Stormy, Wet Weather Ahead

The weather gods turned off the bad weather over Thanksgiving and like clockwork, turned it back on today.    And folks, we are in for a wet and stormy period during the next week or so.

But there is good news in that weather.  It will further fill our reservoirs, restore our soil moisture, and add considerably more to the mountain snowpack.  It will help guarantee a holiday ski season.  And those worried about drought will finally get some solace.

To get you warmed up (poor choice of words), here is the 10-day total precipitation forecast from the National Weather Service GFS model.  The West Coast gets soaked with 10-15 inches over much of western WA and more than 5 inches from northern CA to SE Alaska.    Very good news for California, since northern CA has many of their big reservoirs.  Lots of snow in the Sierra.

But let's look at our local region in more depth using our high-resolution models (UW WRF_. For the next 72 hr, under persistent southwesterly flow, there will be 5-10 inches over the Olympics and the mountains of SW British Columbia,  with substantial amounts (2-5 inches) over much of the rest of the terrain.

A substantial amount of that precipitation will be snow, with some of the higher terrain getting 2-3 feet.

Now any active period deserves lots of winds and this period won't disappoint.  NW Washington will get hammered by strong southeasterly winds (gusting 50 kts) for many hours and current models show a substantial wind event on Thursday as a low develops off Oregon and moves northward across western Washington (see sea level pressure map for 4 PM Thursday)

The next 72hr?  Wet, wet, wet.  Here are the UW WRF forecasts for that period (through Monday at 4 PM) . Even more precipitation and large amounts even over eastern Washington.

Massive amounts of snow over BC and the north Cascades.  Less to the south because the air mass will be relatively warm.

And now major news.  The U.S. Government's DROUGHT MONITOR has dropped drought over western Washington.  Finally.  They still have drought over the Cascades, which is a bit silly, but at least they are backing off over the west.  Progress.  After the next two weeks, I suspect no one will be talking about drought anywhere in the State.

And those of your worried about the Yakima River Basin (and all lovers of apples, fine wines, and hops should be), the reservoirs there are now at normal (see below) and will soon be zooming to well above normal.