From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Cliff Mass
The latest satellite image shows the rapid development of the offshore storm.
The visible satellite image around 9 AM was stunning, with low-level clouds swirling around the low center (the orange arrow points to the low center).
Stunning.
Here is the blow-up of the clouds around the low center. The circulation is obvious.
Strong, rapidly developing storms not only have rising motion that produces clouds, but intense sinking motion that produces a “slot” dry air coming in from the southeast.
We can view the “dry slot” using satellite images that reveal water vapor content in the upper and middle troposphere. Such an image is shown below, with blue indicating very dry air. This is a strong storm… no doubt about it.
The latest National Weather Service surface map (and I do have some issues with the quality of their analyses) shows the storm at 7 AM, with an analyzed lowest surface pressure of 974 hPa. The storm is rapidly deepening today, so the pressure will fall considerably more.
As I mentioned in my previous blogs, although strong coastal winds are an issue, my biggest concern is for strong winds east of Puget Sound tonight.
The models are still going for threatening winds….with the clear threat of substantial tree damage and power outages.
The latest European Center forecast predicts winds exceeding 70 mph on the east side of Puget Sound, particularly towards the western Cascade foothills. These are all easterly and southeasterly winds….not the usual direction of strong local winds.
The NOAA/NWS HRRR model, run at high resolution, is similar but extends strong winds over Whidbey Island and the San Juans.
The UW Model is also threatening with strong winds on the eastside, gusting to 50 kts (around 57 mph) at 10 PM.
The maximum wind over Seattle based on dozens of predictions is predicted to hit 45-60 mph…from the east (see below).
Bottom line: strong winds from the east, gusting to 40-70 mph, will occur east of Puget Sound and will be stronger towards the Cascades. Expect substantial vegetation damage and many power outages. Driving down streets with lots of trees might not be a good idea after 6-7 PM if you living in the vulnerable areas noted above.
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Addendum:
Here is the 1 PM satellite image…the circulation has become very, very obvious.
Some satellites can measure low-level winds by measuring wave action…called scatterometers. Here are the surface winds from a scatterometer around the storm around 12:30 PM PST. The intense circulation around the low is obvious.
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While the AMO is still in its warm phase, the PDO is still cooling. Global warming is not global.
La Niña might finally be kicking in. Typically that ENSO phase brings wetter than average winters to the PNW. We need it.
Thanks Cliff.
Yes already 70mph gusts on Camano
It can’t be that scary if the alarmist US & Canadian weather bureaux haven’t given this storm a name.
I suggest “Bomb Cyclone D.O.G.E.”
Even though there have been big storms on the Pacific coast before… some groups say it is now caused by climate change.
– – – – – – – – –
Urgent warning in three states after ‘bomb cyclone’ is expected to create ‘life-threating’ hurricane conditions
The National Weather Service (NWS) alerted residents in northern California, Oregon and Washington to potential hurricane-force winds, catastrophic flooding and feet of high-elevation snowfall this week.
Extreme storm systems like this bomb cyclone are likely being fueled by human-driven climate change in a number of ways, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14097097/urgent-warning-bomb-cyclone-life-threatening-hurricane-conditions.html
Ah the Union of Concerned Scientists. They used to show up here a lot. Get pummeled with facts, shout a few epithets, and leave.
I kinda miss them.
Well not the one who sent me a video of pigs dying in a gas chamber and implying that should be my fate, that was a bit over the top. But the rest were worth having here for no other reason than they lost all the arguments, proving over and over again that alarm was not warranted. I’m pretty sure some of them weren’t even actual scientists of any sort.
You are alluding about such concerned scientists as Kenji Watts.
For those who don’t know or remember …
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/26/kenji-sniffs-out-stupid-claims-by-the-union-of-concerned-scientists/ 😎
Almost none of them are actual scientists. You don’t have to be a scientist to join. You can call your political action committee anything you want. Tossing in “Scientist” makes it sound sciencey and somehow legitimizes the effluvium they regularly produce.
“likely”
not scientific
What the Union Of Concerned Scientists say is impossible. Climate is defined as 30 years of weather in a given location. By definition, the weather must change for 30 years before the climate can change.
It is therefore impossible for the climate to affect the weather, because of cause and effect.
Scientists who ignore definitions and spout illogical conclusions are not really very good scientists, are they?
Remember the times when we constructed Mandelbrot figures from Julia sets and got to like the lovely patterns?
Strictly in a pattern sense, the images of the storm here remind me of this Julia set image. Taken from many on the Web, this one from the link, with thanks. Geoff S
RIP Benoît Mandelbrot: Remembering The Father of Fractals
It posted without my link — Geoff S
The head photo reminds me of a Mandelbrot fractal.
Meh. It was windier 2 weeks ago on Whidbey. We lost power then for a couple of hours, no power loss this time.
I used to live in that region. They get one of these every couple of years. Combined with those stupid rapid-gro evergreen matchsticks they called trees, they’re pretty damned frightening.
But no, not climate change. Just a nasty windstorm. Always about this time of year.
Despite being climate catastrophists and against Cliff Mass, the Seattle Times explains that such storms are not new: The largest windstorms to strike the Pacific Northwest | The Seattle Times.
Media disgustingly used the alarmist term ‘bomb’ cyclone, a mis-use of the word ‘bomb’.
And the wrong word ‘cyclone’, that’s a south Pacific term, such storms in the eastern Pacific are called ‘hurricanes’ – where this storm was, in the western Pacific typhoons – which rarely cross the ocean (Typhoon Freda did in 1962).