tomorrow I’ll do an update on the long range thoughts.

Have a great evening,

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

7 DAY FORECAST