Karl's Weather Discussions

  Greetings world!  The month of September has been a rough one here in the Pacific Northwest.  Western Oregon endured what is most likely the worst outbreak of wildfires in recorded history.  The historic easterly windstorm on Sept. 7-9, resulted in the conflagration of FIVE “megafires” over and west of the Cascade Crest:  the Lionshead fire near and west of Warm Springs; the Riverside Fire in the upper Clackamas Valley; the Beachie Creek Fire in and around Detroit; the Holiday…

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Oh what a weird and dark and admittedly apocalyptic time, this is turning out to be!  I’m going to save the monster wildfire scenario for another day, when things are calmed down a little more. Needless to say, many of us know someone who has evacuated or lost their home because of these fires.  The loss is horrendous: nearly a million acres of Oregon’s majestic forests no longer exist.  Towns like Detroit and Phoenix (near Ashland) are all but wiped…

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Late last night, I had the unfortunate mishap of wandering to another website WITHOUT first saving my blog-in-progress.  More than an hour of work was instantly lost.   I’m not going to make the same mistake again. But this blog will be shorter than originally planned.   The big story in our September weather picture has shifted from extreme heat, to extreme wind and fire danger.  Basically the cold airmass over the Rockies and Plains beginning tomorrow, is going to come…

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Hard to believe that September and “meteorological” fall have arrived. Summer 2020 was a surprisingly boring one, as far as climatology goes:  Temperatures were very near normal for the month of June, and just slightly on the warm side for July and August.  Overall it was very slightly warmer than normal…or if you prefer, almost exactly in line with the expected “new normal” for our changing climate. The first 10-12 days of September are going to be anything but normal,…

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The last couple days, weather geeks and non-geeks alike have turned their eyes to the coast of East Texas and West Louisiana, where hurricane Laura is in the process of devastating communities with 150-160 mph winds and 20-foot storm surges.  It is the worst storm disaster along the Gulf Coast, since Katrina struck 15 years ago. And in much of the Western U.S., the skies have been clogged with smoke for weeks now.  Horrendous wildfires in California and the Intermountain…

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  After a toasty late July and early August, cooler weather has recently returned to the Pacific Northwest.  Except for a 90 on Monday the 10th, every other day since August 5 has stayed below 85 degrees at PDX.  That’s allowed those of us without A/C to cool out our homes, after a rough time a couple weeks ago. Just as important as the cooler days have been the cooler nights:  Most nights since the 5th have dropped into the…

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The last 12 days (not including today) have been a classic example of “Mediterranean summer” weather in the Pacific Northwest and the Portland Metro.  There have been almost no clouds in the morning, and temps have been 82 degrees or warmer every day since July 25.  Basically we had about 6 hot days followed by several reasonably warm days.  Of course in late July and early August, even “warm” days (i.e. mid 80s) feel quite hot in the afternoon.    …

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I hope you are safely enjoying this summer weather across the Pacific Northwest!  After a very gloomy first half of June, we finally turned a corner this week. Yesterday Tuesday was the hottest day of the year at PDX, at 93 degrees. That’s not a record but it is 18 degrees above normal .  Thankfully I wasn’t around to endure it. I left the metro area around 1pm, just as the worst heat was about to kick in.  My afternoon…

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  (Cover image credit of NWS Medford; historic 9-inch June snowfall at Crater Lake Lodge)     Before diving into the usual topic of this blog (weather), I wanted to acknowledge the obvious:  These are very prophetic times we are living through.  In the past three months, a pandemic virus has shut down most of “normal life” and pushed the economy into a deep recession.  We have seen widespread protests against the quarantine, as well as very bizarre behavior from…

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