Will Weather Influence Tuesday's Election?

Is it possible that weather could influence the outcome of Tuesday's midterm election? If so, can we make any predictions based on current weather forecasts?

The general wisdom is that bad weather favors the Republicans since supposedly some key Democratic voting blocks (e.g., the elderly) are more weather sensitive than the rest of the population. Republicans are supposedly less influenced by rain for reasons that escape me.

It turns out that the academic literature is very thin on this topic and I could only find one refereed article in the Journal of Politics by Gomez, Hansford and Krause ("The Republicans Should Pray for Rain: Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections"

According to this paper, which examined turnout in 14 presidential elections using 22,000 weather stations, there ARE statistically significant results:

Heavy rain reduces voter turnout by roughly 1% for every inch of rain above normal. Snow reduces turnout by .5% per inch. Furthermore, Republican presidential candidates gain 2.5% of the vote for every inch of rain above normal, and .6% for every inch of snow.

Now an inch of rain is quite a bit of precipitation, only occurring during major storms (like Monday in the NW) or in thunderstorm areas.

Furthermore, these results were for presidential elections where people are generally highly engaged and motivated. What about midterm elections like Tuesday's? If we assume that people would be less excited than for presidential runs would one expect the influence of precipitation to be greater for this election?

And what about the influence of the greater proportion of absentee ballots and of extended balloting times (some places in the U.S. allow voting in the weeks before the election)?

These are serious and weighty questions.

So lets play politics.

Here is the forecast precipitation for 12-h on Tuesday ending at 5 PM PDT (8 AM PDT). Most of the U.S. will be rain free (good for Democrats) and the only area with serious rain is in the southeast (eastern Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi). No serious snow across the lower 48 states.

Are there any close races that could be turned? Here is a map by political expert Karl Rove on the U.S. Senate races. It appears that there are no senatorial races that are close in the rain areas--there is either no race or they are heavily Republican. Here are Tuesday's temperatures across the lower-48: mild conditions are expected.



Thus, Patty Murray will be favored by better weather than expected on Tuesday, since the heavy rains of Monday will be over by then--thus people will be more likely to mail those last-minute ballots (only Pierce County still has polling stations here in Washington State). Might she be saved by the rapid movement of tomorrow's pineapple express?

The same picture is generally true for the House races, the rain will be mainly over Republican strongholds.

If the conventional wisdom has any basis or if the the Gomez study is applicable, the the weather forecasts are generally favorable for the Democrats, although the impact will probably be small. But as Gomez et al state, some close races HAVE been determined by weather.

Less Flooding Risks

The trend of the computer models is to produce less rain over the Olympics and North Cascades--mainly due to the fact that the band of strong, moist flow will be moving through the area more quickly than forecast a few days ago. Here is the latest computer model forecast (24h precipitation ending 5 AM on Tuesday)--2 to 5 inches over the Olympics. This is enough to flood the Skokomish, and perhaps a few other river, but not the serious threat of earlier runs. The north Cascades also is getting less of a hit, so the Skagit and Stillaguamish will probably remain in their banks.


The advertised storm in the Pacific has developed rapidly...you can see from the satellite picture below that is huge an intense. The center of the low is in the middle of the swirling clouds. The times the clouds circle around the low, the deeper the storm in general. Still expecting 40-50 ft waves in the Gulf of Alaska from this monster.


Here is the latest Pacific analysis for nearly the same time. 939 mb low...that is really deep.

Sunday should actually be a pretty good day around here, especially after the current front moves by. You can see both this front and the relatively cloud-free area just offshore in the above satellite picture.

Week 25: Pageant of the Transmundane

Prostitutes in a Spanish town have been ordered to wear reflective vests by the police. I guess that's so they are easier to identify when someone is racing down the highway they congregate on.

Anyway, this week's winning entry comes to us from 70s-Child.

In this case, it is a picture of a guy about to drill a hole through his temple in public. Why he is doing so, I don't know, but it was weird enough to get my attention this week.

And because this week's winning entry has to do with someone about to carve their melon, and it is Halloween tomorrow, I thought this image would be the most appropriate.

Congrats Joe. Here is your badge.

The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogging village to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

This is not a meme. This is an award that I give out, and thus, I am not "tagging" you.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog. 

Update

The heavy rains are still on track for Monday and early Tuesday for the Olympics and North Cascades, although the current runs are not quite as extreme.

The intense storm in the Gulf of Alaska is now forming--here is the wind field over the Pacific for 11 PM tomorrow. Just amazing. The white areas are higher than 55 kts sustained winds....essentially hurricane force. This IS a hurricane...but a midlatitude one. And keep in mind that strong winds, a long-lasting storm, and large fetch produce big waves.

And yes, the waves are forecast to be enormous...here is the prediction from the NOAA Wavewatch 3 model. The pinks are waves greater than 15 meters (49 feet). These waves are NOT heading here.

On Monday a strong current of warm, moist air will be heading right into us..at 5000 ft the winds are forecast to be 50 kts and 50F from the southwest. Here is the latest rainfall forecast for the 24 h ending 5 AM on Tuesday. Not quite as extreme as last night's prediction with only a small area with more than five inches. Still plenty to bring some of the rivers of the Olympics to flood stage. And one has to watch some of the North Cascade rivers like the Skagit and Stillaguamish..if you are near either of these I would be prepared. The National Weather Service is now putting out hydrological statements outlining some of the threats noted above.

One final note...snow melt might add to the available water. We had quite a bit of snow earlier this week above 3500 ft and a lot of that is going to be melting very fast on Monday.

Major Rain and Flooding Event Approaching

Well, I was having some fun in my last blog, but this one will be serious. The reason? A major rain and potential flooding event may be coming, one that could impact some people's lives. But some uncertainty remains, and I will try to be upfront with that as well.

During the next few days a disturbance off of Asia (Typhoon Chaba) will move northward, turn into a midlatitude cyclone and amplify into an extraordinarily deep low pressure center (see graphic). We are talking about 939 mb! (compare that to the 955 mb over the Midwest that everyone was excited about two days ago). There are so many isobars near that low the graphic is turning black!

The monster storm, huge in scale and possessing hurricane force winds, will produce giant waves--greater than 50 ft high. I could fill an entire blog about this storm...but there is a more acute worry here at home.

As the low pushes into the Gulf of Alaska it will result in the establishment of a very strong, moist current heading right for our region. You know the names---atmospheric river is the generic term and our version is often called a pineapple express. The next graphic presents the early stages of this feature (Monday AM)....the total amount of water vapor in a vertical column is being shown:


You can see the current of moist air heading right for us.

Here is the 24-h rainfall prediction ending at 5 AM Tuesday. Red indicates 5-10 inches of precipitation over the Olympics, north Cascades, and mountains of southern BC. Precip decreases rapidly to the south.


A looks at a closer view for the same period below. A profound rainshadow will also exist NE of the Olympics. I am sure the National Weather Service will be putting out some statements on potential flooding of rivers coming off the Olympics and N. Cascades. At this point it does not look like a situation that would produce urban flooding over the Puget Sound population areas.

The plume of atmospheric river air over us on Monday and Tuesday will feel warm, moist....almost tropical after the cold weather. Freezing levels will rise to 8-10,0000 ft and a lot of the new snow will melt (sorry snow lovers).

I should be clear that there is often a lot of uncertainty with these cases of tropical storms converting into midlatitude systems. But the computer models have really locked on to this solution and we are close enough now in time that I am believing it. Lets face it, it is really extraordinary we can do this at all.

I Hope Seth Rogen Doesn't Observe Kosher Laws...

...because Mythbuster Adam Savage is being quite the ham in this photobomb.

Simpler Access to Flickr for Google Users with OpenID

OpenID momentum continues to grow. Yahoo! announced that Google users can now sign up for a new account on Flickr’s photo-sharing service with their Google Account information, eliminating the need to create a new username and password. Flickr joins other websites such as Plaxo and Facebook that also support this simpler registration process for Google users.

Google and Yahoo! are two of the many companies who have been involved with the OpenID community’s efforts to improve the process for how users log in and sign up for online services. For example, last month Google announced its use of OpenID to make it simpler for Yahoo! users to sign up for Google services.

While Google doesn’t yet support the use of OpenID for replacing passwords on its own sites, we’re involved in the OpenID community’s efforts to research how to best implement that type of support. Yahoo!’s announcement today is another step in defining those best practices. We look forward to discussing this new feature at next week’s Internet Identity Workshop where the identity community gathers to discuss how to further accelerate the adoption of standards like OpenID.

By Eric Sachs, Internet Identity Team

Midweek Video: Nicolas Cage's Agent

I would honestly believe this is how he picks his roles.

College Humor scores again. (Now to wait for someone to rip this off).

So... There Are Going to Be Two Avatar Sequels

Well, I guess my vain hopes that the 3D trend might finally slink away one of these years have been dashed.

Yes, James Cameron is working on two sequels to Avatar scheduled for release sometime around the mid-decade mark, and that means that in anticipation for these two movies, the studios are going to be pumping money into other 3D projects and encouraging people to get 3D TV's through their consumer entertainment divisions.

Now, I don't blame the studios for wanting to make more of these movies, I really don't, since they were insanely profitable. I am just saddened that 3D isn't going to die the way it should have. (OK, the way I think 3D should die is it should be taken out into the street by all the people who got sucked into watching really bad faux-3D fare and beaten to death, but that would never happen).

Media claims are wrong. WE have the record storms!

In this fight, we have right on our side

There has been a lot of media attention regarding the storm in the Midwest with claims it was the strongest (lowest pressure) non-tropical storm in U.S history. DON'T BELIEVE IT FOR A MOMENT. This is classic eastern U.S. media myopia....we have had the deepest and most violent storms!

So here is the story. The media is raving about this storm in the Midwest in which the lowest pressure reported was 28.20 inches or 954.8 mb at Bigfork Airport in Minnesota. This is the lowest pressure ever observed in Minnesota! Here is a surface analysis of the storm at its height.


Now this storm has very low pressure but the pressure gradients (pressure changes with distance) are not that impressive and pressure gradient drive winds. Thus, the winds were really not that exceptional.

But we can top that without breaking a sweat. Now take a relatively recent storm around here: December 12, 1995. During that event the sea level pressure at Buoy 46041 , 52 miles west of Aberdeen, WA got to 28.31 inches (958.8 mb) and certainly that did not sample the center of the storm. Since the storm was farther offshore the pressure would to had to have been considerabley less. The estimate of local storm uber-expert Wolf Read was the pressure had dropped at least to 953 mb (see track map below).


There are other examples I could cite. The great January 1880 storm was probably much deeper as well and I bet I could find others. In fact, David Ludlum's Weather Record Book, published by Weatherwise in 1971, reported 28.20 inches /954.96 mb at Reedsport, OR, on January 9, 1880.

And I haven't even mentioned the Columbus Day Storm of 1962, which clearly was the most powerful extratropical cyclone during the past century. Furthermore, our storms generally have larger pressure gradients and thus more extreme winds.

The media is going nuts about a storm that had maximum gusts of 81 mph. Big deal. Our storms regularly have winds over 100 mph and sometimes over 125 mph

If you want to read detailed accounts of major NW windstorms, check out the WONDERFUL web pages created by Wolf Read available on the Washington State Climatologist website:
http://www.climate.washington.edu/stormking/
Hours of good reading there.

And Bri Dotson and I recently published a paper on our storms--found at:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010MWR3213.1

Now I know how these tricky east-coasters work. They will say that our storms are generally over water during their early lives and don't count. Don't let them get away with this. Their fabled "Nor'Easters" --which they count--spend plenty of time of water. And don't forget the Great Lakes! And why did they call one of their storms "The Perfect Storm" when many of ours far outrank it by any mark?

We’re giving away 10,000 Google TV devices. To you.

One of the things that makes Google TV different is that it has an Internet browser built-in so users have full access to the entire web on their television screens. Over the past few months, we’ve had many developers come to us seeking guidance on how to make their existing websites even better for the 10-foot TV experience. Many have even come to us with completely new designs for their existing websites.

For developers, building websites for TV is a new opportunity for creativity and provides a distribution channel to reach users in a new way. For users, better and more interesting websites mean that the overall Google TV experience gets even better. We know that developers must be at the heart of our ecosystem, building cool experiences for audiences to watch and enjoy, and we want to encourage a new generation of TV developers to come forward. Which is why, over the next few weeks, we are planning to give away 10,000 Google TV devices to help developers start building for TV.

This morning, we gave away more than 3,000 Google TV devices to attendees of the Adobe MAX conference. Additionally, we’ll be reaching out to thousands of web developers in the Google Code community to offer them a free device. Finally, if you are a professional web developer who wants to help make the Google TV experience even better and you don’t happen to fall into one of those two groups, please submit an entry to our Google TV Web Developer Promotion and include a short summary about the type of interesting website your company would like to create or optimize for Google TV. We’re planning to select 2,500 winners from those entries to receive a free Google TV device.

For a bit of inspiration, check out some of the latest Spotlight sites that have just launched on Google TV. A few of our favorites include Net-A-Porter, which lets you watch runway videos and shop for high fashion; Meegenius, a place where you can read and customize children’s books; TuneIn, a personal radio for your TV; and The Onion, which always gives us a good laugh.

To get started building websites for Google TV, we’ve provided new documentation and a Google TV Web forum to help developers better engage in the process. We’re excited to see what you all come up with. Happy coding!

Update on 10/27: To clarify, this giveaway is only for U.S based developers. We hope to make Google TV available in other markets soon.

By Amanda Surya, Google TV Developer Relations Team

Check Out My New Coalition of Awesomeness Post!

I might not be around too much this afternoon, as we are getting warnings about some severe wind storm action in this area, so I thought I would take this opportunity to hype something, because I am always the salesman. *wink*

The current theme over at The Coalition of Awesomeness is our own personal horrors and I chose one of my favorite movies to discuss: The Thing.

It is a cold, scary world. Bundle up!

No Khan in the new Star Trek: Huzzah!

Well, the news out of Hollywood is that Khan will not be in the second Star Trek movie. And I am relieved (and I expect that Lee is also pleased by this news).

There had been rumors that they maybe the producers wanted to go in a Wrath of Khan direction with the franchise, but really how could they do The Wrath of Khan when at this point no one has done anything to him in the first place.

And you don't think Spock is going to be really wary of Khan now knowing what happened to himself in the original history?

They basically have a blank slate to work with, and I think it would be more interesting if they explored different things in these movies than the original ones did, and it looks like that is exactly what they are going to do.

TV Special On Doppler Radar and AMS Meeting

Two things to mention and then some weather.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) KIRO TV (channel 7) at 7 PM will broadcast a special titled "Winter's Warning" that will talk about the upcoming La Nina winter and more importantly will tell you about the new coastal radar. They went to Oklahoma to see an operational radar like the one we will get...with the special dual-pol option. In a year, you will all know what "dual pol" is!

And on Wednesday night at 7 PM there sill be a meeting of the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Meteorological Society here is Seattle, where we will hear about where the oil in the Gulf went (see info to the right). Location: NOAA Sand Point (7600 Sand Point Way).

And here is the picture of the day. There was quite a rainshadow in the lee of the Olympics...but it was centered over Seattle and the folks in Sequim got rain! Serves them right.

The reason? The winds approaching the coast in the lower atmosphere were from the west-southwest instead of the more normal southwest or south-southwest, causing the rainshadow to rotate towards us. The rainshadow moves with the large scale wind field.

Dragon Ball Will Have New Chapters

What happens when I start getting into Dragon Ball Z? Well, the original creator decides that now is the right time to come back and write some more chapters.

Yeah, I wish I was that awesome, but once again, coincidence follows me where ever I go.

But rumor has it that with the upcoming release of a MMO based on the Dragon Ball franchise, series creator Akira Toriyama finally gave in after 15 years and has decided that there may indeed be some more stories worth telling in this particular universe. Of course, financially he is also likely to make off like a bandit, as the whole ball of wax that is Dragon Ball has raked in over 4 billion dollars.

And perhaps the bad taste that Dragon Ball GT (a series which Akira Toriyama didn't create) will be washed away by this new project.

The Kai version of DBZ is pretty sweet too as they've cut out a lot of the flab and got it down to a much more manageable and tight presentation. Hopefully when this new manga is made into an animated series (which you know it will), the producers wait a little bit so they don't have to stretch things out with unnecessary sidestories and overly long fighting scenes.

Apparently when this is finally released, it is going to be simultaneously released in both Japanese and an English translation. How awesome is that?

Giant Waves

This is really turning into an extraordinary event. I can't remember over many years seeing this situation...a very deep system, slowly dying, that is sitting right off our coast for days. The models are having a very hard time with this storm as well.

Today a batch of very unstable air rotated around the low, bring lines of strong convection with heavy rain. With the low sitting out there and the strong winds remaining over the offshore waters, the waves have gotten huge. To show this, here are the significant wave heights (average of the top 1/3) for Buoy 46005, located at 130W off our coast. Update 8 AM Monday....40-45 feet!


Here are the sea level pressure forecasts starting at 5 PM tonight through 5 PM tomorrow. As the low moves eastward, the north-south pressure differences will increase and the winds over Puget Sound should crank up. And big waves will be striking our coast--right now they are 25-30 feet and they will get higher.

Here is a great web site showing coastal cams and providing a wonderful interface to buoy and coastal reports:

http://www.surfwa.org/Surf-Report-WA-OR-BC.html


And finally the rain. A few of you complained that the rain was a disappointment. But check out the 48-h rainfall total from Seattle rainwatch below. A band of 1-2 inches across the Sound with some places near the Olympics getting 3-4 inches. An an amazing rain shadow NW of the Olympics...nearly dry there. Want HUGE rainfall...head to northern CA...bet that will be on the news tomorrow.

What to do about all this hair

Take a look at this picture. This is Child No.1's hair when it has been de-plaited. That hair is apparently what mine would look if (a) it was long and (b) I had more of it. In other words, it is my genetic fault. 

Dealing with this hair is a major cost. To keep it under control it has to be plaited -- more than 10 will last a week but here in the US we have been getting it done outside the house with 64 plaits (lasting a couple of months). The next picture shows the result of that.

So let's add up the costs of all of this. On the plaiting side, there are hairdressing costs. The last time this was done, it took 8 hours. Yes, 8 hours. She sat there for 8 hours. And suffice it to say that involved a considerable monetary cost too. 

But of course every plait eventually has to be de-plaited. Rather than pay for that, yesterday, Child No.1's mother and I undertook that task ourselves. It took both of us working at the same time 5 hours to get rid of 64 plaits. That is 10 'person' hours in total. Suffice it to say, never again, is my new motto.

All this caused me to contemplate the meaning of this endeavour. As with all such things, there is a history. When she was younger, this hair was, in fact, naturally curly. Shirley Temple had nothing on Child No.1. And so that hair became a part of her identity. As I have mentioned before, she has no stereotypical 'girl' like preferences; except for one thing, having long hair. We have saved on dresses, to be sure, but over the years that hair became harder and hard to manage.

For many years, Child No.1's hair was done once a week by her mother. It took about one and a half hours to get 10 plaits. But the problem was not the plaiting but instead just brushing the hair. That was taking all of the time. Something had to be done.

When we came to the US, we worked out that there were other children with similar issues and so opted for braiding, as they call it here. Of course, that has turned out really not to be economical in any sense of the word.

So we are now at a cross-roads. There are two camps. First, there are the cutters; those who believe the hair should be cut to about half of its current length and become within some level of manageability.  I am a loyal and vocal member of this camp. Indeed, at one point yesterday I suggested the merits of cutting the current hair completely off, making a wig, shaving her head and using the wig as a substitute. Despite its compelling rationale, such sensible strategies are not receiving serious air time in our deliberations.

The second camp has no name. It is to do 'something else.' The problem is that the members of the camp do not know what that 'something else' is. So I am putting that question out there to the friendly readership of this blog. What should we do about all this hair?

The Storm

Its here.... A beautiful looking storm in the infrared and water vapor satellite imagery (first and second images below). The dark color in the water vapor satellite imagery indicates dry air descending into the low, a sign of strength.


Here is a the short-term forecast for 11 PM tonight...an impressive 966 mb low! There are a lot of isobars and very large pressure variations that produce strong winds over the Pacific Ocean.

As forecast the winds have really accelerated offshore and along the coast, with sustained 30-40 mph, with gusts of 50-60 mph. Here are the maximum gusts at Destruction Island...right off the WA coast...gust to 54 kts-- 62 mph. Lots of wind gusts above 50 mph over the ocean. The waves are increasing rapidly...now approaching 20 ft seas offshore--and they will rise further.


Right now the winds are climbing over NW Washington (Strait of Georgia and eastern Strait)--here is the sustained wind forecasts for 1 AM (30-35 mph with higher gusts)


The Smith Is reporting station died, but here is from buoy 48088 at the eastern entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Peak gusts are at 35 kts and rising.


But this is NOT going to be a major wind event in Seattle...even though some TV stations (unnamed ) are talking about it.

And of course it is WET outside,with steady rain over the region...here is the latest radar--green is moderate rain, yellow is heavy. A very nice rainshadow NE of the Olympics.

The heavy rain should be done by sunrise, with showers tomorrow.

Computer models are having a hard time deciding where the low is going--we will see.

Week 24: Pageant of the Transmundane

Friend of the site John Farrier sent me word that the Vatican has declared Homer Simpson a true Catholic. There are a lot of jokes I could make here, but I think the simplest and least controversial one I can make here is really, why would any religion want to claim Homer Simpson as their own.

Anyway, this week's winning entry comes to us from The Daily Shite. Now, usually I don't like to give this award to bigger sites, but this entry is just so good I think everyone needs to see it.

By now I am sure everyone has seen at least one video of someone after the dentist, the most famous of which is a little kid name David. But the above site found the best After Dentist video I've ever seen. I feel really bad for this young woman because this one is really embarassing. But it is hilarious too.

And since this has to do with going to the dentist, I thought Homer thinking about the plant's Dental Plan would be the most appropriate image.

Congrats Paul. Here is your badge.

The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogging village to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

This is not a meme. This is an award that I give out, and thus, I am not "tagging" you.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Meteorological Earmarks and the U.S. Senate Race in Washington

There has been a lot of talk in the U.S. Senate race in Washington State about earmarks, and I thought I might give my perspective based on some actual experience with them.

Patty Murray (Democrat)

If you had asked me a few years, I would have been against them, but my mind has changed, based partly on my experience with the coastal radar. I now believe that earmarks are a useful tool, if used sparingly and with judgment.

Dino Rossi (Republican)

Consider the coastal radar that will be installed next September on the central Washington coast. Without earmarks this extraordinarily important device, one that will save lives and greatly enhance our lives, would not have happened.

A classic argument against earmarks is that all appropriations should go through the normal process, with budget requests from agencies vetted by congressional committees. Sound good. But for over a decade many of us tried to go this route in pushing for the coastal radar. The case was compelling but some folks in the National Weather Service opposed it and letters from Congressmen and Senators fell on deaf ears.

Nothing happened until the big storm in December 2007, after which Senator Maria Cantwell took a personal interest in the project after listening to her constituents in coastal Washington. Senator Maria Cantwell

Subsequently, with the aid of Senator Murray, Senator Cantwell was able to secure an EARMARK for the first two million dollars for the radar acquisition. And the rest is history. Next September we will be able to see, for the first time, the structure of approaching weather systems from off the Pacific. The folks in Gray's Harbor County and surrounding areas will be able to plan their lives with the guidance of the radar. Fishers and marine interests will have the protection of the radar while they do their work. And this would not have have occurred without the intervention of our U.S. Senators.

My conclusion. Washington D.C. bureaucracies sometimes don't have a good understanding what is happening and needed out in the field, in communities hundreds or thousands of miles away. Our Senators and Congressmen/women have an intimate acquaintance with their area and know where the acute needs that slipped through the cracks. Therefore, we need earmarks.

Yes, I know there have been some abuses and some earmarks have been problematic. But my reading through the earmark lists suggests that the majority of them are well-intentioned attempts to fix problems or to deal with issues that the government bureaucracy missed.

It seems entirely appropriate that a few percent of the U.S. budget should go to earmarks. Perhaps there are reforms that could make this fairer, such as insuring that all states get an equal shot based on their populations, irrespective of whether their congressional folks are well positioned on critical committees or in leadership positions. But a flat rejection of earmarks does not seem reasonable and from my perspective earmarks were absolutely critical in securing a critically needed piece of meteorological hardware for our state.

Forecast Update: The Sunday storm looks similar to what we expect last night. Strong winds over the ocean and right along the coast. Not much over Puget Sound during the day on Sunday, but it will blow to the north of the Strait of Georgia and the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca.

UW Dawg Dash:

At 9:30 AM on Sunday the UW Dawg Dash will take place (fun run to support scholarships and other good works) and I have been asked to be the official starter (http://www.promotionevents.com/dawgdash/) I believe the idea is that a meteorologist might placate the rain gods with some sort of professional incantation. At this point I have been unsuccessful--the latest model runs show showers that morning around that time. Perhaps some incense will help.

Major Coastal Storm and Big Waves

It is become increasingly clear that our offshore waters will be hit by a very powerful low pressure center (what we call and extratropical cyclone in the business). The result will be hurricane-force gusts over the eastern Pacific and 30-40 ft waves striking our coastline. The interior should be generally spared with one exception: Northwest Washington and the Strait of Georgia, which will get 20-45 kt winds.

In reality there will be three major weather events:

The first is the weak system moving through right now....a bit of rain and windy offshore, but nothing major.

The second is a stronger, somewhat wetter system on Saturday morning.

But the real McCoy is on Sunday morning--a deep low offshore, with a very wet front moving through Sunday morning.

Lets cut to the chase. Here is surface charts for Sunday at 2 PM:



This is a 961 mb low..quite deep. However, the last few runs have taken it farther offshore--which makes it less of a threat for western Washington and Oregon. Here is a closer in view at the same time. Lots of isobars (lines of constant pressure), which results in strong winds offshore.


Here are the model surface (10 meter above the surface) winds at the same time. Offshore there are sustained winds of 45 knots and the gusts would be much stronger. Actually, the strongest winds on the coast will be late on Saturday, when the associated occluded front moves in (see figure). Sustained winds on the coast could hit 45 knots with higher gusts. Great weather for storm watching.!

These strong offshore winds will raise the sea and wave reaching 30-40 ft will move towards the coast. Here is the output from the NOAA Wavewatch III model, which predicts wave heights using the forcing from the atmopsheric models.

If this storm was a few hundred miles east of its predicted position we would be talking about a major damaging even and the weather channel would be flying in one of their storm folks....but fortunately that won't happen (if the models are right). I should note a rule of thumb of local meteorologists: to get strong winds over Puget Sound and the southern interior the low pressure center must cross the coast south of central Vancouver Island (my book has more on this).

Want to see the storms lined up on the satellite imagery? The first frontal band is on us. The comma-shaped system offshore is Saturday morning, and the huge, pregnant cloud mass farther offshore..THAT is the big one.