Deluge and Divine Intervention

On Friday, Governor Inslee declared a drought emergency.   He is obviously a favorite of the weather gods...they have answered his plea.   Deluge.

You can tell that divine intervention was involved because the actual weather deviated greatly from the consensus of many of our best forecast models.  This is very unusual at such a short range.   A relief to forecasters, such as myself, who had worried that they had missed something.  

The weather supplications extended to the state legislature, which Governor Inslee called into special prayer session last Friday (see image below, video on TVW).  The rain priestess at the podium was from Bainbridge Island.

How much precipitation fell?  Here is the plot from Seattle RainWatch for the 48-h period ending 9 PM Sunday (there was even more after that!) for the area covered by the Camano Island radar. Two to three inches over the Sound and 4-5 inches over some of the foothills.   Even more near the Olympics.

Heavy rain forced the termination of skiing in Steven Pass...you have to respect the tenacity of those folks.   They never gave up.  You might want to buy one of their ski passes for next year.

And guess what?  Nearly two feet of of snow was dropped on top of the Olympics, while heavy rains were refilling the streams and moistening the soils (see graph for Hurricane Ridge).   A miracle.

And there is something else.  What day was it yesterday?  The Ides of March.  The Ides were sacred to the god Jupiter, also known as Jupiter Fluvius.  Rain was his specialty.  Governor Inslee knew this.

And his direct condition with powerful gods is reflected in the books he writes:

It is clear that the Governor has a deep connection with higher powers and surely many of you are hoping he will turn his supplications from the skies to a different direction.  A hint is found below: