March Madness

(It's been a while since I have posted a blog. These past few months have been quite  busy with classes and school searches. For those of you who are less knowledgeable about my life, I am graduating UW in a couple months with my Bachelors and headed off to Texas Tech University to continue with my Masters degree and potentially PhD. I am very excited to continue learning about weather and I will probably be tailoring this blog to ALL things weather in the next few months and less on just the Northwest, although I will certainly keep up with NW happenings)

The madness I am referring to is not the feelings I get every time I look at my busted NCAA basketball bracket, but rather the large amount of precipitation that Sea-Tac airport has received this month.

The National Weather Service in Seattle posted this graphic this morning showing how this March rainfall compares to normal, to last year, and to the all time record of 8.40" (6.46" so far through the 29th this year, placing this March at 5th wettest in 67 years of records).

What does this all mean for the Northwest? Well most importantly in my opinion, is it loads up the ski resorts with POWDER! On a more economical level (and probably the real importance), it provides a large snow pack for our summer water supply. Here is an image of our current percentages compared to normal for snow water around the Western half of the country.

Many values well above 100% of normal for the upper Northwest into Montana but very low values for the Sierras in California and the Rockies in the inter-mountain West. Oregon, WA, Idaho should all be good for summer water supplies but California might fall into a major shortage should they not see any more snowfall in the Sierras.

Main cause of this weather pattern? A persistent upper level trough centered off the Washington coast, seen here in a NCEP reanalysis of Geopotential Height from March 18 to the 26th. This pattern brings SW flow into Washington, which means more moisture and a persistent flow for storm systems.

Do we expect this to change anytime soon? I would hope so, but I don't see it happening. The next image is a forecast for accumulated rainfall over the next 7 days...around 3-6" more around the northwest (could Sea-Tac get into the top 3 for most rainfall in March???).

Looks like Spring is going to be fruitful for the lawns and plants, but not for our sanity. ( I recently came back from a trip to Europe with temps in the 70's, maybe you should start making some vacation plans if you live in the Northwest :) )

Aaron