Big Storm Coming Today

Today we have a very powerful storm coming our way.  To quote Cliff Mass: 

“It is probably the most powerful April storm to approach the Northwest coast during the past half century.”

The latest models have us in the 50+mph gust range.  The NWS is very confident with this forecast.  As I come across information I will post it here through the day.  Feel free to comment.

8:00pm
Power is on again thanks to the hard work in dangerous conditions from the PSE linemen!
 
6:00pm
Power is out....  Running on generator....

3:30pm
A little update from Scott Sistek... Looks like this could last a while. The wind died down here and now it has picked up again.... Just had a 43mph gust.... 

 

12:30pm
Cliff Mass: "All hell is about to break loose around western Washington as a very strong April storm moves into our coastal waters."

He Updated his blog with some very interesting information...

Cliff Mass Updated Blog 

12:00pm
Just had a 46mph gust.  Took the flag down to protect the flag pole.

11:00am
For anyone that has to deal with the Hood Canal Bridge today, here is a link that gives relatively current weather so you can watch the trends. It appears to be updating every 10 minutes, although it stopped updating at 10:18... Hood Canal Bridge Weather
 
The wind has been dead calm here until the last few minutes. I can see white caps up Admiralty Inlet and we just had a 29mph gust... Not much, but things are changing.

10:00am:

Scott's KOMO Article 

9:10am:  Just got word from my sister in-law in Beaverton.... Power is out all over and the wind is smokin'....

9:00am:
NWS on Twitter:

Scott Sistek on Twitter:

Spring Wind Storm Coming....

The models are all coming into agreement that we will get brushed by a very unusual spring wind storm.  Cliff seems very confident about this one.... 

Cliff's Blog About Coming Storm

And....  This from Scott Sistek on Twitter:

 

And....  This from Morgan Palmer on Twitter:

 

And....  The NWS has just issued a High Wind Watch.....

WAZ001-503-506-507-509>511-556-558-559-070500-

/O.EXB.KSEW.HW.A.0002.170407T1600Z-170408T0300Z/

San Juan County-Western Whatcom County-Western Skagit County-

Everett and Vicinity-Tacoma Area-Admiralty Inlet Area-

Hood Canal Area-Bellevue and Vicinity-Seattle and Vicinity-

Bremerton and Vicinity-

1105 AM PDT Thu Apr 6 2017

...HIGH WIND WATCH IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY MORNING THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING...

The National Weather Service in Seattle has issued a High Wind Watch, which is in effect from late Friday morning through early Friday evening.

* WIND...Possible south wind 20 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph.

* SOME AFFECTED LOCATIONS...Tacoma...Seattle...Everett...Port Townsend...Whidbey Island...The San Juan Islands...and Bellingham.

* TIMING...Strongest winds are most likely Friday afternoon.

* IMPACTS...Winds of this strength can break branches off of trees...topple weakened trees and produce power outages.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A High Wind Watch means there is the potential for a hazardous high wind event. Sustained winds of at least 40 mph...or gusts of 58 mph or stronger may occur. Continue to monitor the latest forecasts.

Steve Pool just posted this graphic on Twitter....

Wind Shear, Sunset and Sunrise

On April 2nd we had some incredible wind shear.  Time lapse is really the only way you can see this.  It is amazing how "confused" the clouds looked....

Then on the evening of April 3rd and the following morning, the clouds parted just enough to give us a sunset and sunrise.  I put the two together in a time lapse video.

A quick weather note...  The NWS just posted this on Twitter...  4/5/17 1:30pm

A Modest Northern Lights Show

Finally…. A clear night and a bit of a show from Aurora Borealis… And..  I had my new camera running. The Kp index is a value that represents the approximate intensity of the event. Typically it has to be above 6 for us to begin to see the Northern Lights. Last night it topped out a little below 5 and the new camera still picked it up. It’s not a huge show, but they are there….

Best viewed in HD here: http://www.skunkbayweather.com/0331.html

Recently I added a nice graphic that shows the history of the Kp index.  It is located near the bottom of my site.  

A Few Time Lapse Videos From This Past Week

The cumulus were really busy on March 25th. No measurable rainfall, but the folks to our North sure got it!

The day before was very similar.  I did a panorama time lapse of March 24.

We had a very nice end of day on the 21st.

Just an awesome sunset with LOTs of vertical instability...

Back To Back Meteors...

The last two nights Cam 3 has picked up a meteor...  Roughly the same direction, slightly different trajectories and one is a bit smaller.

Enough is Enough!

GOOD GRIEF!!! ENOUGH ALREADY!! 
As I type we are at 1.47" in less that 24 hours.... A breathtaking sustained wind in the mid to upper teens which puts the wind chill down to mid 30's..... Gust to 40mph overnight. My front yard (100x115) has accumulated 87,945 pounds of rain in less than 24 hours.... True calculation..... 

A beautiful time lapse day..... HD Time Lapse Link