Severe Weather Awareness for W. Oregon.

April is the official kick off to our severe weather for the spring and summer months. Severe weather for Western Oregon can be defined as Thunderstorms, Winds, Hail, Tornadoes, Wild Fires and Flash Flooding (due to a melting snowpack and a heavy warm rain event). To honor the kickoff, I started a article on Spring Thunderstorms and i'll give you guys a sneak peak right here: NW Oregon Spring Thunderstorms 2007Preview Thunderstorm season in Western Oregon generally starts from April and last’s until August. The more severe storms are seen from April through June. The reason for this is due in part with the interaction with cold air still around colliding with the warmer air of the spring season. Just like the Midwest, we get these two air masses to collide, presenting unstable air to the area causing thunderstorms to develop, which can also turn into severe thunderstorms spawning small tornadoes which are the more uncommon of the storms. The directions of the more severe storms are generally from the South moving N or NE into Western Oregon. Giving those storms flatter surfaces to slide across in the Willamette Valley. Other unproven theories to why we can get severe storms are the interaction from valley to mountains (Coast Range or Cascade Foothills) causing upslope winds mixing in with down sloping winds from the storm. Orographics do play a big part in our Thunderstorms, which is another reason why we don’t see many Tornados. When precipitation moves over any mountain range, it sucks all the moisture from the cloud like a sponge. If a storm moves across the west slope of the coast range, cities near the coast range will likely see more heavy downpours and more possibility to see severe weather along with it. Same with storms on both sides of the Cascades. That version is unedited so some things may not make sense. The full version of my article will be put up next week. Im also awaiting the National Weather Services annual "Severe Weather Awareness Week", the best informational site on the web about NW Oregon's severe weather. I would reccomend that every check it out and go through the information, for that week I will post the information on that day. On April 18th, I will be in Corvallis for official spotter traing for the National Weather Service. I've got a lot im working on for this years weather.

Arctic Air Planning One Last Attack on NW?

Not likely, its pretty much April but it wouldn't be rare. We've seen snow in Western Oregon as late as April 13th, and according to the Canadian Model, a buildup of cold arctic air to the north seems to clutter up right at the washington/canada boarder at the end of the run. You can see a cold front from the north develope in this picture:

Another Canadian snapshot shows it as well: The 12z GFS shows the lowest 850mb Temps as -6. Now this time of the year, thats not really that cold. In January all's we need is -7 to see snow to the Valley. But since it's just about April, we would need a -12 or colder to see that type of weather. Typically we'll most likely see cold showers, highs in the low 50's upper 40's at most..mountain snow of course.

New Year, New Site..and more goals!

Well this is the first post in the Weather Blog this year, the blogger account that I have, locked me out for a good 3 months almost and I couldn't get a new blog, that would require a new site and new look. As you can tell, I have a lot of broken links in the page..as well as the lack of reasonable updates. I plan to completely overhual the site, and maybe change the site name. My goal is to have a full, nice weather page with a forum, weather reports, warnings and articles. I will also schedual weather research projects within the new site. I will have a new site up and running by fall. I will update the site every now and then before that as well. I will also be updating this blog..but will delete this blog once I have a new one up. Weatherwise, lets recap what happened this past winter, starting in November of 06. November- First half of november was wet and mild. We had a "Pineapple Express" set up as the November began to show signs of an El Nino. Heavy rains persisted cuasing rivers to swell and causing massive mudslides in Washington as well. Winds also kicked up as some of the storms moved north along the coast. Mid to Late November- Rains began to settle, but here came the next event. Snow. During the Nov. 26-28th timeframe we had Snow Advisories issued as snow showers headed towards NW Oregon. Places in the Willamette Valley got up to 3 inches of snow, others didn't get nothing. This is where the weak El Nino peaked. December- The start of December wasn't too bad, a break to say the least..or you could say it was the quiet before the next storm. In Mid December, a strong low pressure system began to undergo Cyclogenises (The rapid developement of a low pressure aka bombing out). At the same time, the low was tracking towards the NW Coast. This caused one of the biggest windstorms since 1995. 300,000 people lost power and property damage was common. In fact, I was in my house listening to shingles flap off. That was one well overdue windstorm, as you know I had researched windstorms and determined we were overdue 2 years ago before all the other mets followed the same path. To be continued... second half starting from late december to late feb. will be discussed in the next blog post.