Cliff Mass Weather Blog
There are two possibilities:
• The Northwest will soon experience one of the most incredible weather situations in many decades
• There is a major flaw in virtually all of our weather prediction system
Quite frankly, I am somewhat in shock looking at the raw forecast model predictions or the statistically calibrated versions of their output. The event being predicted is so extreme and so beyond expectation that my natural inclination is to dismiss it.
But I can't. Multiple modeling systems are essentially doing the same thing. Large ensembles of many forecasts are showing similar solutions from most of the runs.
Let me show you the latest.
An important issue will be proximity to water and to get that right, high-resolution forecasts are important, so let me start by presenting the latest UW high-resolution simulations. The situation is so extreme that I had the colors altered to better define high temperatures.
Saturday will be the transition day. The temperatures at 5 PM, near the time of the maxima, will exceed 100 F in much of the Columbia Basin and in the northern Willamette Valley (e.g. Portland). 90s will invade the interior of southwest Washington and southern Puget Sound. Warm, but typical of the hottest days of a typical year.
Sunday is something else. Temperatures in the Willamette Valley surge ABOVE 108F, as do the lower elevations of the Columbia Valley. Incredibly, some areas south of the Olympic Mountains get above 104. Can you imagine the temperature gradients near the coast... from the 60s to over 100F in a matter of a few miles? In central Puget Sound, temperatures will rise the 80s near the water to the upper 90s a few miles inland.
And now Monday at 2 PM. The model resolution is a bit less but the solution is absolutely amazing. Temperatures exceeding 108F will be found in and near the western Cascade foothills, thanks to the warming easterly flow descending the barrier. 104F and higher away from the water around Puget Sound. The Fraser River Valley will also be crazy warm.
More:
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/06/incredible-temperatures-are-being.html