WeatherWatcher: First Cold Snap

Forecast

Last week's windstorm

Graphs and Data

Forecast: If you have sensitive potted plants outside still, now is the time to bring them in. Our first below freezing temperatures and frost could happen in the middle of this week. There is a huge arctic air mass moving down from Canada into the United States along the western interior. It is a high pressure air mass that will generate a huge pressure gradient between Eastern and Western Washington. Due to the lower pressure being west of the Cascades it is expected that we will have breezy to windy easterly and northerly winds as the higher pressure cold air rushes to the lower pressure air in our region. Since the arctic air is high in pressure and very dry, skies will be clear and sunny with very cold nights. We are not likely to break any records with this event but we are likely to see highs in the low 40's with lows around or below the freezing mark. The timing of the cold event is Monday afternoon through Thursday Evening. It will be much colder than we have been used to so far this fall, but not necessarily out of the ordinary, it is our warmer temperatures this fall that has been more out of place.

Winds are expected to be breezy to strong, with the strongest winds expected by the National Weather Service Tuesday afternoon - Tuesday night with east winds 20-30mph with gusts to 40mph. Wednesday and Thursday remaining breezy but not as strong. Some other forecasters are not expecting the strong winds so there is some uncertainty with this event as far as I am concerned. Depending on how the pressure gradient sets up will likely determine how cold we actually get.

Longer range, rain comes back Thursday night into Friday morning from a single storm system, which will clear out for a sunny and not as cold weekend.

Last week's windstorm: Thursday November 6th we had a mild wind storm blow through the region during the afternoon and evening.  Places from Everett and north actually got hit harder by this storm than we did. Overall across the different weather stations I looked at we seemed to average with wind gusts about 35mph, depending on exposure. It did however cause some power outages, most notibly was the 4 corners area extending over to the Dayton towards 175th, affecting most of the Richmond Highlands and some of the Hillwood neighborhoods. I've noticed that particular electrical grid has been having problems this fall.

Graphs for November so far: Below in the first graph are the Daily High and Low temperatures for November, only this weekend have we started to come down to almost near normal temperatures for the past few weeks. The second graph shows how the daily average temperature is getting closer to normal as we get to day 8. Third graph shows our daily rainfall totals, not to many days without measurable rainfall so far this month, that will change next week though.

Graphs by Carl Dinse

Graphs by Carl Dinse

Graphs by Carl Dinse

Last week's data:

High temperature: 58.5°F (Thursday)

Low temperature: 42.3°F (Friday)

Rainiest day: 0.33 inches (Thursday)

Total rainfall: 1.26 inches

Warmest day: 55.0°F (Thursday)

Coldest day: 48.0°F (Saturday)

Average temperature: 51.6°F

Station's historic average: 46.7°F

For current weather conditions and updates, see http://www.shorelineweather.com