Saturday

As you can see from the latest satellite picture, we have a mixed field of cloud and some break over the region, with a few scattered showers (see images). The real action is going into CA and in the picture you can see a well-defined cyclone, with strong fronts heading towards the northern portion of that state. Temperatures are generally in the mid-40s over the lowlands. No real change in that today. There is a decent pressure difference across the Fraser River Valley and some gap flow is moving SE from it into Bellingham. The surface wind field shows (see image)...and the generally light winds over the area. This dull, cool weather is our fate for a while.
Several of you have been commenting on the long range forecasts by the GFS (Global Forecast System) model. This is a numerical weather forecasting model that is run over the entire globe and is run by the National Weather Service. Be careful after taking its predictions too seriously past 5 days out...the skill is really minimal at one gets to 7 days and beyond...particularly for cold waves.
Finally, there has been all kinds of scary global warming articles in the paper based on the release by the UW Climate Impacts Group of their analyses of future climate of the region over the next century. There are some very good people in CIG but there is a decided tendency to overstate the local implications of global warming. And the media sometimes exaggerates things further (if you want evidence of this, check out the over-the-top article in the PI on the climate refugees that will be flocking here -http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/399958_climate13.html- Perhaps in a future post I will tell you more about this.