Well, it took until mid-August, but it appears the warmest/longest stretch of weather so far this summer is here.
As of now, I don’t see any sort of heatwave or real hot weather; by that I mean temps well above 90 degrees.
The change is that models are in general agreement for the first time in months the upper-level trough along the West Coast is going away for awhile. That’s over the next 7-10 days. I’m a bit concerned the ECMWF (Euro) is the “flattest” model showing westerly upper level flow much closer to us next week; that would keep temps near normal instead. The ECMWF has done much better than the GFS the last couple months.
Other than that, the weather is sure dull lately. This is just about the deadest summer I can remember in my 18 years forecasting weather on television. Think about it, there have been no significant thunderstorm outbreaks (west OR east of the Cascades), no heat waves, and no significant forest/range fires to report on.
Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen
FOX 12 Weather Blog 
Looks like the weather channel noticed we exist.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/zero-for-90-in-2011_2011-08-17
00Z NAM is out showing a 91 for Saturday
Also the NWS is calling a 91 but for Sunday in Battle Ground.
I’m going to go ahead and assume that 69 for an overnight low on Wed should be 59. In nay event, I’m enjoying our dull August, and I’m getting some ripening of the tomatoes!
*any* Wow…can’t type at all lately!
Dewpoint down to 38 at 6pm at PDX. Rather unusual to see back to back days in August with such low dewpoints along with onshore flow.
Today’s a 15 on a scale of 10. Who wouldn’t love this?
It’ll be interesting to see how people comment on Cliff Mass’s new post because it compares C02 emissions from volcanoes to that of human caused sources 🙂
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/08/bogus-arguments-of-some-global-warming.html
Oh, that was a great post by Cliff; I wasn’t aware of that crap being circulated around the usual circles.
I’ll have to Facebook, Tweet, and re-Blog it!
I love this comment in his article:
What one should conclude is that human emissions dwarf volcanoes and the ratio is increasing.
I guess I’m not smart enough nor allowed to come up with my own conclusion after looking at a graph. Thanks Cliff!!
I also hate how if you don’t believe the masses then you are a conspiracy theorist. I guess that makes millionaires conspiracy theorist because they definitely don’t think like the masses otherwise they’d make up more than 3% – 5% of the population.
Personally even though I buy into a portion of the AGW theory and that there is some human induced warming I still find the term “denier” offensive. Maybe I should call him a bittercaster after that last post. 😛
Rian, Cliff’s point was along the lines of what Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” And the facts are that “volcanoes today are minor players in the CO2 world compared to us.” You can make of that what you wish, but you can’t change it.
Crossing my fingers to see a DRY train come through that has lots of fuel.
And yes pappoose, I just switched up your terminology.
Hahaah! Looks like the “DRY train” is in town, and with a good load of fuel!
Nah I’ve seen a lot of “dry trains” start fires along the tracks lol
That’s not what I meant!!!
I meant your “stray albino donkeys” I’m wishing will be the “dry train”
HOLD THAT TRAIN!! Hahaah! Didn’t see your other post Austin. I definitely wanna get on board with a “Stray Fueled Train”!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=RktwieZPo4I&vq=medium
i LOVE hot summer days. cold beer seems colder, life seems better. however i also love cold winter day/nights, and snow. maybe longview isnt the best town for me. this “reverse gorge”, “pacific blanket”, “crud channel” gets old.
2:35 OBS:
Kelso: 75 (house says 75 or 73.6 depending on which one i go with)
Scappoose: 80
Portland: 80
Olympia: 76
Castle Rock: 82
Chehalis: 80
basically, anywhere south of kalama is 80+, also, anywhere north of longview is 80-75
this Westerly wind funnels cool air in here. i hate it. have fun with your guys’ cloudless morning tomorrow, ill be socked in til noon or later.
12Z runs say no 90 degree weather in sight! 🙂
The 12Z EURO actually puts us in a rather cool regime. As has been discussed it has been the model of choice lately.
My first time available to look at the models today and a definite difference from all 00z runs. EURO wins again and now the GFS is starting to trend towards it.
Yeaaah! C’mon 50 deg and rain. I can almost feel it now!!
Warmest 7-day forecast I could locate:
Since some of you seem to have dipped into the mid-lower 40s several times this summer has anyone on here cranked up their heat yet?
I turned off the heat in mid June…and have used the window AC maybe 3 days this whole year.
just a furnace in this household, its been off since about may. it gets warm upstairs in the bedroom in the evening, but windows open + fan = comfy. just gotta keep the blankets around when the temps plummet at night.
i checked my thermo and apparently i made it down to 43.2 this AM. its recovering nicely.
NWS still watching for the chance of a Stray Albino Donkey coming to a neighborhood near you.
National Weather Service Portland or
916 am PDT Wednesday Aug 17 2011
Will need to watch the disturbance now off the northern California coast edging onshore Saturday. With such weak flow at that time… some
instability could get close to our area. Tolleson
i call them trains. we need a stray fueled train in our neighborhood. more likely dry pleeeeaaassee. i will be camping in stub stewert. i wouldnt mind seeing a storm when i go to hares canyon peak for a sunset watch! crossing my fingers.
GFS shows a little bit of offshore flow for Saturday/Sunday. That should be enough to get us over 90 degrees.
47 this morning. In less than ten days the sun will set before 8.
NO like! It’s getting harder to get much done in the evening after work re: the outdoor yard and painting projects!
this weather is great with the warm days and the cool nights fills like fall
It could be just one day of near/above 90 with a more transitory ridge, but looking at the 00z EURO/6z GFS the heat ridge is awfully close to us and only slightly adjustments of the 500mb pattern could give us more 90’s, IN MY OPINION.
It would take an even slighter adjustment for us to not hit 90 at all.
Bring on the ‘San Diego summer’ !
Now if we can just get that death ridge from the central and eastern US to park itself along the West Coast for the majority of the time between now and mid-October…
8/16/2011 Oregon (All) Temperature Summary
Warmest:
High:95 at CW3932 Central P(1290 ft)
Low: 59 at Blalock(280 ft)
Coldest:
High:59 at YACHTS Yachats(74 ft) & HOWARD Mt Howard(8150 ft) & MT. HOWARD(7910 ft)
Low: 27 at DESCHUTES PORTAB (5100 ft )
Largest Diurnal Change: 57 degrees
DESCHUTES PORTAB (84/27 ) (5100 ft )
Yacolt, Wa had 88/35 yesterday. Good for (53). I wanna go camp at the deschutes portab. Lol. Frost in the morning and scorching sunburnt in the afternoon, lol.
I have been to that Yacolt temp sensor. It is totally exposed to the sun along the old railroad line. So that 88 reading is totally whack. I am guessing that the REAL range was 82/35.
I think the overnight lows are fine, but it’s always too warm on sunny days, including winter.
Last night at 11pm Yacolt was already 19 cooler than Vancouver Pearson. When our dewpoinst drop into the 40’s we get perfect radiational cooling in these outlying areas. You would have to list Vernonia, Yacolt & Timber as the 3 cities with the shortest growing season in the Portland CWA.
Would be nice if we can get our 5th August since 1941 without measurable rain. 1955 was a cool summer but we managed only a trace of rain in August that year.
Thanks for the update, Mark
We had pretty significant t-storms when you were on vacation. Those lasted from midnight to 8 AM at my location(Meaning I could see flashes, bolts, and thunder was easily audible.) Last Summer was not nearly as exciting. As I posted in the last thread the EURO has out shined the GFS and may disagree with it yet again.