gallopinggertie

Apparently, Erick beat the record for earliest-landfalling major hurricane in Mexico. And specifically, it beat the record for earliest-landfalling major on Mexico’s pacific coast by over two months! The next earliest was…August 26.

NWS Fairbanks has just issued its first ever heat advisories. The temperatures are not that unusual for interior Alaska (in the mid to upper 80’s), but the duration of the heatwave will be at least a week. They’re trying to prepare people better for heat up there than they have in the past, which is smart seeing as houses in alaska lack ac and they can expect more and more of these heat events in the coming decades.

Had a nice cold core thunderstorm yesterday in Portland. It poured rain and small hail with some gusty winds and a loud clap of thunder. The NWS put out a special weather statement for it, which was like a consolation prize for the severe thunderstorm watch last week that turned out to be a nothing burger.

This turned out to mostly be a bust. Cape values were way lower than forecast, and the mid-levels were too dry. I didn’t even hear thunder in Portland. Western WA had a decent amount of lightning, but actual severe weather impacts were limited to a couple storms in the Olympic peninsula and Cascades around Snoqualmie Pass. A big letdown for me, since this is the first time I’ve been in a severe thunderstorm watch.

That’s for sure. Not only global warming, but ocean acidification and microplastic pollution will become huge problems. As a random aside, Portland OR (where I live) broke its all-time march record high yesterday, with a high of 82.

A highly unusual severe weather threat is forecast today for the Pacific Northwest. Seattle and Portland are both in SPC’s slight risk zone. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a severe thunderstorm watch hoisted for both cities (that would be the first ever for Seattle proper, I believe).

That storm last weekend was pretty good (by Portland standards), we ended up with about 4” here. That makes it an incredible 9 straight winters I have seen at least 1” of snow, quite the run for the Pacific Northwest.

Round two of this mini storm tonight in Portland. After this morning’s dry snow, the evening brought light freezing rain, and now moderate sleet mixed with snow. Roads are ice rinks!

We finally are getting our first (and probably only) snowstorm of the winter here in Portland, Oregon. It’s a dry snow and we already have a bit over 1” since it started snowing an hour and a half ago. This is the first time I’ve seen proper snow since moving here last winter! Snowfall averages only about 4” per winter here. So anything we get is special, but particularly so when we get one of these cold dry snows that immediately start sticking to the road!

Tropical cyclone Elvis is south of Madagascar, all lonely and heading for the Heartbreak Hotel.

Back in the 90s, I was witness to a famous southern snow…

So is this an all-time record for NOLA?

Sounds like snow pellets or graupel, aka sleet that was coated with rime crystals. Congrats on the frozen precip! You’ve now outdone both Seattle and Portland for the winter. (Very sad achievement for the Pacific Northwest, one of only two or three truly snowless winters I have experienced here).

Looks like Jacksonville will be on the edge of the wintry precip. I would issue a WSW if I were the NWS just to be safe, after all Gainesville is under one…

And seems pretty certain Houston will also get historic snowfall, at least the eastern half of the city.

NWS has issued winter storm watches for the Big Bend and even Gainesville!

Panama City goes from nothing to 4-5”…

Still seems like a go for SE Texas and Louisiana, right? NOLA and Houston are both under winter storm warnings/watches now. Actually so is most of South Texas, even Austin and San Antonio, just because the criteria is so low there.

Dang. I’m hoping they get at least 1-2” down there.

Thoughts on New Orleans snow chances?

Winter storm watch was just added by the NWS for Houston. They’re saying up to 3” of snow and sleet.

What are people’s thoughts on snow chances for New Orleans? Seems like they might be on the edge of the snow/freezing rain line but will probably at least get some snow, with a chance it’ll be one of their biggest snowfalls in history.

Typhoon Dikeledi has made it to 32 S (similar latitude to Perth or the coast of South Africa) as a tropical cyclone. It’s unusual for southern hemisphere cyclones to stay tropical so far south.

Yeah, that’s the all-time great. Weather fans here always hope for something like that…unfortunately, it might not be in reach anymore with climate change, but we’ll see. December 2008 was not to that level, but it was still pretty awesome in Seattle. A foot and a half of snow over the course of a couple weeks, and many subfreezing highs. Another standout was in Bellingham was 2016-2017, when we had a total of about twenty inches of snow and lakes froze solid enough to walk across in January. Or February 2019, with two weeks of mostly below-freezing temps followed by four days of on-and-off snow. I haven’t seen a winter I would call truly epic here yet, though. Hopefully I’m lucky enough to live through one before winters get too warm!

Yeah, the last decade has been pretty decent for this part of the country, arguably better than for normally snowier places like Washington, DC. There is a ton of geographic variation here though, so often Seattle will have a snowstorm and nothing falls in Portland, or vice versa. Also anywhere above 1000’ gets a lot more snow here, and there are a lot of interesting medium-scale geographic features that affect snowfall. Right now I’m living vicariously through the Tennessee/upper South storm.