a surreal 2017 continues

It's been an exceptional year in many ways. Not always good, but definitely riding the tails of the distribution curve!

• Winter was amazing for its stretches of cold and snow, topped off by the 13 inches on Superbowl Sunday.
• Spring was absurdly grey and damp - from 1Jul 2016 to 30Jun 2017 we had over 98 inches of rain!
• Summer had its heat spells, no surprise there. What was decidedly uncommon was the amount of smoke west of the Cascades. A month or more ago it was fires from Canada whose smoke came south, then the past week smoke from southern Oregon came north. 
• The past three days have seen the Gorge go up in flames, whipped to a frenzy by powerful east winds from Cascade Locks to Corbett. Portland (and even Longview) received a dusting of ash from the fires to our east. So many good memories of Gorge hikes are still intact, but they definitely won't look the same next time.
• The sun disappeared for about 2 minutes.. but we knew that was coming at least!
• In-laws in law John and Theo were taken from us in a brief heart-beat; their funeral was today as the ash drifted slowly to earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The late afternoon at our home brought the first sign of several hoped-for change in the weather: the west wind arrived and knocked temperatures down 8 degrees in a half-hour, and before sunset temperatures fell into the 60s. Hooray! Next up, a chance of showers - though lightning could accompany them from the remnants of Lidia, which would be very bad. If the wind reverses in the Gorge the fire should fall back to already-charred areas and hopefully become more manageable. As with everything in life: we shall see.

the Ides of October storm

It's not a real storm nowadays unless it has a name. The Weather Channel uses Norse and Greek gods, the NWS went with the calendar.

Here's the NWS Portland meteogram for our little spot on the map:

Top: clearly not a cold storm, but typhoon remnants generally look like this. Fairly warm downpours, so little range from high to low and not much space between temperature and dew-point.

Middle: here's the wind setup as it stands on Thursday night. After 4PM Saturday steady winds from the south in the mid-40s mph, and gusts to.. 67?  Wow: that's about 20mph higher than this chart for Portland, so our proximity to the low and our higher hillside location make a difference. In our specific case we're just on the north slope below a high point, so we'll hear limbs cracking on the 800' crest - hopefully none of them will impale our roof or our vehicles! The yard itself will probably feel the swirling wind to either side, but previous south winds have been blocked quite effectively. However: they were Not sixty-mile plus gusts on those occasions!

interesting reading II

Canada's site at theweathernetwork has a great video with images of Songda (once a Super Typhoon!) and its predicted track

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/strong-october-storms-ahead-for-bc-south-coast/72975

They also show the Seattle NWS with this dire comment!

Cliff Mass' blog shows great concern, but the MM5 as of this post was still on GFS track from earlier.

And as of 10AM the GFS has "come around" - so maybe 60/40% now on that southern track?

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Seattle WA
950 AM PDT Thu Oct 13 2016

..the next strong low pressure system will have moisture from former typhoon Songda so that storm should be stronger. The GFS has that low making landfall on the Washington Coast Saturday evening and the GFS track is just right for a genuine windstorm for the interior of Western Washington. It will be interesting to see the 12z ecmwf solution.

fun reading

The NWS discussion has many "interesting" notes today. (They use the word "interesting" often when "dangerous" or "volatile" are equally good choices.)

• First to note is Typhoon Songda - its remnants will reach the USA on Saturday. 
• A quick wound-up low will bring back memories of its big winds as they visit Astoria (ECMWF model) or Victoria (GFS). If you live near Astoria, that's an important distinction!! 
• The words "180-200kt jet" are also in here - that's a huge amount of wind up high that is potentially available for delivery at lower levels, in the 'proper' conditions. 
• Oh yes, they also describe the ECMWF as "sticking to its guns", meaning that its solution has been consistent while others have jumped about. It's hard to pin down such an unstable event.

So: typhoon remnants, really fast jet stream, predicted Low pressure to get winds going, and the most consistently correct model in the world says it will make landfall as close to our home as possible. 

Perhaps those south winds will deliver our firewood this year? Not entirely likely - yet several large trees sit on the 800-foot crest of our hill, and our driveway sits about 30' below and north of that crest. Maybe I'll park the Fiat somewhere else on Saturday..

geek alert!

youtube shot (after 25 seconds)

accuweather wind forecast 10/15, model unknown

weather channel - also going GFS and barely mentioning the risk that ECMWF track suggests!

screen shot: ECMWF is scenario #2. Skill tests always put ECMWF and UKMET at the top, GFS a clear tier lower-  but tropical systems are notoriously challenging to all models esp. with a 160+ jet stream!