weather

Seattle's (relatively) cool winter, Part 2

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This is Part 2 of a two-part blog post highlighting the cool winter season we’ve generally experience in the Seattle area this year.

  • For both posts, I am using a ‘seasonal year’ which runs from November 1 through the follow October 31.

  • Technically, November is late autumn, but snow is not uncommon in the Seattle area in November, and it is generally the beginning of our long winter-spring season, where on any given day it may seem more wintry or springlike during this period. Low temperatures can typically drop into the 30s ˚F and rarely rise above 60 ˚F, and often barely reaching the 50s ˚F.

  • Days are often cloudy in this period as well in addition to being cool.

  • Part 1 explore the Accumulated Average Daily Temperature.

  • Part 2 explores the Average Daily Temperature by day of the seasonal year for the entire period.

 

Figure 1 is an animated GIF which pages through the years 1948 through 2023 (to-date) and shows the Average Daily Temperature (ADT) recorded at Seattle Tacoma International Airport. In the background, three basic time-series traces exist: (a) light gray traces of 15-day running averages of the ADT for each year; (b) a red trace showing the  15-day running average of the ADT for the highlighted year; and (c) a dark hairline curve of the 15-day running average for the mean of all years. Individually recorded daily ADTs are show as red points.

 

The animation highlights the wide year-to-year variability in the ADT as the red highlighted year trace fluctuates across the broader gray traces for each year. Some temporary trends exist though you need to look at them quickly. In the early-mid 1950s, the ADT traces are often in the low half of the temperature band. In the 2010s, the opposite is true. Still, even with this, year-to-year variance fluctuates commonly across the gray temperature traces.

 

Each highlighted year’s chart is shown in Figure 2. Scroll down to compare. It is easier to compare still images more accurately and studiously. The animation simply shows the wide year-to-year variance.

 

Figure 1. An animated GIF showing the daily Average Temperature at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for the years 1948 thru April 2023. Also shown is the 15-day running average and the mean daily temperature for all year, also plotted as a 15-day running average.

Figure 2. Time-Series Plots by Year

Click any chart to enlarge. Hint: Once an annual year shows up, you my be able to navigate using your keyboard’s left and right arrow keys

Seattle's (relatively) cool winter, Part 1...

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Updated on April 6, 2023



I first published this blog post on March 18. The day before,  it warmed to the 60’s for the first time since October in and around Seattle. This felt very nice to my cold bones. It has been a relatively cool winter this year if you look at the December – February traditional winter period. January was relatively mild, warm, and dry for a winter period in Seattle. But the traditional meteorological winter was bookended by a coolish December and February. Extend the bookends of the period to November and March (to-date), four of the past five months have been cooler than normal.

My charts only contained data through March 15 when I first published the post on March 18. Now, a week into April, I have data through the end of March. The updated figures below reflect this.

I’ve posted several charts below. Figure 1 is an animation. The chart is a series of traces which track the cumulative average daily temperature recorded at Seattle Tacoma International Airport (KSEA) for the seasonal period of November 1 through March 31 for the years 1949 through 2023.

NOTE: The animation is an animated GIF file programmed to loop through twice. Each loop takes roughly 25 seconds. Refresh the browser window (command+R) to restart the animation.

Figure 1. Accumulated daily average temperature traces by seasonal year, 1949-2023, at Seattle Tacoma International Airport.

A few notes about Figure 1 follow:

  1. I’ve chosen a “made-up” metric. I don’t know if this is used by the National Weather Service, meteorologists, or climatologists with any regularity. I call my metric or index the Accumulated Degree-Day (ADD). It simply takes the average daily temperature recorded at KSEA and adds it to the previous days. It is similar to Heating Degree-Days and Cooling Degree-Days which are commonly summed over a period of time but my ADD does not use a threshold temperature of 65˚F to compare against. But it does give one an idea of how cool or warm the seasonal period has been in comparison to similar periods in other years at a common location.  I suppose it’s units would be ˚F-Days.

  2. The gray traces in the background display each year from 1949-2023 for an aggregate comparison.

  3. A blue trace is highlighted for each individual year as the animation is played.

  4. Since each seasonal period plotted crosses two calendar years, I’ve chosen the latter of the two calendar years to identify each individual trace. So, the trace for the November 2022 – March 2023 period is identified as ‘2023.’

  5. The highlighted blue traces extend to March 31 for each year.

  6. An average ADD trace for all years has been added to the chart for comparison. The ADD trace is shown as a black  hairline. For the total November–March season period, the total average ADD value is 6482 ˚F-Days.

  7. Some data went uncollected by the National Weather Service on March 16-17, 2023 at Seattle Tacoma International Airport which made it difficult to calculate a daily Average Daily Temperature for these dates. The missing data is explained in the chart and the days impacted are shown in a red block on the chart.

  8. Finally, I name the animation a dog tail chart because when played back, especially at higher frame rates, these types of charts look a little like a wagging dog tail. 

 

So why an animation? Animations display motion, and motion display movement over time and, possibly, patterns. You may want to ask yourself; year-to-year is there any rhythm, pattern or trending that becomes obvious that might be difficult to discern when comparing a series of still images or charts. This is especially true when comparing 74 still images if each chart was published separately (and they are further below).

 And there does appear to be some patterns at the distal ends of this period we’re investigating. In the late 40’s and through the mid-1950’s there are a series of coldish winter seasons(7 of 9 between 1949-1957). This is well documented in old photographs of heavy snows in Seattle during this period. And one could argue that the 2010’s have a pattern of warmer than normal winters (6 of 8 between 2014 through 2021). But mostly, this animation shows the high level of variance fluctuating between cooler-normal-warmer winter cycles. The late 2010’s may have shown warmer periods, but this season is quite cooler. And there were warmer winter seasons in the 1950s.

*****

The individual annual temperature traces which make up the animation are shown below. The are shown in order of the earliest year (1949) to the most current (2023). Click on any individual image below to see more detail and to compare.

San Francisco's rainy season...

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California is in the midst of a wet and snowy winter. It sounds as if more is due this coming week. Although the copious amounts of rain and snow have wreaked havoc in some places, after several years of drought, this influx of moisture was very much needed.

 Not much in the way of charts to show here on this initial post on California. But I’ll post two charts. The data comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) site where you can download historical climate data records for most major weather stations in the United States.

 The data shown below is for San Francisco International Airport and ranges from July 1, 1945, through the present. I plotted these charts using a water year calendar. The water year calendar is a convention often used when plotting precipitation or snow data because on the West Coast these are typically cyclic or seasonal events. Most precipitation events fall during 4-6 months of the year beginning in October. This is true up and down the coast, though the precipitation season typically longer in higher latitudes. Therefore, the water year calendar typically runs from October 1 through the following September 30 to encapsulate the data for an entire season, which traditionally spans across two standard calendar year-dates. So, for the current water year, data is included from Oct 1, 2022, through September 30, 2023. This span is referred to the 2023 water-year (WY), as nine months of it exist in 2023.

 I disregarded the early data period from July 1, 1945, to September 30, 1945, since it only represents a small part of the 1945 WY.

***

 Figure 1 is called a dot plot and it shows the total accumulation of precipitation for each WY from 1946 to 2023. The current water-year is only partially complete. The data has been sorted showing the rainiest water seasons on top. I’ve highlighted the current 2023 WY in red. I’ve also highlighted the previous nine water seasons in blue. You can see much of the period between 2014 and 2021 were dry years though 2015-16 were close to the mean for total rain. The 2022 and 2019 seasons were also relatively close to the mean for annual precipitation. The 2017 WY, now six years past, was quite wet (for San Francisco). This year is so far close to the mean, but we are only five months into the water-year. But those are the wettest five months.

 
 

Figure 2 is a short animation (~30 sec.) which shows a cumulative precipitation trace across the water year of each year from 1946 to 2023 (through March 2, 2023). It can be seen from this chart that year-to-year, (a) the basic pattern is the same (lots of rain early followed by a long dry spell until October, and (b) the total amount of annual rainfall varies widely. And playing the small animation through there doesn’t appear to be a year-to-year trending pattern other than what was mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Helpful hint: Clicking on the gear wheel in the lower playback element allows you to slow or spead the animation playback rate.

Figure 2. Precipitation traces for San Francisco International Airport, 1946-2023 (current). Traces are displayed one at a time and follow the water year calendar starting on October 1 and ending the following September 30. The water year number takes on the year value for the January to September dates.

NYC's Central Park in Snow...

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I’ve never been to New York City though I’ve always wanted to visit and even live there. I remember when I told a colleague I worked with in the Seattle area in the mid 90s and who grew up there, he said 

“Dave, it’d eat you alive.”

 I replied, what do you mean? I’ve been around.

 “You haven’t been to New York. It eats up people like you.”

 I protested, People say this all the time. The whole city’s made up of people from other places.

 “Trust me Dave. It’d eat you alive.” End of conversation. He moved on to another task. I laughed.

 …

Anyway, it is probably too late for me to ever live there, but maybe one day I’ll visit New York. And as a daily reader of the New York Times, I sometimes come across a local story which gets me wistful about visiting or living there sometime. And whenever I do that, I think back to that brief 30 second conversation I had underneath a giant 747 being tested prior to rolling out to the flightline for further finishing work.

 And that happened tonight when I came across a story that NYC might get its first meaningful snowfall of 2023, on nearly the last day of February. I’ve always loved photographs of New York in winter. The old black and white ones, but also the color ones – especially the color ones from the late Saul Leiter. It’s hard to imagine New York getting through a winter with little to no snow. But what do I know?

 I decided to look at how much NYC sees in a typical winter. So, I went to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) data portal to see where data of records were collected for New York City. Sure enough one of those locations was in Central Park with records going back to January 1, 1869. I downloaded the temperature and precipitation data for this location just for grins and looked.

  And it appears, New York City gets quite a bit of snow in Central Park certainly when compared to the city I live in, Seattle.  It looks like on average about 26 inches over the course of a typical winter falls in Central Park, though that varies widely.

 I put together several charts to see if any patterns or trends over time could be detected. Frankly, I don’t see many from this broad (and quick) overview. In fact, I was surprised how uniform the data looked whether years were grouped across decades or individual snow events were plotted across time.

 You can see what I found with this very cursory look tonight in the following five (5) figures. Click on any chart to expand.

Figure 1. Accumulated snowfall in Central Park. Group in 20 year bins or bars. Note that records only began in 1869. The first bar only includes data for 12 years. The most recent 20-year grouping began only three years ago. Therefore the last bar is quite small on this account.

Click on to expand.

Figure 2. Individual snow events grouped by years (e.g. not individual event dates).

Click on to expand.

Figure 3. Individual snow events grouped plotted on event dates.

Click on to expand.

Figure 4. Individual snow events from 2000-2023 and grouped by years (e.g. not individual event dates).

Click on to expand.

Figure 5. Individual snow events from 2001-2023 and plotted on event dates.

Click on to expand.

DATA SOURCE: NOAA NWS NCEI DAT PORTAL, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/, accessed 27 Feb 2023. Station Name: Central Park NYC.

Temperature changes at SeaTac...

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Weather data collected at Seattle Tacoma International Airport (SeaTac) is generally considered the main data of record for the Seattle metropolitan area, though there are several other sites in the region where meteorologist and climatologists gather their information. Data has been collected at SeaTac continuously since 1948, though some data is missing from the records for the period of October 1, 1996 through October 31, 2005. This missing data is generally the snow and sky cover observations. Temperature, the focus of this page, and precipitation data was collected during this period and is available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and their publicly accessible National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Climate Data Online (CDO) tool.

So, having temperature data from 1948 through yesterday (Feb 22, 2023), how much has the average daily temperature changed at SeaTac over the past 75 years (inclusive) if at all? And are there any trends? If so, one would assume that the temperatures have slowly warmed over the years based on all the science and reporting published over the past decade or longer.

 

An undulating plot

The National Weather Service generally reports the daily minimum temperature (Tmin) and daily maximum temperature (Tmax) at the weather stations. The average of these two values is calculated and recorded as the average daily temperature (Tavg). Often when looking at or downloading past data from a weather station, the user receives only the Tmin and Tmax values for a given date. This is common on older records. Sometimes the data includes the calculated Tavg. Regardless, knowing that Tavg is the average between the Tmin and Tmax values, the Tavg shown in the following charts has either been calculated by the NWS and reported, or this author has performed the calculation in the spreadsheet I’ve imported data from the NWS into.

If you plot the TAVG value for every date from January 1, 1948 through today as shown in Figure 1 you get an undulating or wavy curve form. Obviously, the average daily temperature of a summer day is much higher than the same on a winter day in Seattle. It is difficult to determine if there has been a fall or rise in the average daily temperature and, if so, by how much by just looking at this wave form.

Figure 1. Average daily temperatures trace from 1948 to 2022, Seattle Tacoma International Airport.

I’ve added a linear trend line in red in Figure 2. This trend line shows a modest rise in daily temperatures over the 75-year period. The average daily temperature recorded at Seattle Tacoma Airport has risen from roughly 50˚F to about 54˚F during this period, a rise of roughly 4-4.5 ˚F, or 2.2-2.5 ˚C.

Figure 2. Average daily temperatures trace from 1948 to 2022 with red trendline, Seattle Tacoma International Airport.

Annual Cumulative Degree-Day Index (ACDD)

Another method of looking at temperature changes over time and comparing these to other years over a long period is to plot the cumulative total of daily average temperatures and plot that accumulation over the course of a year. Then plot a similar curve for each year in the period of study. This is shown in Figure 3.

A simple way to check this value is described here. Say the average annual daily temperature at SeaTac is 50˚F. This is the average daily temperature over the course of a year. Some days will be cooler and some warmer. If you multiply (50F DEGREES) X (365 DAYS) you’ll get a value of  18,250 DEGREE-DAYS, or 18,250 DD. I’ll use the term Annual Cumulative Degree Day (ACDD) to indicate the degree-days accumulated over an annual period at a specific weather station.

Looking at the y-scales on Figure 3 shows that summing the average daily temperatures for each day of the year will get you to approximately 18,250 ACDD.

…

Note: My use of an index I call degree-day is not the equivalent of Heating Degree Days (HDD) or Cooling Degree Day (CDD), both indexes used in the building systems world to calculate required heating or cooling loads for designing heating and air-conditioning equipment and systems and both reported on in daily summary statistics from NOAA/NWS data repositories. But it is similar in the sense of understanding the total amount of heat received over the course of a year (as defined by the sum of the daily average temperatures) in any given year at SeaTac airport. Each gray line or trace shown in Figure 3 represents one year in the 1948-2023 period.

Figure 3. Annual Cumulative Degree Days (ACDD) plots for each year, 1948-2022, Seattle Tacoma International Airport (KSEA).

 

Comparing individual years

Figure 4 shows ACDD traces of four individual years (highlighted in red) plotted against similar ACDD traces all years. Of the four selected, 1948 and 1985 started off relatively cool through the end of June and then each had a cool autumn and early winter. The plot for 1966 shows it too started cool through spring and into early summer before a late summer surge gave it a relatively average ACDD Index value for the entire year. The plot for 2015 shows the year had an average winter and spring temperature-wise for this region, followed by a warm period extending through the remainder of the year. For the 74 full years between 1948-2022, this year (2015) was the warmest on record in Seattle.

Figure 4. Individual ACDD trace samples for four select years, Seattle Tacoma International Airport.

 

Small Multiples

Figure 5 is a series of plots grouped as a whole. Each individual plot can be clicked on to expand it. This form of data graphic is collectively called small multiple. It allows one to compare one year to other years easily. It also allows for a deeper dive into any individual year.

Detecting trends requires a little more study, but you can see that, in generally, the ten years from 1948-57 were cooler than average at SeaTac. One can also see that the 10-year period from 2013 through recently completed 2022 have been warmer than average. There was another five-year period running from 2003-07 which were warmer than average. Most of the other years hovered near average, though it is common over any ten year stretch to see back-to-back years running much cooler or warmer than average.

Figure 5. A small-multiples data graphic comparing the Annual Cumulative Degree Days (ACDD) tracing for each of 74 consecutive years at Seattle Tacoma International Airport.

Another interesting thing that shows up when plotting the Degree-Day number for each year is best seen going back to Figure 3. Notice how in the winter and early spring months, Seattle tends toward either warmer or cooler springs. Very few annual periods are “average”. Notice the “gap” that exists between early February through May. This period in the calendar tends towards two groups or strands of tracings which braid together in midsummer. By the end of each calendar period, the tracings have advanced towards split ends.

I don’t know why. I wonder if La Nina years tend towards one strand and El Nino years towards the other. Mathematicians, meteorologists, or atmospheric scientists might understand this “strand” phenomenon or “strand theory” better than I.

An Animated Chart

Finally, Figure 6 is an animated chart. It is an alternative to the small multiples chart shown in Figure 5. It displays each year’s trace above the gray traces of all years sequentially. You can imagine it looking like a dog’s tail wagging. This means of presenting data highlights the year-to-year variability. It also can show trends if over a course of periods of years, the “tail” wags high or lower. You can witness by watching the video the early years of recorded temperatures tend towards cooler days and as time marches forward, the wagging tail inches up the chart. Year-to-year the tail wags randomly (annual variability), but over time a pattern emerges of the tail drifting upwards into warmer cumulative temperatures (periodic trending).

Figure 6. ACDD traces for Seattle Tacoma International Airport, 1948-2023. The animated GIF should loop through once, probably upon initial loading of the web page. Notice that the wagging red line slowly drifts higher as the years progress. Drifting high indicates the total daily temperature load is increasing (e.g. days are getting warmer on average).

HINT: Refresh (Command+R) the web page to cycle the GIF in sequence. And remember to scroll back down to the bottom of the page after refreshing.

That’s all for this post, just some interesting new ways at looking at annual temperature profiles for data from selected NOAA / NWS collection sites. I used SeaTac Airport as an example as I live in Seattle.

An update on this winter's rain and (lack of) sunshine...

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Originally posted on or around January 22, 2022.

Charts 1 - 3a have been updated on June 19, 11 AM PDT.

Solar Radiation: How much sun are we getting…

A little background first: the Union Bay WSU Solar Radiation Station has been recording solar radiation data since late 2011. Here I’m comparing water-year (WY) cumulative solar radiation totals in Figure 1 thru Figure 3. Water-years begin on October 1 and run through September 30 of the following year. Water-year 2011-12 is incomplete for the Union Bay station – WSU only began publishing data sometime after October 1 that year. Therefore, I’ll compare cumulative traces for the 2012-13 through 2021-22 water-years, a total of ten water-year cycles

***

Weatherwise, it was a dim and grim start to winter, and this extraordinary low level of light has continued through most of winter and through spring 2022 as well. Figure 1 shows since October, we’ve received the least amount of sun over this 10-year period. The total solar radiation received so far this water year equates to roughly 93% of the mean for the previous nine years. Previously, the winter half of 2012-13 had the lowest cumulative amount of solar radiation in this limited dataset.

Figure 1. Cumulative solar radiation since October 1 at the Union Bay Solar Radiation Station. Last updated on June 19 with data thru June 18.

Click to enlarge.

Figure 2 is a Cleveland-style dot plot sorted by cumulative daily solar radiation to-date at the WSU Seattle Solar Radiation Station. This shows the 2021-22 water year cumulative solar radiation total is quite a bit less than the other years in this data set. This past February was abnormally dry (see Figure 4). On February 24, 2022, the solar radiation totals at the WSU station in Seattle for 2021-22 rose above totals for the same period in 2012-13. This elevation in ranking persisted for about three weeks. However, this cloudy spring has dropped 2021-22 back to the lowest total solar radiation levels for the past ten years.

Note too that the X-axis values start above 2000 MJ/sq. meter. Starting the x-axis at zero would show that the totals between years are not as disparate as it might seem in Figure 2. 

Figure 2. Dot plot of solar radiation accumulation since October 1 for the past 10 years.

 

Figure 3 shows the same data as Figure 2, except here in a traditional column chart ordered by year. The recent winter-spring seasons of 2017-18 through 2019-20 were quite a bit lighter (sunnier) than this past year. Perhaps this is the reason the darkness has been so noticeable the past 7-8 months.

Figure 3. Cumulative solar radiation beginning each water year on October 1.

 

Figure 3a is new to this post as of May 30. While Figures 1-3 show the total solar radiation measured on site in Seattle’s Union Bay station, Figure 3a shows the cumulative daily cloud cover or sky ratings beginning on October 1 of each trace and extending through May 29 of the following year. This data was gathered at SeaTac airport by the National Weather Service.

A sky cover rating is assigned a value of 0-10 for each day. A sky cover rating of zero indicates no clouds. A sky rating of 10 indicates 100% total cloudiness the entire day. Partially cloudy days are given a rating in whole number values in between this two extremes.

Each trace was plotted by adding up the daily rating values from October 1 of the previous year through the end of May. Steeper line traces indicate cloudier years.

Figure 3A shows that the current October 1 through mid-June period has been the cloudiest over the past 15 years.

Figure 3a. Cumulative daily sky ratings beginning each water year on October 1.

Precipitation: How wet have we been…

Figure 4 displays the cumulative precipitation for all water years at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (KSEA) from the water years 1948-49 through 2021-22. This represents 74 years of data. SeaTac Airport is approximately 16 miles south of the Union Bay solar radiation site and is the official site of record for Seattle area weather. 

Figure 4 shows a rainy start to our winter season. Seattle had a total of 26.7 inches of rain in the period between October 1, 2021, and January 14, 2022. This placed this year’s early winter rainy season as third rainiest since the late 1940s, following the 1955-56 and 2006-07 early winters. Most of this rain fell after October 19, about 25.5 inches. The October 19 through January 14 period represented 86 days. Therefore, the precipitation rate for this period was 0.30 inches per day. The often sunny, pleasant days we usually see in October seemed elusive this past year and this chart shows why. 

It was relatively dry most days from January 13 through February 26, a period of 43 days. A total of 1.24 inches of precipitation fell during this period, a rate of approximately 0.029 inches per day, or 1/10 of the rate for the previous three months.

Record rains hit starting on February 27 and continued through the next day. A total of 7.9 inches of rain fell from February 27 through March 31. This represented a daily precipitation rate of 0.23 inches per day – a high rate, but not quite the rate of the first three months of the wet season. 

It has been a relatively wet spring as well including through May, especially in late May and early June. This water year’s ranking has moved from the 12th most rainy at SeaTac Airport to the 6th most in just the past few weeks.

Figure 4. Cumulative rain totals at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for yearly periods beginning on October 1.
Click to enlarge.

This wet spring has moved the SeaTac total precipitation level to the #9 position in the rankings since the late 1940s as shown in supplemental Figure 4a. However, two recent winters have been wetter than this year, 2015-16 (#3) and 2016-17 (#1).

Precipitation traces for past water-years by decade at SeaTac can be found here.

Figure 4a. Rankings of winter precipitation for water years beginning on October 1 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (KSEA).

 

Winter / Spring Temperatures: How cold have we been…

It was a chilly winter in 2022, chillier than normal. March ended with a spate of warmer days which took some of the chill off the winter temperature pattern. But April and May have seen a return to the chilly weather. On average it’s been roughly 5-10 F cooler than normal most days since the end of March.

Figure 5 shows the daily average temperature departures from 30Y climate norms at SeaTac Airport. I’ve included data for December 2021 since December is the meteorological start to winter.

Figure 5. Daily average temperature departures from normal, SeaTac Airport. Click to enlarge.

 

Figure 6 takes the same data shown in the previous figure and extends it back to October 1, the start of the 2021-22 water year. It has been cooler than normal for most of the start of the rainy season this year. However, the whole of November may have been slightly milder than most Novembers. You can see the warm period quite clearly in late November when a series of atmospheric rivers blew in across the Pacific and dumper huge amounts of rainfall in Washington and southern British Columbia flooding large parts of the areas around the Fraser and Nooksack rivers.

Figure 6. Daily average temperature departures from normal at SeaTac Airport starting October 1, 2021.
Click to expand.

 

Stepping back further in time, Figure 7 shows the average daily temperature departures from climatic norms from October 1, 2000, to the present. This chart also highlights days where the average daily temperature exceeded or fell short of the daily normal for a given date by 20˚F or more. A particular warmish period when warmer-than-normal days outnumbered cooler-than-normal days began sometime around 2012-13 and continued for about five years before moderating somewhat. With the most recent coolish last few months, that trend appears to have moderated even more. It remains to be seen if this will continue.

Figure 7. Average daily temperature departures from 30Y climatic normals, SeaTac Airport, 2000-2022.
Click to expand.

Sources:

[1] Precipitation and temperature data: NOAA / NWS Climate, Observed Weather: https://www.weather.gov/wrh/climate?wfo=sew
[2] Solar radiation data: Washington State University AgWeatherNet Current Conditions Map: http://weather.wsu.edu

Data Graphics:

All dataworks created using DataGraph 5.0, Visual Data Tools, Inc. for macOS.

A dark start to winter...

in , ,

Updated: December 29, 2021, 6:30 AM PDT

Figure 1 updated with most recent data.
Figure 2 has been updated. Note that the minimal value on the x-axis begins at 320 MJ/sq.meter. Figure 3 has been updated. Note that the minimal value on the y-axis begins at 300 MJ/sq.meter. Figure 4 has been added to show the daily temperature departure for 2021 to date.
Figure 5 has been added to show the daily temperature departures since 2000 at SeaTac airport.

If it seems like it has been pretty dark and rainy this autumn and early winter in Seattle you would be right. I’ve already posted about the high level of precipitation we’ve seen in Seattle and the extended Western Washington area since the start of the 2021-22 water year on October 1. The areas surrounding Bellingham and Vancouver B.C. have been especially hit hard with rain.

But it has seemed very dark in recent months as well, and by dark, I mean low levels of light. Of course all this rain comes in leaden skies. And looking at solar radiation data collected near Husky Stadium and Union Bay (47.66, 122.29) in Seattle confirms this has been the darkest start to winter in the past ten. Washington State University operates a solar collection station in this area and exposes the processed data to the public on their web site. A link to this data is listed at the bottom of this page.

Figure 1 shows the cumulative daily totals of solar radiation (MJ/sq.meter) from October 1 through December 31 for 2013 through the present year. At this writing we are only partly through December this year. But it is clear that this year has been quite dark compared to the other years. Lower traces indicate lower levels of solar energy measured. This year’s trend line is the heavy line. The Seattle area began with a normal October, but around mid-month the rate of cumulative solar energy slowed considerably.

I choose a start date of October 1 since this is the traditional start date of the Northwest water year, the time of year when storms begin to blow off the Pacific with increasing frequency. This date provides a good start or “zero point” for the start of the wet season.

Figure 1. Solar radiation measured at Seattle’s Union Bay data collection site.

 

Figure 2 was added on December 15. This figure is a dot plot showing the total cumulative solar radiation received at WSU’s Solar Station in Seattle. The dot plot is sorted by total solar daily accumulation for the stated period.

This year’s accumulation of sunlight since the start of October is marked by the black dot in the lower left corner. It is substantially lower than the sunnier years at winter’s start. It is substantially lower than the median value for all years shown. The median value is shown by the dash vertical line.

Looking at the years’ positions on the y-axis, there does not appear to be any pattern to the order for the very limited number of years for which data exists.

Figure 2. Dot plot showing cumulative solar radiation sorted by year.

 

Figure 3 essentially shows the same data as Figure 2. In this bar chart, the years are in order along the X-axis (horizontal). It’s a little easier for the mind to see the lack of any pattern by time in this small sample size – we are more often used to seeing date-format data along the horizontal axis, increasing in time from left-to-right. It’s also clear to see how low sun levels have been this Oct-Dec period compared to recent years. All years show data through the date in the title.

Figure 3. Cumulative Solar Radiation, Oct 1 through December, sorted by years, 2012-21.

 

In addition to lower solar radiation levels in Seattle since roughly mid-October, it has been a relatively cool autumn and start to winter. September had mare days that were cooler than normal than days warmer than normal. Same for October. November was pretty mild with a series of atmospheric rivers coming in from the tropics. Those brought warmish, moist air with them. And plenty of flooding in parts of the Pacific Northwest and southern British Columbia. December has been relatively colder than most recent Decembers. This can be seen in the large number of days where average daily temperatures have been below 30Y climatic normals.

Figure 4 shows the daily temperature departures for 2021 up through the most recent date.

Figure 4. Daily Average Temperature: Departure from 30Y normals. Click to enlarge.

Figure 5 shows similar data as Figure 4, daily average temperature departures from 30-year normals going back to January 1, 2000. It appears in recent years, the trend is back towards the climatic normals of the past 30 years after a warming period for several years in the mid-2020s.

The 30Y normal daily average temperature reference values for all years except 2021 are based on the years 1981-2010. In 2021, the comparison is against the normal daily temperature range from 1991-2020. It’s possible that the 1991-2020 30Y normals cycles have increased from the previous 1981-2010 30Y cycle and this year’s lower trend is simply reflecting that change - departures may be comparing against a high reference line..

This data is for the National Weather Services’s Seattle-Tacoma International Airport site.

Figure 5. Daily normal temperature departures for SeaTac airport from 2000 to present. Click to enlarge.

SOURCE DATA
Washington State University AgWeatherNet: http://weather.wsu.edu
NOAA/NWS Climate Data Seattle/Tacoma https://www.weather.gov/wrh/climate?wfo=sew
FULL DISCLOSURE
I am not a meteorologist, climate scientist, data scientist, geologist nor hydrologist. I am simply a (retired) engineer who has some familiarity with numbers, basic statistics and probability statistics who enjoys looking at readily available public data and trying to make sense of things. I enjoy building data visualizations from data I find much like others enjoy working daily crosswords or sudoku puzzles. Local weather, climate and hydrology science are complex subjects. Take what you read and find here with this in context.
 

Rearview Mirror: November 2021

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The November 2021 Temperature Departure chart is shown in Figure 1.

In general we’ve had a somewhat cooler than normal autumn, but November was slightly warmer than normal, with a monthly temperature average of 47.9˚F, about 1.4F above normal. Several strong atmospheric storms hitting the Puget Sound region from the tropics to the southwest passed through the city mid-month and towards the end. These storms brought warm, tropic air with them with plenty of moisture. These multi-day temperature spikes can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Daily temperature departs from 30Y climatic normals through November 30.

Click image to enlarge.

Normally, I’d add a chart showing new monthly precipitation totals, but I’ve reported these in several previous blog posts over the past few days. There’s no sense repeating that information here. Click to Prev button at the bottom of this post to navigate to those posts if you’re interested.

DATA SOURCE
NOAA / National Weather Service Local Climate: https://www.weather.gov/wrh/climate?wfo=sew

Nooksack flooding, 2021

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It has been a rainy start to autumn in Seattle in 2021. Figure 1 shows a plot of the cumulative precipitation at Seattle-Tacoma (SeaTac) International Airport since the beginning of the 2021-22 water year. Water years in Seattle are date-based construct starting on October 1st and running through September 30 of the following year. These are often used when discussing precipitation events since the west coast of North America and specifically the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. can often be divided into a wet season (late fall through early spring) and a dry season (late summer through early autumn).

The plot below highlights the current water year precipitation accumulation but also includes similar traces for all water years at SeaTac since 2002-03. Compared to recent years, this year – just starting – is quite wet.

Click on any figure below to expand it.

Figure 1. Cumulative rainfall, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, current water-year. Also show are traces from previous water-years, 2002-03 through 2020-21.

Figure 2 highlights on of the past two decades wettest start to winter for comparison purposes. This was the 2006-07 water year. November of that month registered close to 15.6 inches of rain.

It has not been nearly as wet this November with roughly 8 inches of precipitation so far, about two-thirds of the way through the month. But if you compare the two lines on the chart, Seattle has had a much wetter October in 2021, so the total precipitation to date is similar between the 2006-07 and 2021-22 water years.

Figure 2. Comparison of current water-year cumulative precipitation with the 2006-07 water-year trace.

Figure 3 shows an additional year with a very wet start, the water year of 2016-17. This wet year reached approximately the same total precipitation as 2006-07 for the two-month, OCT-NOV period, a value of roughly 17 inches total. Normal precipitation totals for Seattle-Tacoma for that two-month period is typically about 10 inches. In the 2021-22 water year, with November still one week away from completing, we have seen 13.66 inches of rain since October 1.

Figure 3. Current water-year cumulative precipitation at SeaTac Airport with the 2006-07 and 2016-17 precipitation traces highlighted.

Figure 4 is a little bit different than the first three charts. I often track weather out of SeaTac. But I rarely step out to track weather in other areas, even areas not so far from home. Last week, in the northwestern part of Washington State and in southern British Columbia, large volumes of rain, arriving in the form of an atmospheric river, flooded the region. The flooding was quite severe, impacting many homes and farms, and creating great havoc and damage to many roads and highways. Many people were stranded by the flood waters and needed to be rescued. Several people have died in this storm.

I’ve plotted the cumulative rain totals recorded at the Bellingham International Airport since October 1. Bellingham is a mid-sized city approximately 90 miles north of Seattle, and very close to the flood zone. In fact, parts of Bellingham were under water for several days after these recent storms.

In Figure 4 you can see the total amount of rain falling in Bellingham has been very similar to that of SeaTac. Until about November 8, Belingham was tracking about 2 inches less in rain compared to Seattle from the start of the new water year. But from November 9-15, Bellingham received approximately 6.6 inches of rain, about 2.5 inches more than Seattle in that week.

I regularly keep track of these precipitation vs. time charts for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Adding Bellingham totals to the chart was only for comparison reasons only. Inthe most recent storm, it’s likely the Seattle area was protected to some extent by the Olympic Range to our west. Bellingham is not as well protected.

Figure 4. For comparison purposes, this figure shows the current year precipitation trace at Bellingham International Airport with the past 20 year traces at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Note: Bellingham is approximately 90 miles north of Seattle.

The United States Geological Service (USGS) keeps track of river flows across the country. Some of this data is exposed to the public. Two gaging stations the USGS keeps near the Whatcom County flood zone are the stations on the Nooksack River at Everson and at Ferndale. Everson is about 12 miles ENE of Ferndale as the crow flies. The monitoring station at Ferndale appears to have records published over a much longer time period, so this data will be used for comparison purposes. The Nooksack river flows from the Mount Shuksan and Mount Baker watersheds. On the other hand, the station at Everson, also on the Nooksack, is much closer to the Sumas River which presumedly caused much of the flooding in the Fraser River Valley in British Columbia.

The Nooksack river major flood stage at Ferndale is 23 feet. The Nooksack river crested above this stage on November 16 (Figure 5, lower chart) at 23.7 feet.

Figure 5. Nooksack River stage charts from Ferndale WA from November 15-22, 2021. Chart is courtesy of the USGS.

Figure 6. Nooksack River stage charts from Everson, WA from November 15-22, 2021. Chart is courtesy of USGS.

Table 1 shows the values of historic stage crests on the Nooksack River at Ferndale for crests above 12.25 feet. The values were copied into this table from the source listed below the table. I entered the most recent value (blue entry) for 11/16/2021 since the web site values had not been updated yet.

This November’s flood stage ranked with the top twenty events at this gage site.

Table 1. Record gage levels for the Nooksack River at Ferndale WA. Source: NOAA / NWS.

Source link

Figure 7 is a dot plot of the historic crests on the Nooksack River at Ferndale ordered from great to least. Color coding indicate the decade of the event.

Figure 7. A dot plot showing the historic flood stages on the Nooksack River at Ferndale WA.

Figure 8 is a series of dot plots of the same data as shown in Figure 7. The data has been grouped in decades to see if any trends can be found due to time. Decades are an arbitrary grouping. But often we group data in years, decades and centuries to see patterns time-related data, so I used decade groupings here.

I don’t see any obvious patterns in the decade groupings other than some early decades had fewer but more severe events and more recent decades had more events but events which appeared less severe in terms of gage height. Of course, the 2020s are just beginning. It is possible, I suppose, that less severe events in the early 1910-30 period were not as diligently recorded. And it might also be true that less severe events in more recent decades may do more damage due to greater populations and development in the area. These are just guesses.

Click on any chart to enlarge. You can use left and right arrow keys to navigate between decadal sets of data.

Figure 8. A series of dot plots of ordered historic crests on the Nooksack River at Ferndale WA grouped by decade. Click to enlarge.

 

Figure 9 shows the data in Table 1 in a time-series chart format (which is basically a horizontal dot plot sorted by time rather than rank).

Again, strong patterns are hard to find, other than the first half of the timeline tends to show greater historic crests. I don’t know the reasons for this. Maybe storms were stronger in the past. Perhaps physical river control methods have been installed over the years to help regulate flow. Since 1965, it is difficult to discern any distinct pattern to the historic crests other than every 15 years or so, a moderate-high or major flood event occurs.

Figure 9. Time-series chart of historic crests on the Nooksack River at Ferndale, WA.

 

Finally, it should be noted that parts of northern Whatcom County and much of the Fraser River Valley were flooded and not on the Nooksack River, but rather on the Sumas River. The Nooksack flows west to Puget Sound from the North Cascades. The Sumas River flows north into Canada. The U.S. border town of Sumas was severely flooded the past week as was much of the nearby Fraser River Valley.

There is a point near Everson, WA where the Nooksack river runs very close to the Sumas River. The surrounding land is generally flat. Literature suggests past overflows of the Nooksack have flowed into the Sumas near Everson. The distance appears to be less than two miles at the closest points

I suspect this is what happened this past week. I’m not a hydrologist, so I don’t really know. But with all of the water falling last week and the weeks leading up to this event, it seems likely. River gage data on the Sumas for the public was difficult to find.

Figure 10 shows the proximity of the two rivers. Directionally, north extends into the top background in the image.

Figure 10. Proximity of the Nooksak River to the Sumas River. Image courtesy of Google Earth. Click to enlarge.

The Bellingham Herald is the paper of record in Whatcom County and Northwest Washington. The paper has excellent coverage of the recent floods and photo essays of past historic floods. Flooding in this region is not uncommon. It is a flat landscape at the base of very steep mountains subject to heavy winter rains and runoffs.

 

FULL DISCLOSURE

I am not a meteorologist, climate scientist, data scientist, geologist nor hydrologist. I am simply a (retired) engineer who has some familiarity with numbers, basic statistics and probability statistics who enjoys looking at readily available public data and trying to make sense of things. I enjoy building data visualizations from data I find much like others enjoy working daily crosswords or sudoku puzzles. Local weather, climate and hydrology science are complex subjects. Take what you read and find here with this in context.

On summer's maximum daily temperatures...

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I looked at the extreme departures from 30-year normals of the daily average temperatures in my last blog post in late June, 2021. This was right after Seattle and the Pacific Northwest endured record high temperatures for several days.

Today, on the National Weather Service (NWS) site there is a warning of warm temperatures ahead for the next few days. They don’t expect the temperatures in Seattle to exceed the 100˚F mark as it did in late June. But they expect a couple of the days will reach above 90˚F. Other areas in the West to the south and east of Seattle are expected to have temperatures exceed 100˚F over the next few days.

In my book, anything above about 85˚F is hot. Maybe not uncomfortably hot, but it’s certainly starting to hit the unpleasantly hot range for me. I grew up in the Great Lakes Midwest, so hot summers are nothing new. But my most recent 38 summers have mostly been spent in Seattle, a city with generally cooler and more pleasant summers than those in the Midwest. I enjoy those and have become accustomed to those temperatures. I’ve become a heat wimp.

However, though not common, temperatures at 85˚F or greater are not rare in Seattle summers. Here’s a look at several charts depicting days – over a very limited 21 year time scale – where maximum temperatures match or exceed the following thresholds: 85F, 90F, 95F, 100F, and 105F at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Seattle’s official NWS site of record.

Click on any image below to expand it. Hint: once you expand the first chart, you can navigate to the others using your “left” and “right” arrow keys on your keyboard.

A warm and dry summer

in

Just a few graphics to revisit and see where we stand with temperatures and precipitation totals for Seattle Washington in 2016-17.

Temperatures

Seattle's 2017 summer began very pleasantly. It began early, around mid-May. June and July were extremely pleasant, with sunny skies nearly every day and temperatures in the mid-70s. But when the calendar flipped over to August, a smoky heat wave rolled into the region. Combined with a very dry past three months, the region feels hot and tinder dry currently.

Click to enlarge.

Precipitation

Like last year, the year began very wet. In fact, using the water year calendar which begins on October 1, Seattle had nearly 13 inches more rain than a typical water year by early May. This exceeded 2016's huge totals on that date. 

But, around May 16, the spigot was shut off. And aside from one drenching, winter-like day in mid-June, the region has been very dry.

Click to enlarge.

A winter to forget...

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The past year (and then some)

This is my final post on this cold snap / winter topic. First, I think the weather is changing and winter really is exiting. Second, as a subject, it has become a little tired. So, here goes. 

I suspect the extended coolish pattern we’ve experienced over the past three months has finally had its run. I’m not a meteorologist nor a climate scientist. Just someone working on my writing and data presentation skills. It just seems that we’re approaching the end of a pattern. The longer term forecasts seem to point towards more normal temperatures.

No doubt, we will still get cooler-than-normal days. Just as we’ll get warmer-than-normal days. But I think the persistent patterns are breaking down. Looking at those cooler-than-normal patterns on the right of Figure 1 shows that up until about March 9, we were still seeing strings of continuous cool days. However, the last few days have been mild, and the temperature deficits have been shrinking since about early January.

A couple of things seem clear from Figure 1: 

  • This coldish spell was persistent and long — almost 3-½ months long (with a few brief interruptions);
  • it was preceded by at least 11 months of predominantly warmer-than-normal weather; and
  • the change from one state to the other was quite abrupt in early December. It was as though a switch was flipped.

Figure 1. Temperature departures for the past 15 months. Click to enlarge.

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Temperature Deviations - A longer comparison (2000-2017)

Figure 2 shows similar temperature deviation data to Figure 1, except it covers a much longer stretch of time backwards. The red zones depict the approximate stretch of winter (Dec-Feb) for each annual period.

I mentioned in the section above that prior to the recent three month cold snap, Seattle experienced 11 months of warmer-than-normal temperatures. Well, looking at a longer timescale backwards, the stretch of warmer weather goes back at least about three years, aside from occasional brief spikes of temperatures in the opposite direction.

For most of this period, specifically the dozen or so years extending from 2000 through 2012, the daily differences from normal temp appear to be more evenly distributed between short warmer and cooler periods. The year 2011 appears to have a long stretch of cooler temperatures — more in the early spring-to-fall time frame rather than winter. And the two year period of 2003-04 appeared warmer than normal in winter as well. I recall during this time thinking to myself that after 20 years, I was finally becoming accustomed to cool, rainy Northwest winters and they weren’t as bad as they previously seemed to me. It turns out, I may had just been experiencing a milder series of back-to-back winters.

Figure 2. Comparison of temperature deviations over time (2000-2017). Click to enlarge.

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What about the rain

The temperature discussion above focuses on the traditional winter months of December through February. In Seattle, our average winter day temperatures don’t differ much than late fall or early spring temperatures. We have mild winters, mostly and coolish springs. In fact, I’ve always considered the period between mid-October to mid-April as one long winterspring season. This time period nearly coincides with the first half of the west coast meteorological water year which typically runs from October 1 to September 30 each year. Seattle, and much of the northern West Coast has a wet season and a dry season. So I’ll use the Oct-Sep water year as a time period to discuss this winter in terms of precipitation.

Figure 3 shows the accumulated precipitation since the beginning of the water year. This year’s line is the blue dashed line. The orange line represents the climatic averages from the years 1981-2010 from SeaTac International Airport. Clearly, we are experiencing a very wet rainy season. So far — and the rainy season for this year is not over  — we have had about 11 more inches of rain than normal since October 1 of last year.

Figure 3. Cumulative precipitation since October 1, present year and historical. Click to enlarge.

So we're having an extraordinarily wet year. Big deal — some years are wet; some are dry. However, are these wet years becoming more frequent? I don't know if we have enough data to establish this claim for the long run, but recent years seem to be.

Figure 4 shows more recent years in the same chart as Figure 3. Last year, the 2015-16 water year, is the heavy black line. Last year was also an exceptionally moist year, the wettest of the previous 14 years shown. The medium gray lines reflect the water years: 2014-15; 2013-14; 2012-13 and 2011-12, the years precluded from the 1981-2010 average. The light grey lines represent the nine preceding years before 2011-12 since I have the data handy and they give some balance to the discussion.

The chart in Figure 4 illustrates:

  • Though it has been very wet since October and we are approach last year’s surge of rain, it is unlikely we will catch it. We are currently about 5 inches behind and are slowly approaching our drier months. Back-to-back years of this flow of water lends understanding as to why many are griping about this winter;
  • This year’s totals are in a tight race for second place of the wettest years of the past 15 years. Today, we are about even with 2006-07, which produced a notably wet start to winter [1];
  • Of the six (6) years since the 1981-2010 climate reference period, three are near the reference average and three are well above it (assuming the 2016/17 water year keeps accumulating precipitation at even the climatic average rate). Simply put, in an annual accounting of rain, we have been in a pretty wet period since 2010.

Figure 4. Cumulative precipitation based on the water year calendar, multi-years. Click to enlarge

So, what happens if you take the averages of the most recent past six water years, not included in the climatic data range, and compare them to the historical averages. Keep in mind that the 2016/17 water year is not even half way completed. This is shown in Figure 5. There has been a significant bump in the amount of precipitation we've seen recently. From the chart, it appears most of this bump has occurred in the months of October, February and March. September also shows an uptick in precipitation as well, but not as pronounced as those three. One could also make the case that summers are slightly drier (seen by the flattening of the blue curve in comparison to the orange one for these months).

Figure 5. Comparing the past six years to the climatic average. Click to enlarge.

 

Seattle has received over 246 inches of rain since October 1, 2011. Climatically, Seattle would be projected to receives about 214 inches of rain during this period. We've received nearly 34 inches of additional rain in the past six years. Table 1 illustrates this clearly.

This is almost an entire year's worth of additional rain squeezed in those six years. Much of that additional precipitation has occurred in the past two years.

Actually, it is worse than that. I included 2011-12 in Table 1 since it is not included in the 1981-2010 historical averages. I wanted to include all recent years not included in the historical average in an exploration to see where the data took me. 

Since Table 1 shows the 2011-12 water year to match essentially the historical average for the period, you can leave that year out of the discussion. Our near additional year of rain has been squeezed into the past five years. And — again — this water year is not half over yet.

In this context, one may like the rain but should also understand the weariness people are experiencing and the accompanying complaints.

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Shades of gray

Aside from rain, the most common characteristic of Seattle winters (and wintersprings) is the near constant cloud cover. So, how did we stack up with regards to cloud cover? I’ll use the first half period of the water year for the time scale, since this is traditionally when the clouds roll in.

We began the water year with one of our rainiest Octobers. This was followed by a normal November, typically our rainiest month. So that in itself a sign that it might be shaping up for a pretty dismal winter. However, if you look at Figure 3, the rains softened in December. This can be seen by looking at the slope of the blue curve in December. Further, the last half of January saw little rain. In fact, December and January were cold, but not too rainy. If the skies were not completely clear, we experienced some sun during those months. More than usual, I’m guessing, without looking deep into the data. 

The rains returned in February at an accelerated rate. February 2017 was one of our wettest Februarys. The month of March, to date, has been dismal as well.

The National Weather Service gives a rating for sky cover for each day based on an 11-point scale, going from 0-10. In maybe an oversimplification, a day rated 0 is clear with no clouds. A day rating of 10 has 100% cloud cover. We can sum the scores for each day since October to see how this year compares to other years.

Figure 6 shows this. So far, this water year has been cloudier than all of the previous 10 annual periods except for one. But, with this chart it doesn't appear to be much.

Figure 6. Seattle Cumulative Sky Cover ratings, 2016-17 water year. Click to enlarge.

Figure 7 illustrates this method of comparison with a close-up of the data shown in Figure 4. So far, through March 10, SeaTac Airport has accumulated about 50 more sky cover points than the average for previous 10 years. These additional sky points don't buy you an upgrade; only a slight downgrade, unless you love clouds.

However, spread evenly, 50 sky points divide by 161 days (Oct 1 to Mar 10) account for only about .3 sky points per day. Or, another way of thinking things, the maximum sky cover points any day can have is 10. Divide 50 sky points by 10 points per really cloudy day and we have had roughly 5 extra really cloudy days more than average during this time period.

Figure 7. Cumulative Sky Cover rating points for annual periods running from October 1 through September 30. Click to enlarge.

A simpler way of observing the cloudiness of the past 5-½ months is to look at the total number of cloudy days in a table and compare this year’s numbers to past years. Table 2 shows  this comparison. 

To date, Seattle had about a 68% chance of seeing an all cloudy day this past wet season. Normally, in recent years, this would be a 64% chance. This winter, Seattle also had about an 8% chance of seeing a pretty clear day. In the recent past, we would have a 12.5% chance of seeing a reasonably clear day. The chances of a partly cloudy day are essentially the same for this year and the recent past.

So, yeah. It’s been a bit cloudier than normal; though not that much more. Still, every little bit adds up.

 

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Final thoughts...

Yeah, this winter in the Pacific Northwest has been pretty dismal. More dismal than normal. More dismal than most. The coldish streak was a bit long — I grew very weary of it. But the low temperatures were not that cold. Consider the Midwest or Northeast in any normal winter. Our coolish winter temperatures this year were still pretty moderate in comparison.

We had snow a couple of times. Deep enough for some fun and some nice photos. Not too much to cause trouble for commuting in the lowlands, though the mountain passes got hit hard at times.

This area doesn’t seem to suffer too often from daily extreme temperatures, humidities, or even heavy rains. We get strong winds blown in off the North Pacific occasionally, but we don’t see hurricanes or tornados often. 

Where we see extremes, it seems to me, is that we settle into long, long patterns, whether long heat streaks; long coldish streaks, long rainy streaks, and — for me the most dreaded — endless cloudy stretches. 

This winter combined most of those long streaks. I’m happy to see it ending and am looking forward to longer days, brighter skies and warmer temperatures. 

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References:
[1] City That Takes Rain in Stride Puts on Hip Boots; Yardley, Wm.; New York Times; November 27, 2006.
[2] Data Sources NOAA NWS Seattle Local Climate site (click on text for link).

Charts and Graphics Notes:
Data from NOAA/NWS Climate site was post-processed in Microsoft Excel for Mac 2016.

Figures 1-7 were produced using DataGraph 4.2.1 software from Visual Data Tools, Inc. and available on the Apple App Store. A terrific product that keeps improving — support good engineering and design.

Base charts were copied to Adobe Illustrator CS6 for post process refinement and scaling.

Tables 1 and 2 were developed in Adobe InDesign CS6.

 

 

 

 

A warm, wet storm arrives. Is this a turn towards spring?

in ,

Early this morning, about 3:30 A.M. a pounding, wet rainstorm woke me up. I sleep beneath a skylight, and though it has yet to leak on me in 17 years, I suspect one day it will. It is in a skylight’s nature to do so. This squall came after an all day rainy Wednesday.

The seasonal water year begins on October 1 in Seattle and runs through the next September 30 for any given period. This year’s water year began exceptionally wet starting about mid-October. Storm after wet storm blew in. But in December — a normally wet month — we seemed to get a reprieve. January was similar except for perhaps a few rainy, individual days.

February seems to have picked up where October left off. We started with snow, but it’s been the strong storms the past few weeks which have really added to the precipitation totals. 

They say more is on the way later this weekend. If true, we may catch up with last year’s very wet winter. But, even with these heavy rains, that would be a tall order.

 

Cumulative Precipitation for Several Seattle Water Years. Seattle is known for rain. But mostly our rains come in the winter half of the year. Therefore, a local meteorological measure of time is the water year, which runs in our region from Oct 1 through Sep 30. The chart above tracks the cumulative amount of this year's water precipitation (blue, dashed line).

The most recent five water year tracks are illustrated in black, with last year's water year track in shown as the heavy black line. The remaining gray tracks are water years for the 2002-03 through 2011-12 seasons.

Click to enlarge.

 

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The recent rains have been warm. This is shown on the far right end of the chart below. Spring often hits Seattle in late February, with our relatively mild Pacific climate. Maybe the cold snap we recently experienced (highlighted on the chart) is over for good and we’re moving into spring. The daylight sure is stronger and richer.

I hope this is true, but it's too early to tell.

 

Daily Temperature Departures from 30-year (1981-2010) Averages. A significant change occurred in the early part of December where a lengthy, relative warm year switched to a cold period for about two months.

Click to enlarge.