Heat Wave

We have had ten days in a row of above normal temperatures. This includes six days at 90 or warmer along with the all time record at Sea-Tac last Wednesday of 103.

The bright spot to the heat wave has to be the sunsets. I took this picture last week but with the smoke from recent fires on the Olympic Peninsula the sunsets have continued to impress.




This picture is from the hottest day every recorded at Sea-Tac. I was working that day and it was amazing to walk out from the air conditioned weather center on to the roof garden and feel the contrast. It was like a whole different world.



At the same time we had thunderstorms building over the Cascades as seen from the roof garden looking over Dexter Avenue.

Sound to San Juans

Now that the temperatures are soaring across the northwest I am dreaming of being back on the water. I spent some time on the water with my folks during my weekend. On Wednesday they picked me up after work on Lake Union, went through the locks and stayed at Shilshole Marina. It was nice to watch the sunset over the Olympics on a warm evening.




The next night we stayed in Port Townsend and then headed for Friday Harbor on Friday morning. We ran into some pretty thick fog crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Visibility ranged from about a mile to 100 feet at times. The fog was pretty thick but shallow. There was fog all around but we had blue sky overhead, it was like being in an arena.





It was warm Saturday morning in Friday Harbor as the sun rose on the eastern sky just north of Mt. Baker.



I had to work that night so I flew back on Kenmore Air and took this shot looking back over Shaw Island below and San Juan Island to on the left. The day already had a tropical feel and the clouds in the sky reminded me of the moisture in the atmosphere that would eventually help feed that evening's thunderstorms.

CLEAR NIGHT

This is the view from the roof garden at KING5 looking at the Space Needle and the moon on a clear night in Seattle.



I really like my camera. I took this picture about an hour later without a tripod.



Skies cleared out today as high pressure began building over the region. Clear skies tonight will lead to a chilly morning but we will see plenty of sunshine on Saturday with highs in the 70s.

CHANGES ON THE HORIZON

The majority of our weather comes from the west and today if you looked to the west you could see it coming. I took this picture around noon. Notice how the sky is sort of split in two. There was blue on the top part and white below. It made a pretty clear line in the sky.



The orange dot on the satellite image is about where I took the picture in Kirkland. It is looking across lake Washington at the city of Seattle. I drew an orange line on the satellite image where I believe to be the front edge of the clouds in the previous picture. The thin clouds to the east of the orange line are also visible in the previous picture.



Some of the thin clouds were thick enough to produce a halo around the sun. As expected the rest of the clouds moved in later in the day consuming the blue sky. These clouds are ahead of a weak weather system that is expected to bring Seattle at least a little bit of rain Wednesday.

MORE TRAVEL PICS

I spent a couple days in Madrid and having just arrived ready for a vacation Madrid’s El Retiro Park was a great place to grab a late afternoon siesta. This was the view from where I enjoyed a little rest and relaxation.



Watching the moon grow during my trip was great and a reminder of how wonderful the weather had been. This is the moon over Cordoba with part of the Roman Bridge in the foreground.




Here is another shot of the moon. This time I was sitting at an outdoor table in a plaza in Tarifa when I noticed the white moon nestled in the blue sky behind a yellow tiled building.



The sun was warm for futbol in Sevilla. Check out the top right corner of this picture. Notice the walls on each side of the section with police lining the isles of the visiting team. I am pretty sure this was for the their protection. It was very obvious this sport is serious business in Spain.

SPANISH SUNSHINE

Over the past couple of weeks I was missing out on the Seattle sunshine but I was fortunate to be traveling across the wonderful country of Spain. I enjoyed the great people and very pleasant weather.

I spent some time in Madrid and Barcelona, but I seem to be most captivated by the smaller towns. In Toledo some of the narrow lanes had canvas stretched out overhead to provide a little relief from the midday sunshine.



Tarifa in the southernmost point in Spain is famous for its wind. Kitesurfers swarm the beaches in the summer. This kitesurfer was harnessing wind on the Atlantic Ocean. Behind the land in the distance are the Mediterranean and the Strait of Gibraltar.



I took a day trip to Tangier, Morocco from Tarifa and enjoyed the blue sky behind the whitewashed buildings.




And a perfect end to the day in Ibiza.

WARM DAY, COLD WATER

It was four degrees warmer than average with a high of 70 at Sea-Tac. Meanwhile water temperatures are still very chilly. Sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and the Puget Sound are mainly in the upper 40s and lower 50s. Lake Sammamish is 59 degrees and it is a degree cooler in Lake Washington. Not bad IF you’re a turtle.



It is still cold enough that being on the water is much better than being in the water. My Folks and Brady were heading out as I was about to go get ready for work. Check out the Olympic Mountains. They really popped today, still a lot of snow up there. Remember it’s that melting snow that is feeding our rivers, streams and lakes.



Air temperatures for the rest of the holiday weekend will be in the upper 60s and lower 70s while that water will remain rather chilly.

For the latest lake temperatures:
http://green.kingcounty.gov/lake-buoy/default.aspx

For salt water temps start here:
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/maps/NW_Straits_Sound.shtml

ON THE WATER… Calm but warm

I was on a sailboat today shooting a segment that will air in June on KING5. It allowed me a great vantage point for watching the sky.



It was a perfect lazy day for these sea lions. Notice how calm the water looks. The glassy appearance indicates that it was a bit too calm to give the sails a workout but it was still nice just to be out there.

Overhead there was a nice halo around the sun. A halo forms when sunlight is refracted through the ice crystals that make up these high clouds.

It was a bit hazy on the horizon but there is still nothing like seeing Mt. Rainier from the water.

I hope you enjoyed this weekend as much as I did because we are heading back to more typical spring weather this week.

A TASTE OF SUMMER

Despite the high clouds, many spots in western Washington warmed into the 70s with a few spots in the south Sound region in the lower 80s! The high at Sea-Tac was 76. It was a very nice evening to try out my new camera. My old one got a little too wet a few weeks ago, and by “wet” I mean in-the-lake wet. Now I’m back in business and my first photo shoot was during my dinner break on the roof garden at KING5. Here is one of the roof garden’s transient residents.



Here is my first movie with the new camera. It's 12 seconds long and it shows the high clouds we had at sunset.



I bet it was tough to get on that departing Alaska Airlines flight after a day like today. Sunday is also looking really good with temperatures similar to Saturday and more high clouds.

SPRING WEB CAMS Clouds, sun and snow!

Spring is a transition season from winter to summer. Sometimes it looks and feels like winter; at other times it seems more like summer; and then there are days like today when we have both!

The web camera from the Oregon Department of Forestry shows a good example of a typical northwest scene: some clouds and a few patches of blue. At 3pm it was 52 in Medford.

Meanwhile to the north in the Central Oregon Cascades we had a little taste of winter. If you look closely at the Oregon Department of Transportation web camera you can make out some flakes. Look at the side of the road, you can see some white spots, those are flakes close to the camera. The information on the ODOT camera shows the temperature right at freezing.


And finally it looked more like summer in the San Juan Islands. The web camera from Islandcam.com shows the nice western Washington scene and popular boating destination Friday Harbor where at 3pm it was 61.


Let’s hope the northwest looks more like the skies over Friday Harbor come this weekend. I know a lot of boaters are hoping so with opening day of boating season and the Windermere Cup at the University of Washington Saturday. Think sun!

CONTRAILS A sign of change

It seems our spring time weather changes as fast as the jet planes flying overhead. In fact, we can look to the contrails produced by those jets as a signal for coming changes in our weather.

First it is important to understand what exactly contrails are. They form when water vapor is emitted as a byproduct from a jet engine. The water vapor condenses in the cold air and forms a cloud (made of ice crystals). Most contrails form in the upper levels of the atmosphere, above about 25,000 feet (more than 10,000 feet higher than Mt. Rainer).

If the atmosphere is dry then the cloud will dissipate quickly, or a contrail will not form at all. If there is a lot of moisture in the atmosphere then the contrail will last much longer. So the longer it lasts, the higher the humidity.

Increasing moisture in the upper levels of the atmosphere is usually a sign of an incoming weather system. I took these pictures during the early afternoon, notice the blue skies. By dinner time the skies were totally white and the front was just offshore with rain falling at the coast.



Another sign we have increasing moisture in the upper levels is when we see a halo or ring around the sun. In this case you can make out a faint rainbow at the base of the ring with contrails below.

TUESDAY SUNSET

On my dinner break I took couple sunset pictures. It was sure nice to see the sun after some areas in western Washington had snow falling this morning!

The sun set tonight at 7:58 pm and despite some snow this morning it is another sign we are still marching toward summer. When you are watching the sunset, remember to turn around. There were some soft purple colors in the eastern sky tonight – the colors were faint so they were hard to make out on my reliable but aging camera but I was able to capture a little pink from the clouds directly overhead.


It looks like we will finally be getting back to normal this week and maybe even warmer than average by this weekend and into the first part of next week with more sunsets to come!

EASTER SUNDAY The Easter bunny was out and so were the umbrellas.

Walking home from the store early this afternoon I saw a warming sight on a soggy day. Hundreds of people were gathering in Kirkland for the traditional Easter Egg Hunt despite the cloudy and wet conditions. I snapped these pictures with my camera phone.



Western Washington had a very wet day with more than two inches of rain out at the coast and a record breaking day at Sea-Tac. The airport had .81” and that was good enough to break the old record of .61” set in 1950. Hoquiam and Olympia also had record breaking days.

We will still have some showers on Monday (maybe a few snowflakes) with a chance for afternoon thunderstorms. Tuesday we will also have some showers and maybe a little wet snow, but after that we are looking pretty good. If the forecast holds it could be sunny and warm by next weekend.

SUNBREAKS Just in time...

Friday is starting out cloudy, but at least we did see some blue skies around western Washington on Thursday.
On my way to the gym, I stopped to capture some blue and pink with my camera phone. It's nice to see some colorful flora around town (even if most of it is potted).



At the end of the day we had a nice mix of clouds and sunshine. The good thing about having some clouds at sunset is that it gives the sun's beams something to play with. I took the following pictures from my neighbor Jackson's deck.

Take a look at how the rays are shining through the peaks of the Olympics.



If the wind picks up today, I'm hoping to get some spring shots from the water. Fingers crossed.

WHITE ON BLUE … a great spring combination

Spring has arrived. We are seeing the warm side of spring across the northwest and plenty of blue skies. Temperatures are back in the 60s and 70s for most areas and the mountains are looking great! Take a look at the web camera from the Sunriver Lodge from about 3:30 Monday afternoon. That white spot on the horizon is one snow covered Mt. Bachelor and in my opinion one of the best spots to spend a spring day.



About a 20 to 30 minute drive from Sunriver or Bend will get you there. You can see some late afternoon riders at the base of the Pine Marten Express lift from the Mt. Bachelor web camera at the West Village Lodge. At the time of this picture the Mt. Bachelor website said it was 54 degrees at the base and 43 at the top of the lift. Meanwhile it was 40 at the summit.


You can just make out the summit at the very top of the picture. When I lived in Bend several years ago you could ride the summit right up to the weekend before the Fourth of July. Even if it was just a narrow strip of snow leading up to the Sunrise chair at the base. These days you can still ride some lifts through mid May.

This is a great spot to spend a spring day. My advice: Go up early before the snow gets sticky and have some Buffett on the ipod.

Sunday Sunsets

Finally!!Some sunshine and warm temperatures for the Northwest. Highs were in the 60s and even 70s for many spots across the region.

The KING 5 Bellevue tower camera looks across Lake Washington and at the city of Seattle with the Olympics in the distance. We did get a little bit of color at sun down after a great day. Phantom Lake Elementary in Bellevue had a high of 73.
One of my favorite web cameras comes from the US Forest Service near the Columbia River Gorge. It looks from the Washington side of the Columbia River over at The Dalles with Mount Hood on the horizon and some purple in the sky. The high at The Dalles was 71 today.

We only have a couple more days to catch some color in the evening sky. The ridge of high pressure is already on the move east and when it goes we will be back to a more wet and cool weather pattern. We still might get some good sunsets between weather systems but it will be cold enough to keep most people inside so they will most likely be missed.

GOODBYE WINTER! It was... while it lasted

Hopefully we have said goodbye to winter for the last time. It looks likely now that we face what could be our first 70 degree day of 2009. Tomorrow or Monday we should see temperatures in the mid to upper 60s and maybe even 70 in Seattle. Maybe. Just two days ago snow flakes were flying around western Washington.



This past winter was a lot of things to a lot of people. For those who were adversely affected by the snow, wind or flooding, the winter of 2008-2009 is one they would probably like to forget. For those of us who depend on the weather to make a living, it was busy!

Now that it seems we are really heading into spring, I would like to share some of my favorite pictures from this past season. These pictures are from Marina Park in Kirkland. I took them the Sunday night before Christmas. It also happened to be the first day of winter.

Some of my favorite photo outings are after work and late at night. Unfortunately, when the weather beckons me to pull my camera and tripod outside late at night it usually involves snow or ice.
Now I’m looking forward to one of my favorite seasons: sunset season.