We’ve had an uncommon burst of high 90’s weather in early June—shouldn’t arrive until July. But now it’s set in for cool and rain for the next week, back into the 70’s. Much nicer! Understand that Washington rain is what other regions call ‘intermittent drizzle’, for a week, not the pounding tropical downpours of the south. Even hail here is more like styrofoam chips, not lethal missiles from heaven. First time it had hailed and Jane proposed walking to the store, I thought she was crazy—but indeed, it was not a life-risking proposal. For Washington rain, you just walk a little faster to the car and from car to store, and you don’t need an umbrella. Oh, now and again Spokane gets the tropical-style rain, but it’s rare, as in, every couple of years, once.
Wind, now, we do have that: when the wind come sweeping over the fenceless hills of the Palouse, we get serious 40-50 mph gusts, but once or twice a season. The unprecedented one that left us without power for 8 days was hurricane-force for about 20 minutes. The city still has roof crews repairing damage from that one, last November.
Right now, just a tranquil drizzle and cool air.
“Stick a fork in it! El Niño is done.”
So says NOAA according to NPR.
The 1-month CLIMATE prediction is here: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/30day/
Here are rolling 3-month CLIMATE predictions–not weather, climate! (Looks like another warm summer!)
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/90day/
Washington weather, at least where you are, sounds a lot like our very temperate, coastal Dutch weather. That enormous cool-but-not-too-cold water mass does a good job regulating temperature extremes and the attendant weather extremes, even though it does exactly nothing to stop the wind.
It may be now, but I recall 17th Century paintings, e.g. Hendrick Avercamp, of Dutch people ice-skating on the canals and polders. 😉
There’s also the famous painting “Washington Crossing the Potomac” showing ice floes and the river itself nearly frozen over in an area where weather currently is very temperate in winter (Eastern US coast, around Washington DC). Might could be you are thinking of the ‘Little Ice Age’, where a number of environmental factors brought down global temperatures for centuries, with a brief warmer interregnum.
D’oh! I meant “Washington crossing the Delaware“! Brain fut!
We still get a bit of snow and enough frozen water for outdoor skating a few days most winters, but at least a week of deep enough cold to hold the Elfstedentocht is a once-a-decade occurrence. It’s a huge national event, where 10.000 people skate on natural ice past all 11 Frisian cities in a day, replicating the historical messengers getting all the local votes before voting on important things in the national assembly in the 17th century (much faster on winter ice than by coach in summer: that gave rise to a saying about doing thins the slow way “op zijn elf en dertigst”, the eleven-and-thirtiest way, for the 11 cities and 30 villages in Friesland who each had the right to vote and be heard about important things regarding their province, before the national delegates could decide which way to vote – a way of filibustering a vote they didn’t want was to take their time travelling around and getting the local votes. They did have consistently colder winters then, because of the Little Ice Age, so that at least in winter they could move fast if they wanted to! )
As soon as we get a really cold snap in winter and ditches start to freeze, Elfstedenkoorts (11 cities fever) grips the country, waiting and hoping it’ll freeze long enough for the ice to hold the mass of people all at once. Skating here is as popular as baseball in America, and the mild winters when not even the ditches freeze and no-one can skate outdoors tend to get grumbled about as being more like autumn than winter, even though they’re more common than Elfsteden-winters.
“The most famous frost fair is that of winter 1683/4, in Charles I’s reign, when the Thames was frozen from mid November to early February. The English writer, diarist and gardener John Evelyn recorded: ‘Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs too and fro, as in the streets.’”
The River again froze over in 1709, 1715, 1739, 1767, 1788, and 1814
@Paul: the Elfstedentocht has been an officially organised event since 1909, though it was ridden unoffially before then, in 1890 and 1891. Recent winners clock times around 6 hours 49, though in the early years and years with bad weather (strong headwinds, snow etc.) it can take the best racers 11 hours. No chance of it becoming an Olympic event, but keeping in training for this does help the marathon or 10 km skaters.
Years it has been held :
2 januari 1909
7 februari 1912
27 januari 1917
12 februari 1929
16 december 1933
30 januari 1940
6 februari 1941
22 januari 1942
8 februari 1947
3 februari 1954
14 februari 1956
18 januari 1963
21 februari 1985
26 februari 1986
4 januari 1997
And there hasn’t been one since, even though ordinary skating on ghe canals was being done 3-4 years ago, and everybody was hoping for it – but the thaw set in too quickly, the icelayer didn’t reach the 10 cm thickness needed to hold such a massive event.
So: skating on the canals and any ditches or purposely flooded field is still being done, any chance we get, but the really cold winters seem to be getting less.
That is one thing the climate sceptics (whenever there’s a cold spell) seem not to realise: heat = energy = power. Extra heat retained in the climate system gives it extra energy, which can result in weather systems having more power. It doesn’t necessarily translate into heatwaves, nor in a gentle 2 degree rise all over everywhere all the time. More warmth in the tropics = more evaporation = more water in the air = more rain, and more powerful storms. Warmer air rises faster, pulling in stronger winds. Even I, who almost flunked high-school physics, can understand that.
Hurricanes and typhoons are a way that kilojoules in the environment get transported from the tropics to the temperate regions. More kilojoules in the form of warmer air and more warm water vapour, mean more (and more severe) hurricanes, typhoons etc.transporting that extra energy up to the temperate areas of the globe.
People saying that but for the occasional short heatwave we won’t be bothered by these rising temperatures; or even worse – saying that with our often dreary weather we could use a bit more sun and warmth, are completely missing the point. We’re going to get most of our extra environmental kilojoules in the form of cloudbursts and heavy rainfall, and stronger winds and storms…
I’m still glad to be living near the sea (2.5 meters below sea level, in fact), even though we’re already starting to plan for stronger coastal defences, necessary to cope with the rising sea level and heavier storms coased by global warming. Well-prepared those can be withstood. Some of the stronger (semi)tropical weather will be a lot harder to build against; in some cases impossible. Not just the extreme events, also prolonged heat stress – the humans can hide in artificially cooled buildings, but the supporting environment like plants & crops, animals & livestock can’t.
I’ve described warming as like pumping a swing: sure, you go higher at each end of the swing. But any sideways movement will get amplified and you’ll be twisting and turning and losing control.
The marine layer is deep today in L.A. – we had drizzle enough this morning to require using the windshield wipers. (‘Is that a rock cod that just went by?’ is how I describe it.) It won’t be hot today, anyway.
@PJ – I was born and raised in LA, mostly within a block of Inglewood Avenue, from Inglewood to North Redondo Beach. It was not far from the coast, so we had a reliable 3PM breeze as the inland heated up. Only left 25 years ago. I can still remember how the May/June weather forecast will go: “Fog and low clouds along the coast, hazy afternoon sunshine. Warmer inland…”
I grew up listening to the forecasts for SF – I can still do them from memory. (They were summarized by one person as ‘fair through October’.) ‘Fair tomorrow; late night low clouds extending inland in early morning; lows tonight 45 to 55, highs tomorrow 55 to 65; winds west to northwest at 5 to 15 [mph].’
There also was a joke that the weather guys in SF mimeographed the forecasts in May and went on vacation from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
The 3pm breeze is still around. I get it here in the northwest valley.
If I may say briefly, I’m real fed-up with this “You know, a lot of people are saying…” It’s trivially easy to find a lot of people saying any d****d thing! “The Earth is flat!”
I saw a sign (albeit probably a fake) “Flat Earth Society – Join today, we have chapters all around the globe.”
The Procrastinators Society meeting is a week from Thursday.
postponed until a week from next Thursday…
Given the constant and heavy rain England has been having, what’s the shipping address for Seattle so I can route it to those who might appreciate some more rain?
@APF – No, send it to California! They’d be happy to have it.
Here in southern New England we are watching our white oaks and other trees being stripped by Forest Tent Caterpillars. The fish pond is so full of crap that we can only see the fish when the come up to eat. The prolific FTC population is probably due to our mild winter. They are not as voracious as gypsy moths as they do have natural predators and they will pupate soon.
I am looking forward to going outside without needing a large brimmed hat and clean pool and pond.
Euuwww, yuck! I read in the Boston Globe that there was a bad breakout of Tent caterpillars further south but it has not reached the north side of Boston.
No tent caterpillars here; the worst thing we have to contend with is crab spiders. We call them ‘drop spiders’, for their annoying habit of spinning a web across anywhere you might wish to walk in our yard, and if the web is disturbed, landing on you and frequently biting! This is a small problem because the neighbor’s mango tree is commencing its annual shelling of the yard with ripe mangoes. Once they fall, they must be collected quickly, before the bugs find them. They make great jam and can be eaten out of hand too.
Off-Topic:
I’ve just learned that Anton Yeltsin, who plays Ens. Chekov in the JJ Abrams reboot Star Trek movies, passed away on June 19, 2016. According to Wikipedia, he died by accident, when he was trapped between his car and a pillar and fence at his home. His acting career was just really beginning to take off, and he had completed work for four upcoming films, including Star Trek: Beyond, to appear this year and next, estimated.
Anton’s family are Russian immigrants who’d come to the US shortly after he was born. His portrayal of Chekov was enthusiastic and friendly, and proudly Russian (or Russian-American).
I have been asked to record a note in memoriam for a Star Trek fan audio project I’ve worked on, still in production.
The correct spelling is Yelchin, not Yeltsin, despite auto-incorrect’s insistence on misspelling. It’s the actor, not the politician. I didn’t catch it before posting.
I predict that the next Star Trek movie will be dedicated to him; it only makes sense, unless someone else of note in the ST universe passes away before its release. DH and I will be going to HawaiiCon this year, and seeing many of TOS and NextGen cast, in honor of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary. There will be other fun stuff as well; it’s the first time in literally decades I’ve been able to go to a con of any flavor, and I’m looking forward to it with great anticipation.
The major lifting on the back lanai is done! I spent today slapping on a layer of surface bonding cement to the new concrete block roof support pillars (filled with rebar and cement) to make sure that it will take heavy equipment to shift them. In a couple of months, I will tackle the carport for the same treatment. Meanwhile, Advil is my friend.
Very sad. Apparently a real nice fellow, everything to look forward to. The Jeep model is being recalled, and apparently this is not the only accident.
Relatively unconnected to anything else… Amazon and Apple are settling a price fixing suit. Anyone who bought e-books from Amazon between 2010 and 2013 is getting a credit to their account, so if you have a Kindle or other Amazon account, take a look and see if you have a credit balance. I got nearly a $14 credit.