The Climate Prediction Center, part of NOAA, released its Winter 2020 outlook Thursday morning, which shows that the Pacific Northwest has a chance to have a slightly cooler and wetter winter. This is a typical consequence of La Nina. La Nina is defined by the American Meteorological Society as “a significant decrease in sea surface…
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is on pace to be a record-breaking one, with the potential of outdoing 2005, a year featuring infamous storms such as Rita, Wilma, and Katrina. We have already blown through all 21 names in the name list and had to begin using the Greek alphabet—a feat only done in 2005…
Most of us, if not all of us, have seen a forecast graphic similar to the one pictured below. Temperatures are shown as specific numbers, such as 72° or 69°. This is called a “deterministic” forecast, which is a forecast that doesn’t show any uncertainty. While people tend to like this approach to forecasting, it…
It has been a wet couple of days across Western Washington, with the first storm of fall really packing a punch. A combination of rain and wind swept across the region, and it really felt like fall had arrived. Below is a graphic that shows the amount of rain that has fallen from 12 a.m….
Autumn has only just begun, but we’re already expecting the stormy weather that we’re accustomed to seeing this time of year. On Wednesday, an atmospheric river is expected to take aim directly at the Pacific Northwest, bringing with it some significant rainfall. What is an atmospheric river? I wrote an article about this phenomenon and…
Hello everyone! My name is Kelsie Knowles, and I recently graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in meteorology. I will be writing a new column, Under the Weather, which focuses on weather topics in the areas of Lynnwood (where I have lived all my life), Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace. I am so…
