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Showing posts from October, 2021

Bomb cyclone brings first October gap windstorm in years. A stronger one is on tap for Sunday!

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We are more than a month early from our usual Cascadia windstorm season.  In the three fall/winter seasons I've kept records of these windstorms (>= 40 mph).  The earliest in the season was on a Dec 1st (2019). And if my memory serves me, this is the earliest in the 13 years I’ve lived in Snoqualmie. Oct 21st - wunderground station KWASNOQU33 These winds don't usually show up until we get much colder (higher pressure) in E. Washington, then run-of-the mill frontal lows off the coast can easily trigger the push through the mountain gaps.  While we didn’t have the super chilled E. WA, we had an extremely low pressure center off the coast. We'll be keeping a close eye on Sunday's potential action for higher wind gusts than what we've seen today.  In the meantime, periods of boring old light/moderate rain tomorrow morning, hopefully breaking up before another unimpressive front moves through at least the first part of Saturday. Bomb cyclone #2 on Sunday.  Cliff Mass

Near record chill in first half of October. Harbinger for the coming Winter?

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Warmer for a change!  On Saturday, several locations around Snoqualmie Valley reached 70°, in stark contrast from the first half of October, that clocked in an average high of about 57°.  Possibly right there with the record lowest average official high of 56.7° set in 1913 at Snoqualmie Falls (depending on differences in exact location, weather instrument accuracy, sun exposure, etc.- then and now). So the question making the rounds in the weather media the last week or so - Does a really cold start to October foretell a cold fall/winter season ahead?   Looking back at local data (station: Snoqualmie Falls) that was available for 122 years (1898-2010) shows the answer is .. not so much.  I looked at the coldest average high for 1H Octobers and worked upwards in rank until I had at least an n=30 (years). What I found was the coldest ~15th percentile bucket of first-half Octobers (calendar days 1st-15th) do not appear to show statistical significance in forecasting the subsequent Novem