Monthly Archives: March 2009

Major Change to the Weather

Just a couple days ago the weather pattern late this weekend into early next week was looking warm and drenching. Now it appears that warm and drenching rain will be more concentrated to our south, leaving us on the colder side of the jet stream. Uh-oh…does this mean more snow potential, Matt? Of course not!…OK, fine…snow has slipped back into the forecast.

First things first: tonight we’ll see increasing rain which will linger into tomorrow morning. We’ll then see a brief lull before another storm system barrels through the area from tomorrow late afternoon through Sunday morning. After a midday lull that ushers in some colder air into the region Sunday,  yet another storm pushes through the area, and THIS storm is the one to watch. Snowfall maps are indicating some snowfall accumulation across quite a bit of the Kitsap Peninsula with a greater chance for accumulations closer to the Hood Canal. Locations closer to Seattle (like say Bainbridge Island) will likely see a rain/snow mix. Highs will be in the mid 40s.

Again, please stay tuned as things are subject to change. I mean, for heavens sake things have changed 180º since two days ago, I’m not sure what to believe now! Be prepared and stay tuned to this blog!

After Sunday’s flirtation with snow, we turn mainly cool and showery with more sunbreaks and warmer weather for the end of the week.

I promised an in depth forecast on the long range models today, but I just have not had the time. I will likely post late tomorrow because some family friends are coming in from Missouri, so I’ll try to get a long range model update out Sunday evening.

Winter just won’t give up!

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

7 DAY FORECAST

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8th Snowiest Winter on Record at Sea-Tac

4th snowiest in Spokane with 88.9”.

I know, I know, this is supposed to be a blog about Kitsap Peninsula weather, but my research on 2008-2009 weather stats for Bremerton is incomplete and I figured most of you would find this interesting anyway.

The National Weather Service released some interesting snow statistics yesterday and here is what they found:

TOP TEN SNOW YEARS AT SEA-TAC (OCTOBER 15 – APRIL 15)

SNOWFALL SNOW YEAR
67.5 1968-9
63.6 1949-50
27.4 1950-1
26.9 1971-2
24.2 1955-6
23.3 1953-4
22.9 1965-6
22.8 2008-9 (So Far)
21.4 1948-9
20.3 1985-6

This didn’t surprise me at all. It sure has been snowy this winter! I’ll have more information on OUR local cold snap very soon…

Now let’s move on to the forecast because we have some changes to talk about. I’ll give you a couple hints: less lowland precipitation and more mountain snow.

This certainly doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet, but the most recent weather models have really backed off on the amount of precipitation pegged for our area later this weekend into early next week. Pineapple Express systems are typically rare in March anyway, but they do occur, so I’ll keep a close eye on the models to see if they trend for the drier or wetter. Right now it just looks like a wet and cool period Sunday through Tuesday vs a warm and drenching Sunday through Tuesday.

Tomorrow will be the last completely dry day for a while as some rain, cooler temperatures and clouds look to overtake our area through the weekend. Again, nothing looks relentless, just obnoxious with periods of steady rain and breaks. Highs will be largely in the 50s tomorrow and 40s over the weekend.

Heavier rain arrives later Sunday through Tuesday, but if models continue their current trend we’ll be on the colder side of the jet stream which will cause for a cold rain and plenty mountain snow.

Long range trends? I’ll talk about that more in depth tomorrow, but it appears the wet and cool weather continues. Goody!

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

7 DAY FORECAST

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All Aboard the Pineapple Express!

I did my best to make the title of this blog post sound as pleasant as possible, but in reality what is in our future may not be very pleasant at all. In December we rode the Polar Express and in just a few days we could hop onto the Pineapple Express, and doing such a thing in March isn’t very common.

So what is a “Pineapple Express”? You may or may not have heard this term used in weather reports, but usually meteorologists use it to describe a tropical plume of heavy, warm moisture extending from the Hawaiian Islands to the Pacific Northwest. On the satellite it looks like one big firehose. In fact, I found an old picture illustrating a Pineapple Express well!

The above photo is actually a satellite picture of the Pineapple Express system we experienced in January, except back then we were shadowed from a lot of it. This time around the Kitsap Peninsula could be in on some of the heavier amounts. Oh goody!

Let’s talk about tonight and tomorrow first because it’ll be another cold one! Lows will dip well into the 20s with the clear skies we have right now and tomorrow will be another mostly sunny day with highs warmer in the upper 40s to lower 50s. Tomorrow may feature a bit more in the way of high clouds, but overall it’ll be pleasant.

More clouds come into the picture on Friday, but we should get a decent dose of sunshine with highs in the 50s once again.

Rain moves in for the weekend with plenty of cloud cover, but the rain won’t be relentless. Just periods of steady rain and even a few breaks every once in a while. A pretty typical March pattern.

And then we bring out the fruit salad with extra Pineapples for late Sunday night through early Wednesday as some warm, tropical moisture overtakes our region. If you are a skier or snowboarder, I suggest you hit the slopes this weekend because early next week looks quite treacherous as heavy, warm rains will affect the mountains too. Right now highs early next week in the lowlands look to be in the low to mid 50s, but there is the potential for those temperatures to be much warmer. For now I’ll be conservative. The mountains will likely see highs in the low to mid 40s with rain.

Because of the active weather ahead I haven’t exactly put much time into studying the long range but from the looks of it we do settle down with periods of showers and sunbreaks.

Hmmm…I’ll believe it when I see it 🙂

Matthew Leach

Kitsap Weather

7 DAY FORECAST

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