Weather reports on whatever I decide to report on.
Recent snowfall in Washington’s mountains has brought the amount of snow up there to near-normal values for this time of year. Some of this snow even caused the record-setting flood event seen Walla Walla and Pendleton earlier this month, but this winter’s storms have not been quite as generous in the Columbia Basin and Yakima […]
Last week, my sister-in-law Emily asked me which we experience more often – a White Thanksgiving or a White Christmas. I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I wanted to look it up to have some actual numbers before I told her something definitive. Figuring out information for Christmas is simple enough since […]
Note: This post talks about official forecasts for this winter and is the final part of my series on my thoughts for the upcoming winter. Other posts in this series can be found here. HOW THE FORECAST WORKS Before we look at long-range forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and Environment Canada, it is important […]
Note: This post talks about previous years that had some similarities to our current situation and is part of a series on my thoughts for the upcoming winter. Other posts in this series can be found here. ANALOG YEARS Looking at analog years goes deeper than looking at the Blob and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. […]
Note: This post talks about the impact of the Blob on winter weather in the Tri-Cities and is part of a series on my thoughts for the upcoming winter. Other posts in this series can be found here. THE BLOB The Blob is an area of persistent, unusually warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the […]
Note: This post talks about the impact of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation on historic weather in the Tri-Cities and is the first in a series on my thoughts for the upcoming winter. Other posts in this series can be found here after they are released. INTRODUCTION As we transition toward the cold season, arguably the […]
Meteorological summer (June through August) is over and that means we have lots of fun new data to pour through! This summer ended up being a mixed bag. We didn’t experience as extreme of heat as usual, but our mean temperature was somewhat above average. Interestingly, we were below average for precipitation. Let’s start off […]
Earlier this week, I was hiking up Candy Mountain with my wife. As we were headed up the slope, I noticed a lot of dust being lifted off a construction site on Kennedy Road. There had been occasional gusts, so at first I thought this was just a strong one, but a within a few […]
For my statistics class at WSU Tri-Cities, I had to do a research project on a set of data. Having heard repeated statements and questions along the lines of “since it was so snowy this winter, that means it will be unusually hot this summer, right?” When I learned I had to do this project, […]
As temperatures warm toward the 50s, we’re inching closer to average and into Spring. With us just coming off a cold spell that produced the coldest temperatures ever recorded in March it’s hard to believe that this seemingly warm weather is still below average. In a more normal year, our high temperatures would be right around […]