WeatherWatcher: Weekly Weather Forecast

• The week ahead
• Cooler air arriving
• Weather data suggestions

The week ahead: We are experiencing a weak atmospheric river, (previously known as a pineapple express). An atmospheric river is when there is a plume of tropical moisture being fed directly from Hawaii or the area near Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest. When we have those winter weeks of non-stop rain and temperatures in the 50's, that is due to an atmospheric river event. In this week's case, it is a very weak and broken up one that is mainly aimed at Vancouver Island. However it is shifting south over the Puget Sound for about 24-30 hours on Wednesday before it drifts back north to Vancouver Island. Wednesday will be fairly wet most of the day with steady rain. I am expecting maybe 1-2 inches of rain at most. Otherwise we will just have showers Thursday and Friday. The Olympic mountains are doing a really good job at producing a large rain shadow over our area with this weather pattern, especially Tuesday morning and later Thursday-Friday. Our off and on showery weather will continue over the weekend.

Cooler air arriving: Longer range models seem to be indicating some cooler air on the way for mid-next week, however it is too early to say if it will be cool enough for some more marginal wet snow mixing with the rain yet or not. I just want everyone to keep in mind that we've historically (even within the last 10 years) had snow events as late as mid-April. The kids may still have a snow day before this winter season is over.

Weather data: I am looking at changing the way I do weather data statistics. Right now the plan has always been to do weekly weather statistics, however I feel it might be more reflective if I do monthly reports on the weather data and compare to previous years. I am asking you, the reader, for feed back on that, what would you like to see for weather statistics?

For winter storm updates, check out my weather station web page or follow me on Twitter: @SWeatherWatcher