Another atmospheric river is striking today. It has a shorter fetch, back to the dateline not Taiwan!
The local area handled the last one fine so no major issues - though it should be noted that two trees fell across our only route to civilization last weekend. Good thing it's a popular route, as our electric chainsaw draws more power than our car can supply.. I guess the pruning saw should hang out in the car for non-Christmas-tree cutting?
Speaking of Christmas, our first snow forecast is now showing up in the 10-day forecast. Unlikely at day 8.. but not impossible! I feel like early-season snowfall is more common in el Niño conditions, before winter and its common split-flow pattern rears its ugly graphics and the moisture heads elsewhere. So far so good though, and the weekend snowpack needs to absorb just 24 hours of rainfall before it gets cold again.. we'll see how it goes. I would not be surprised if some sites already have as much snow as they had all of last winter! Yes, 2014/15 was that bad.
Update - warm air retreats soon!
I drove into town and got hammered by some seriously strong rain. Out here it's been almost 1/2" per hour for quite some time, resulting in 9½" in (th fr sa su mo) FIVE DAYS. And it's still raining hard - but the cold front seems to be on the radar now. It's broken into several pieces, something we never saw before the KLGX radar came into play. Nice!
Note winds from the west and NW behind those fine gold bars, mostly south from Centralia south to Astoria.
And here's our gage update. Whoops it went to 4.1" before I finished the post, 2.82" today and 9.58 this week.
16:30 - we're Winning the War on Weather!
Look at this - a mere 1/2 inch for the wettest day? Mission Accomplished!
And that was indeed the cold front - it arrived ~15:50 with strong WNW winds breaking limbs and rattling someone else's tin roof nearby. Our roofs held, but the new woodpile cover almost took flight; I wrestled a framework of steel pipe back into place but left no gap for the wind to lift. I also put up the tarps, and one was down within about a minute.. so let's leave well enough alone, shall we?
The last hour saw a miserly 0.12" for grand totals of 3.02 since midnight, 9.78 for the week. Not the month, as I had to reboot my weather system just before the Thursday 11/11 storm - so well over 10 inches for November. Hey, two wet months in a row - another win!
p.s. Oh looky here - forecast is still trying
to bring in a pinch of snow next week..
Final report.
As of about 5pm today we crossed the 10-inch line for the week. From about noon last Thursday to 4pm Wednesday my gage counted 10.03". Another half inch is expected before noon tomorrow.
