Where’s Seattle’s rain?
Jan 22, 2014, 9:40 AM | Updated: 3:32 pm
This season has found the jet stream spending much of the winter well north of the Pacific Northwest. (MyNorthwest.com file)
(MyNorthwest.com file)
Where is the rain and mountain snow? That is a question many in this region are discussing including those in the weather community.
This is a ‘neutral’ winter – not an El Nino or La Nina season. A typical neutral winter has a storm driving jet stream that tends to meander up and down the West Coast of North America bringing periodic wet weather into western Washington. Yet this season has found the jet stream spending much of the winter well north of the Pacific Northwest.
The Tuesday NWS Seattle Weather story highlighted how wet southeast Alaska has been this winter versus western Washington.
There have been times this season when the jet stream has pushed Pacific storms onshore, such as the wet and windy weather during the Seahawks game against the New Orleans Saints a couple of weekends ago. Yet high pressure aloft over the U.S. West Coast has dominated the overall weather pattern since the record wet September, resulting in the unseasonably dry conditions.
This pattern has resulted in the jet stream soaring up into southeast Alaska and then turning southeast into the central and eastern parts of the continent, producing the series of cold outbreaks and snow in those regions – including this week’s latest winter storm.
Since October 1, western Washington has received only about half the usual amount of rainfall. In the mountains according to the National Resources Conservation Service, precipitation is running between 40 to 60 percent of average so far this season. The snowpack varies roughly from 40 to 80 percent of average with the greater amounts at higher elevations, such as Mount Baker and Paradise on Mount Rainier.
So what is expected soon? The latest 8 to 14 day outlook from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center shows little change with continued mild or warm temperatures in the western U.S. and colder than average conditions across the eastern two thirds of the country. This time period happens to include the Super Bowl on February 2 in the New York City area.
There are still two months of winter left and plenty of time for this persistent dry weather pattern to change and produce more seasonal wet conditions. Yet that change is still not in sight, not likely for at least the next two weeks.
