Northwest Wind Energy Generation Collapses Again: Can We Blame El Nino?
Updated: 2024-03-31 05:08:00
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: : Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 30, 2024 Northwest Wind Generation Collapses Again : Can We Blame El Nino The latest Northwest energy generation statistics are available from the Bonneville Power Administration and they are sobering : nbsp wind energy generation green line has collapsed over the past several days see below Spring is normally a time when wind generation increases robustly , but not this . year What is going on Something happened between March 25th and March 27th . nbsp But what Winds are driven by pressure differences , so let's examine the changes in the regional pressure . fields At 5 PM on March 25th , there was high pressure offshore and low pressure over eastern Washington 
: Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 28, 2024 First Look at the Weather for the April 8 Solar Eclipse I have gotten a lot of inquiries about the weather on April 8, the day of the total solar eclipse of the sun over the eastern half of the . U.S Our operational forecast models reach that far in time and have for a few days . nbsp But considering the uncertainty at such a long projection , I have refrained from commenting until . now The model solutions are starting to settle down and I have increasing confidence that I can provide useful information . nbsp So let me do the first of several updates on the weather associated with the . event The area of totality will extend from Texas to Ohio to
Today’s Forecast Good morning and happy Wednesday! I hope everyone has had an amazing week so far and has been able to stay dry from the rain. A beautiful rest of the week is in store with sunny skies and … Continue reading →
: . Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 26, 2024 The Seattle Times Says Washington State is in a Serious Drought . Is this True It is more than a little disturbing when a major regional newspaper the Seattle Times provides demonstrably inaccurate and deceptive weather and climate . information But yesterday , the infamous Seattle Times ClimateLab did it . again The first lines of the article describe the past year in apocalyptic : terms Virtually every aspect of life in Washington suffered during last year’s drought . nbsp Groundwater wells ran dry , fields produced fewer crops , trees died in greater numbers , fish faced disease and famine And the next paragraph paints a very dark picture of our :
: Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 24, 2024 Potential Aurora Over Washington State Tonight Look to the north tonight , you might see an aurora Skies are relatively clear outside , as shown by the visible satellite image around 6 PM A significant solar CME event has resulted in particles reaching the Earth's orbit today . nbsp As shown by a NOAA Space Weather Center graphic , the Kp index has reached 8 and will be quite high tonight . nbsp The figure below illustrates that auroral intensity and southward extent increase with Kp . nbsp Once it gets to around 5, I start looking here in Puget Sound In fact , tracking the ejection from the sun shows that the impulse will reach our orbit tonight , just
: : , Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 22, 2024 Space Weather : March is Aurora Season , Particularly This Year We should not forget that the Earth's atmosphere can be seriously influenced by the weather on the sun Auuoral displays are particularly frequent in March for reasons I will explain . later The sun's surface is not uniform over time , with varying sunspots and solar storms including solar flares and coronal mass ejections CME that send solar particles away from the sun and can greatly disturb the sun's magnetic fields . nbsp Such solar disturbances can be associated with higher-latitude auroras and the disruption of radio communication and electricity . transmission CMEs and other solar
In complement to the NOAA-20 NUCAPS soundings, National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters now have access to another set of satellite-derived soundings from the European Metop-C satellite in AWIPS-II. As of 11 March 2024, the Metop-C NUCAPS soundings are accessible via … Continue reading →
: Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 19, 2024 Summertime Low Clouds in Winter The satellite picture this morning did not look like mid-March . nbsp Really reminded me of June or early . summer A massive area of low clouds mainly stratus and fog covered the northeast Pacific , with some of the clouds pushing into western Oregon and . Washington A view from a webcam at LaPush on the northern WA coast this moring was pretty . dismal Viewing a local , high-resolution visible satellite image at 8:06 AM this morning shows the low clouds offshore , pushing into the Chehalis Valley and eastward down the Columbia . nbsp Look closely and you will see some fog in the Snoqualmie drainage and around . Bellingham
: Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 16, 2024 Most Northwest Heatwaves are Local Northwest heatwaves are funny things . nbsp It is rare to have a heatwave over the entire region . nbsp Instead , real warmth is generally restricted to a distinct subset of the . region Why is this the case , you ask Because of the complex regional terrain and land water . contrasts Since the regional waters are cold , onshore flow is cool , but offshore flow particularly during the warm portion of the year is . warm Downslope warm is warm , since the air warms by compression as it sinks , and sinking kills clouds and thus more sun Upslope flow is cooled by expansion in addition to associated clouds and . precipitation
: Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 14, 2024 Huge Increase in Snowpack Since January 1 There has been a substantial amount of gnashing of teeth about the lower-than-average snowpack this winter , but the truth is that t he situation has gotten immensely better On January 1st , the situation seemed dire below with much of the region at less than 50 of normal snowpack . nbsp The Olympics was at 19-22 and major sections of western Oregon were as low and . lower No wonder many in the media and elsewhere were talking about a snow apocalypse But such a snow end-times did not occur , with an immense amount of snow falling over the region during the past two . months Consider the situation yesterday below
Today’s Forecast Good morning and happy Wednesday! I hope everyone has had an amazing week so far and has been enjoying the sun and warm temps! Today, expect another sunny and warm day with highs in the lower 70s and … Continue reading →
: Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 12, 2024 The Origin of Last Summer's Maui Wildfire During the past six months , research scientist David Ovens and I have worked intensively on the meteorology of the August 2023 Maui wildfires and have completed a paper that was accepted in an American Meteorological Society journal with a few . revisions This blog will describe our results , some of which provide different conclusions than those discussed in many media . accounts The City of Lahaina with the West Maui Mountains to the east before the . fire To start , it is important to note that there were multiple fires on August 8-9, 2023 see map below On Maui , Lahaina was destroyed by one fire and there were
: Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 10, 2024 Spring Heatwave by Next Weekend Finally . nbsp After a cooler-than-normal second half of winter , we are about to get some serious warmth , with temperatures over the western lowlands zooming into the . mid-60s The figure below shows the actual highs and lows blue bars from January 1 to yesterday . nbsp The brown shading shows the average climatological highs and lows and the red blue colors indicate the record highs and . lows In general , the past 1-2 weeks have been below normal . nbsp The sun is getting MUCH stronger now , making surges to warm temperatures possible , particularly when we get offshore-directed air flows . nbsp You can see this effect
: Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 08, 2024 El Nino's Collapse Has Begun The entire character of this winter has been characterized by a strong El . Nino El Nino impacts have included low snowpack over Washington State , huge snowpack and heavy precipitation over California , and warm temperatures over the Upper Plains . states However , El Nino's days are numbered and its decline is proceeding rapidly right now . nbsp First , consider the critical measure of El Nino : nbsp the sea surface temperatures in the central tropical Pacific the Nino 3.4 area The warmth of this El Nino peaked in late November about 2.1°C above normal and is now declining fairly rapidly currently at roughly 1.3°C above
: , Cliff Mass Weather Blog This blog discusses current weather , weather prediction , climate issues , and current events March 06, 2024 Coldest Early March in a Generation , Large Improvement in Regional Snowpack If it feels a bit chilly to you , you are not imagining . it And if you are worried about the snowpack , you can rest easy , there have been big gains since the start of the . year First , temperature . nbsp For many of you , this is the coldest early March in memory . nbsp Consider the average high temperatures for the first five days of March in Seattle see below We are experiencing the coldest start to March since the late 1980s . nbsp There is something else interesting in this : plot the average high temperatures in early March have actually COOLED since the 1980s the trend
Today’s Forecast Good morning and happy Wednesday! I hope everyone has had a great week so far! As the rain begins to move out, there is the chance for some lingering showers throughout today, otherwise, it’ll be partly cloudy. The … Continue reading →
Fires erupted over the Texas Panhandle during the last week of February 2024. The fires burned over 1+ million acres, where the Smokehouse Creek Fire became the largest fire in Texas state history. Videos of the fires and drone footage … Continue reading →