Weather reports on whatever I decide to report on.
Fall is my favorite season, and one of the signs of the season’s approach is the first winter storm warning of the year in the country. Not shockingly, this almost always occurs in Alaska and 2022 is no different. An upper level low pressure system is moving from the Russian Far East into Alaska, bringing […]
The Moose Fire started near Salmon, Idaho on July 18, spreading to over 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) by the following morning. During the day on the 18th, smoke from this fire spread to the east and northeast into Montana, driven by aggressive fire activity and upper level winds. Fire activity decreased overnight, with the smoke […]
One of the most frequent questions that I get when posting about weather events over on Tri-Cities Weather is some form of “why does the alert stop at <insert county line here>?” The short answer is that it has to do with how the National Weather Service, the source of all official weather alerts in […]
When discussing weather, there is a lot of comparison to “average” or “normal” conditions in a given place. These represent an expected temperature, precipitation, or other value averaged over a 30-year period for stations around the world. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), parent agency of the National Weather Service (NWS), calculates these averages […]
Lying about 300 miles west of Cannon Beach, Oregon is Axial Seamount. This undersea volcano, which was discovered right around the time Mount St. Helens had its infamous eruption, was the first seamount to be observed in an eruptive state in real-time by instruments on its slopes. That event occurred in 1998, with other eruptions […]
This blog post is a response to the following question, which I received over on my Facebook page – Tri-Cities Weather: Mark, I remember all the Easters here in the Tri Cities as being WINDY and COOL. Never weather good enough to dress up nice for Easter Sunday. Is my memory faulty or is it […]
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 […]