Incredible-- it's 77 F right now, it hit 78 on both of the past 2 days, and the forecast is for tomorrow to be in the 70s again followed by 2 more days in the upper 60s.
The "normal" high here for this date is 56 F.
Fall colors are very close to peak right now. A fair amount of leaf loss has already occurred, but not enough yet that the absense of leaves shows from a distance.
Beautiful up here this time of year. The wind picks up and the temperature comes off (12°C/52°F which is warmer than it has been the last week or so). Seems we're perpetually overcast with occasional showers, but when the leaves turn in the mountains and the foothills it's stunning.
Does the rainshadow effect make it generally drier there? In comparison to west of the mountains, I mean.
Oh, yeah, it's incredibly dry here, especially in the winter (my lips and knuckles crack and bleed every year without fail). This year's been a bit of an odd one with more precipitation than usual, but there's generally less rain and snow than further West.
I have a list of things I don't like to hear the weather person say in the winter.
etc.
Thankfully those same mountains give us reprieve in the winder in the forum of Chinooks.
I got waylaid a few years back by a pineapple express that blew in overnight while we were in Spokane. The drive home took two days, and we averaged 50 kph. We had to periodically find a safe spot to pull over (if you could amongst the giant banks left by the snowplows) to scrape our break-lights, and every time an oncoming vehicle approached we had to slow to a near stop for lack of visibility.
If I recall, there was 56" of snow overnight just north of Bonners Ferry. It's rare that we see anthing like that here, and if we do it's likely late April or early May.
Here's a satellite image of a Pineapple Express from the local news station's website. I think they have a typo in the photo heading.
I move quite a bit south in latitude and a bunch in longitude and there's snow? What a ripoff. Now I know how the earliest British settlers of the Amercas felt. Well, kinda: they were gettin' screwed by the Atlantic pump, whereas I'm gettin' screwed by elevation (6600).
This thread is awesome, I sure hope Cystem has Li'l Nappy blocked.
Here's a satellite image of a Pineapple Express
Looks like an express delivery, sure enough. I'd probably like living there. I like precipitation and don't much care for sunlight.
Seattle averages 71 sunny days per year. Winter is usually quite mild unless you head inland about 50 miles.
Look at all of those little peasants discussing such petty, foolish, and archaic things as the "weather"; How unfortunate for them to live outside of San Diego.
http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10484/763_read-1096/
Another satellite about ready to splash down.
http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10484/763_read-1096/
Another satellite about ready to splash down.
We're like a big roulette wheel under those things.
Has anybody seen any of the Orionids--I think that's what they're called?
I saw two flashing bright things in the Wyoming sky last night--say what you want about the state, but man! the stars come out bigger and brighter here than they do in Texas.
I'm not sure they were meteorites, though. They were probably shooting stars.
Not exactly-- it's only a meteorite if it makes it down to the surface and has become a surviving legitimate solid rock (the "ite" suffix), of whatever size, on its victim target body. While it's up in the air it's a meteoroid, and any "shooting stars" that are visible flashes but don't have anything survive intact on down to the ground are just meteors and don't ever become meteorites. The meteor is the visible streak of light. The vast majority of meteor sightings during the various annual meteor showers from intersections with cometary orbits are sand-sized or smaller grains that burn up entirely without delivering anything solid to the surface.
As for the Orionids, I haven't seen any. The past few days have been close to total overcast here, and it's cool enough now (30.2 F at the moment) that I'm not spending much time wandering around outside at night.
A friend and I used to have an annual overnight get-together on the peak of the Perseids (Aug 11-12), where we'd set out a couple reclinable lawn chairs and a cooler with a case of beer and some munchies, and count meteors all night. August is a better time of year around here for serious meteor shower viewing.
The Orionids are from Halley's comet (as are the Eta Aquariids in May). The Perseid shower in August is from comet Swift-Tuttle.
Alright, I don't care if no one else thinks this is cool-- here's the cyclonic system again a few minutes ago, 6 hours later than the view a few posts back. Look how nicely it's tightened up at the core, and the center has drifted only very slightly from its earlier position to now pretty much straight west of Chicago, and the drift has been to the south, which is unusual.