FOX 12 Weather Podcast - Ep. 194

[00:00:05][music] >> Hey and welcome to the Fox 12 weather podcast episode 194.

[00:00:14]Man, we're close to 200 and it's going to sneak up on us, Camilla.

[00:00:17]>> I know.

[00:00:19]>> I know. Here we go. I'm meteorologist Pete Ferry joined by meteorologist Camilla Ortiz. We've been holding down the fort the last two podcasts.

[00:00:28]>> Yeah, right? Dang, where's Mark Is Mark ever going to come back from vacation?

[00:00:33]>> That's a good question.

[00:00:34]>> That's a question our audience I know.

[00:00:36]>> [laughter] >> Our producer asked that today. I was like, I don't know. No, he will. He'll be back next week.

[00:00:41]>> He will.

[00:00:41]>> Yeah.

[00:00:42]>> Yes. Also happy late birthday to Camilla.

[00:00:45]>> Oh, thank you.

[00:00:47]Yeah.

[00:00:47]>> I don't have balloons or anything, but I would >> How dare you?

[00:00:50]>> [laughter] >> throw a little party.

[00:00:52]>> I appreciate it. It was a really good day because we got to watch Argentina win the semi-final game against England.

[00:00:59]So, that was a great birthday present.

[00:01:03]>> I bet. I wish I was there to witness that with you cuz that would be so fun.

[00:01:07]>> We screamed so loud that we almost scared Enzo to tears.

[00:01:12]He's starting to get the hang of it because now that he's watched multiple World Cup games like with us as a family, he's getting more used to the sound fluctuations.

[00:01:23]>> Yes.

[00:01:23]>> So, >> [laughter] >> poor kid.

[00:01:26]>> Yeah, he's like, why is everyone yelling? Oh, goal.

[00:01:29]>> Yeah.

[00:01:31]>> Oh. Okay, well, we got a lot to talk about. We have a lightning show recap from last night / this morning.

[00:01:38]So many amazing viewer photos. I definitely did more than our normal three. So, >> as we should when there's actually something very cool to show.

[00:01:47]>> Yes, yes.

[00:01:49]Term of the week, which is lightning.

[00:01:51]Surprise, surprise.

[00:01:52]>> Mhm.

[00:01:53]>> We're going to talk about wildfire and a little smoke update. We had some hazy skies yesterday before everything broke out. Um and then what's ahead?

[00:02:03]>> Yeah. All right.

[00:02:05]>> this is a little pause of radar 5:00 a.m. I wish I could do a loop, but couldn't figure that one out.

[00:02:12]>> Yeah. Yeah, and the loop so I noticed we had it was like dry thunderstorms in Central Oregon closer to like midnight 1:00 a.m. And then yeah, most of our action west of the Cascades I noticed was like 4:00 to 7:30 was kind of our our time frame, but yeah, decent a decent bit of lightning.

[00:02:34]>> Yeah, here we have this one.

[00:02:36]Just a bit.

[00:02:37]>> Just a little just a little bit.

[00:02:40]>> Wow.

[00:02:41]>> Imagine if we had to manually place all of these.

[00:02:43]>> Oh.

[00:02:44]>> I think I'd quit.

[00:02:45]>> Yeah.

[00:02:46]>> would be terrible.

[00:02:47]>> Wow.

[00:02:48]>> Um yeah, this is from mark 5 to 6,000 just in the northern and northern half of Oregon, southern half of Washington, and cloud-to-cloud strikes as well.

[00:02:58]>> Yeah.

[00:02:59]>> Pretty impressive.

[00:03:00]>> Yeah. Do we have a closer up on the metro area? We sure do. Yes, it was interesting that the west side got most of the action. Look at all the strikes just around Hillsboro and Beaverton.

[00:03:11]>> Yeah.

[00:03:12]>> And then there's just not as much east of I-5 at all.

[00:03:17]>> Yeah, they were way more spread out. I mean >> Yeah.

[00:03:21]>> There was some decent cells that rolled through Hillsboro. I was woken up to it.

[00:03:25]>> Yeah. I did too and I usually can sleep through everything, but yeah, there were some good rumbles.

[00:03:31]>> Yeah, it just must have been right over the Hillsboro airport at one point cuz I'm a little bit south of there and I was looking and I was like, "Hmm, this seems like it's close, but not super close."

[00:03:41]>> Yeah.

[00:03:41]>> Um but it was such a beautiful show. I mean, you could just stand outside for 5 minutes and see everything you needed to see.

[00:03:47]>> flashes, yeah.

[00:03:48]>> Mhm.

[00:03:49]>> Did you go outside when you were woken up?

[00:03:51]>> Oh, yes.

[00:03:52]>> Of course you did. I just immediately I was just like, "Oh, cool lightning." And then I rolled back over and went to sleep.

[00:03:59]>> No, I was like kid in Disneyland. Like I rolled out of bed, saw the flashes, put on a sweatshirt, ran outside, and none of my neighbors were up. I was hoping someone else would be up. So, I couldn't wait.

[00:04:12]>> else is witnessing this. That's so cool.

[00:04:14][laughter] >> Yeah.

[00:04:15]>> Your cat was though, which we'll see in a moment.

[00:04:18]>> I have a photo. Yes.

[00:04:20]He's He loves thunderstorms. It's hilarious.

[00:04:22]Um well, the big sad thing about this is, you know, West side got some rain.

[00:04:27]Hillsboro got 1,500 since Scappoose over 4/10, but then Portland zilch.

[00:04:32]>> Zero. Yep.

[00:04:34]>> Very sad.

[00:04:35]>> Yeah.

[00:04:36]>> Um Keep in mind like the low hasn't passed overhead yet.

[00:04:40]>> Mhm.

[00:04:41]>> So, we're just getting the southwesterly flow from the system, >> Right.

[00:04:46]>> which is why we got this the storms.

[00:04:48]It's a very classic setup for a non-severe thunderstorm. Usually nocturnal thunderstorms too, so it's been overnight.

[00:04:57]>> Yeah, I was going to say because typically you bank on that afternoon heating and the sunshine to help with that, you know, lifting of the air.

[00:05:07]Uh so, it's kind of unique to get overnight storms.

[00:05:10]>> Mhm.

[00:05:11]>> Yeah.

[00:05:12]>> It was cool. And honestly, like this cool air is going to linger for a few days. We'll talk about that >> Yeah.

[00:05:16]>> a little bit later on. Um but I can't counted. And the last time we had measurable rain in Portland was June 29th, I believe.

[00:05:25]>> Okay.

[00:05:26]>> Um and it was like barely anything, but it counted. So, it's been a Well, today's the 16th, 17 days since we've had measurable rain.

[00:05:37]>> Right. Zero in July so far.

[00:05:41]>> Yeah.

[00:05:42]Well, we get to half an inch. Probably not.

[00:05:44]>> Probably not. it doesn't >> like it.

[00:05:47]>> [laughter and gasps] >> So, yeah. It was curious that we just kind of stayed under the gray all day because I know I guess I wasn't here yesterday, but was graph showing quite a bit of clearing in the afternoon?

[00:05:58]>> It was. It was showing a lot of clearing.

[00:06:01]I didn't make the forecast yesterday, but I know it was clearing by around Yeah, I'd say noon.

[00:06:08]>> Yeah. And it just didn't It just I mean it's possible we're getting more of a persistent like marine push than maybe models were anticipating because look at that temperature staying in the 60s around the greater metro area. Whoops.

[00:06:22]>> our coolest day since July 1st. We hit a 67 during the day, too. So.

[00:06:28]>> There you go.

[00:06:29]>> Yeah, and all the kids are doing the 67 thing.

[00:06:32]>> Oh, no. See, I don't even I don't even think of it. I'm so uncool that it doesn't even like process in my brain when I see 67.

[00:06:39]>> it, but I feel like I've been speaking to so many children lately and they're all like you know, anytime it slips. So, it's like, oh no, what did I just do?

[00:06:48]Yeah.

[00:06:49]It's okay.

[00:06:51]Okay, let's get into the beer photos.

[00:06:52]First, I have my 5:00 a.m. photos from this morning. Coco, the weather cat. No, he was so funny. He It was literally raining, which you'd think like a cat would not want to be in the rain.

[00:07:04]>> Outside, yeah.

[00:07:05]>> No, but he was loving it and and yeah, every time I would like gasp and be like when I saw lightning, he'd look at me like, what? You know, like >> So cool. He just like He just like sit next to you on the stoop like he won't like try to run away.

[00:07:21]>> No, he won't try to run away. He shifted around a little bit, but no.

[00:07:24]>> That's so cute.

[00:07:25]>> time there was like a giant rumble of thunder, I'd be like, oh, he's definitely going to run inside or whatever cuz I leave the front door open.

[00:07:31]>> Uh-huh.

[00:07:31]>> But no, he just sat sat there.

[00:07:35]He's used to this. When we moved to Virginia, he was in the passenger seat, this little little uh cat car seat you could call it, I don't know. Just so he's safe. Like he's like attached to like a little basket thing anyway.

[00:07:51]Um we went through Little Rock, Arkansas through a tornado warning.

[00:07:56]>> Oh my god.

[00:07:57]>> cell. Like it was a little scary. I was driving so it was like Let's just say I could not see at all and I'm thinking, "Oh my god, Dakota must be freaking out because the hail was giant." You know, I had to pull over. He slept the whole time.

[00:08:15]>> So what you're saying is that Coco is a storm chaser.

[00:08:19]>> He is. He is. Truly. This seems like >> Maybe he's too relaxed. He's too relaxed to be a storm chaser.

[00:08:26]>> I'm like, "Is he deaf? Like should I be concerned? Does he have hearing loss?"

[00:08:30]>> That's so great though. And this is a good That's a good lightning picture you got there.

[00:08:34]>> Yeah, my hack is always take a video and take a photo of the video once you see the storm.

[00:08:40]>> for phones. Yes.

[00:08:42]>> Yes, good one. Um all right, we got this really awesome photo. I love when there's a bunch of branches and you you catch it. So >> all the cloud-to-cloud. Yeah.

[00:08:53]That's really cool.

[00:08:53]>> Beautiful. Um okay, we're we may say your name wrong but we're thinking Schuler?

[00:08:59]>> It was either Schuler or a creative spelling of Skyler. We didn't know. So we apologize.

[00:09:06]>> Yes, we apologize but your name is really cool. And I What's really fun about this is it happened around sunrise so you got the sunrise colors.

[00:09:15]>> Yes.

[00:09:16]>> with the lightning.

[00:09:17]>> Yes.

[00:09:18]>> Awesome.

[00:09:19]>> Nice.

[00:09:20]>> I love this guy just sitting getting the best view. Honestly, next time there's a lightning storm Camille, we should go up to Peddock Mansion. That'd be so fun.

[00:09:28]>> Yeah. And there's probably enough tall trees around you that you don't have to worry about a stray strike, right? I was just thinking I was like, "I mean you're kind of high up. Like, is that safe? And I was like, dang, you're like in the in the forest.

[00:09:43]So.

[00:09:44]>> [laughter] >> What if we stayed in the paddock mansion and then looked down?

[00:09:47]>> Yeah. Yeah. Or like in a vehicle. I don't know. I don't know what's safer.

[00:09:51]>> True, we could stay in a vehicle. Yeah.

[00:09:53]>> Yeah.

[00:09:53]>> Um either way, Nick Jabari, I'm glad you were safe. We didn't hear any news headlines with your name, so that's good.

[00:09:59]>> Thankfully.

[00:10:01]>> Um okay, let's play. Yay.

[00:10:04]>> Ooh.

[00:10:05]>> Fine. This is kind of what you like probably saw out your window when you woke up. Type of thing.

[00:10:09]>> light show.

[00:10:11]>> Mhm.

[00:10:12]>> From Battleground. That one's from Eric Allen.

[00:10:15]>> And I feel like, I mean, obviously we'll get thunderstorms from time to time, but I feel like it's rare to get like that frequent of flashes.

[00:10:23]Like there was so much lightning going on.

[00:10:26]This is cool.

[00:10:27]>> many. I know it's funny when all those strikes were going right over the foothills in the Cascades kind of about evening time yesterday.

[00:10:35]Michael Cabalquinto, he's like, are you sure none of these will drop a tornado and there's not [laughter] supercells?

[00:10:42]Now I was like, no, no, it's cuz he's like, I've never seen this much lightning without, you know, tornado warnings or severe thunderstorm warnings. I'm like, yeah.

[00:10:50]>> Yeah.

[00:10:50]>> It's just a show. It's just a fun show.

[00:10:53]>> He has too much PTSD from >> I know. We're trying to we're trying to dial it back. We're like, listen, we don't we don't get that stuff, but you know, he's prepared.

[00:11:03]>> Yeah, he is. He is.

[00:11:04]Yeah.

[00:11:06]>> Um Tan has sent us a photo. I loved this.

[00:11:08]>> Yay. Oh, yep. From Beaverton.

[00:11:11]Nice.

[00:11:12]>> Mhm.

[00:11:13]And then a Simi Waddle. Not sure where this is, but a beautiful view you have.

[00:11:19]I'm jealous.

[00:11:20]>> Nice.

[00:11:21]>> Um it's so cool. You can literally see some blue sky mixed with it, too.

[00:11:24]>> I know.

[00:11:25]Uh and this one's so good with the sunrise colors.

[00:11:28]>> Mhm.

[00:11:29]>> Chehalis Mountain.

[00:11:30]>> It looks like you could have drawn that lightning strike in there. Like it's just so >> So cool. Yeah.

[00:11:36]>> I love it. Chris Goodell, thank you so much. And then >> Oh, you snuck this in here.

[00:11:41]>> I snuck this in. I was like, you know, this one's really pretty and I I don't want to, you know, get get lost in the lightning cuz Heather's photo is so beautiful.

[00:11:49]>> Yeah, it is.

[00:11:50]>> Um I love this photo. It's so beautiful.

[00:11:53]Trillium Lake in Mount Hood and the reflection in the water.

[00:11:56]>> Yeah.

[00:11:57]>> Stunning.

[00:11:58]>> It is gorgeous. That's a good spot.

[00:12:00]>> Mhm.

[00:12:02]All right. Well, one more lightning photo.

[00:12:04]>> Mhm.

[00:12:05]>> Uh this one is from Josh Sullivan. So, if you joined our podcast 2 weeks ago, yes, when um Michael, we just talked about Michael, Michael Fecca, our newest meteorologist, uh he interviewed Josh Sullivan, a storm chaser, and he got to actually see uh the funnel cloud that was observed. Where was it? Not Forest Grove.

[00:12:25]>> Uh >> It was it?

[00:12:26]>> It wasn't near Now I can't remember.

[00:12:30]I tend to block I tend to block things out after a few days cuz there were multiple There were multiple reports. One was near Molalla.

[00:12:39]Um I can't remember where the other one was.

[00:12:42]>> Was it like Wilsonville? No.

[00:12:44]>> I don't know.

[00:12:45]>> Yeah, but he was by one of them.

[00:12:47]>> But He was by one of them and he had a cool story. Um you can like go listen to that podcast.

[00:12:52]>> back to the podcast and listen to it.

[00:12:55]>> Yes. Yes, do that um after this one, of course. And Yeah, pretty cool. Very clearly a cloud-to-ground strike. That's awesome.

[00:13:04]Um but I also wanted to use this just to Oh, no, it's got cut off a little bit.

[00:13:08]Oh, maybe my thing is cut off. Well, no, it did. Oh, well.

[00:13:12]>> You can read most of it.

[00:13:13]>> Yeah, Camille, you want to read it?

[00:13:15]>> Sure. So, lightning. What is lightning?

[00:13:17]You probably know what lightning is, but there there are some really cool graphics coming up that actually explain what you're seeing and hearing, which might be might be new information. So, lightning is a visible electrical discharge produced by a thunderstorm.

[00:13:31]This can happen between clouds, between the cloud and the air, cloud ground, or between the ground and a cloud, which is interesting and also very very rare.

[00:13:41]>> Yes.

[00:13:42]>> Yes.

[00:13:43]Yeah, so how does lightning form? This is very cool and this all happens so fast. You can see on the bottom here, this all of this happens in less than a second, like four, five, six steps happening in milliseconds.

[00:13:56]And it all has to do with different charges. So, electrons, protons, electrons begin zigzagging downward, that's the stepped leader. You can see the kind of jagged nature of of strikes when we do get a picture. And then as the leader nears the ground, it draws a positive charge upward and then they meet, which actually allows that electrical current to flow once those two are connected. But it's actually the return stroke that we see, which travels at 60,000 miles per second, which is crazy.

[00:14:28]>> Wow.

[00:14:29]>> And then yeah, if you see a flicker along that same kind of line, you can see kind of that charge going going back and forth a few times, potentially.

[00:14:38]>> Mhm.

[00:14:39]And positive charges can be on so many things. This example is the tree, it's a very obvious example. Um but you can get positive charges from buildings. You can get it even on your car, you can get it >> Humans.

[00:14:52]>> if you're alone. Yeah, humans alone, kayaker out in the middle of the water.

[00:14:56]You are the positive charge.

[00:14:58]>> Right.

[00:14:58]>> So, um yeah, that's why it's really important to stay away from those tall objects and also tall metal objects >> Mhm.

[00:15:05]>> as well.

[00:15:06]>> Yes.

[00:15:08]>> Um okay, this is always a thing when I was a kid, right? You'd you'd see lightning and you'd count one Mississippi, two Mississippi and you try to >> Yep.

[00:15:17]>> I remember as a kid I truly thought one Mississippi was a mile and then I went to school and they're like, "No, 5 seconds 5 Mississippis is 1 mile." So, I had it wrong for a while.

[00:15:29]>> Yeah, [snorts] we were taught this in the Midwest for sure. I remember this.

[00:15:34]>> Yes. Um so, 5 seconds is a mile. So, I know this morning I was counting a few times and I saw about a couple that were about 10 miles or not 10 miles 5 miles, excuse me.

[00:15:47]Um but, yeah, it wasn't you know, I also saw some in the distance as well as you headed through Portland. It was cool just you know, count it and get the kids involved too if they were up with you.

[00:15:57]Um It's always a a fun time.

[00:15:59]>> And of course, this is because light travels faster than sound does as far as the waves go. So, that's why we see the lightning and then hear it later.

[00:16:09]>> Yeah. And you [snorts] can actually see lightning around 30 to 50 miles away.

[00:16:13]You may not always hear it, but you can see it.

[00:16:15]>> And the sound of lightning, I don't know if you have this in here. The sound of lightning is just air rapidly expanding.

[00:16:21]Like it's right expanding so fast from the heat. That's the actual like clap sound that we that we hear.

[00:16:28]Yeah.

[00:16:28]>> Yeah.

[00:16:29]Yep.

[00:16:30]Um so, yeah, we've talked a lot about types of lightning, but there's quite a few. We'll talk about the most common one, which is intra-cloud or cloud-to-cloud.

[00:16:41]And that one is just when the strike remains within the cloud. Kind of self-explanatory with that name.

[00:16:47]Um and then cloud-to-ground, we had several of those last night where cloud to the ground there's that strike with the positive negative charges that we chatted about.

[00:16:56]Um you can also have positive strikes from cloud-to-ground. It's also pretty uncommon. Our actually our radar system has this feature, so we can see um radar estimate if there's a positive strike. Usually they happen to be a little stronger.

[00:17:09]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:17:10]>> Too.

[00:17:10]>> Yeah.

[00:17:11]>> Mhm.

[00:17:12]>> That's cool.

[00:17:13]>> Um cloud to sky, I mean, self-explanatory.

[00:17:18]>> Mhm.

[00:17:18]>> [laughter] >> I'm assuming this is like to another system. I don't know. Cloud-to-sky.

[00:17:23]>> Yeah, I don't know. Or if they I'm trying to think of what sort of you would need some sort of positive charge in the atmosphere.

[00:17:31]>> airplane? I don't know.

[00:17:32]>> Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

[00:17:34]>> Huh.

[00:17:35]>> Or if there's enough particles of something concentrated in an I don't know. Yeah.

[00:17:42]>> Yeah. And then ground-to-cloud we mentioned is rare, but that that would be kind of a reverse >> Mhm.

[00:17:48]>> um lightning strike.

[00:17:49]>> Yeah.

[00:17:50]>> So yeah.

[00:17:51]Um We don't get many of these. That's why we're so excited.

[00:17:55]>> I know.

[00:17:56]It's so cute. We're so cute here on the West Coast.

[00:17:59]>> I know. I remember when I lived in Atlanta for a summer, I thought it was the coolest thing ever that every single day you got pretty much what we dealt with last night. Like it was the coolest thing.

[00:18:08]>> Yeah.

[00:18:09]Like yeah, you you could get a string of I mean it you could go a week with every like afternoon evening having those thunderstorms bubbling up.

[00:18:18]>> Yeah. Yeah, so fun. We are actually one of the most lightning deprived areas of the country.

[00:18:25]>> Yep.

[00:18:26]>> Um because of our cool ocean water and we got a stable air mass most of the warm season until we get this little mix up that happens and some instability that will create some storms.

[00:18:38]Um but that gray color indicates on average we have less than 10 storms per year or thunderstorm days per year.

[00:18:45]>> Whoop. Slightly more east of the Cascades, but not by much. 10 to 20 for them out there.

[00:18:50]>> I'm surprised it's not a little higher.

[00:18:52]>> I know.

[00:18:53]Yeah. So you really have to get into gosh, was that like Wyoming?

[00:18:59]Right? Southern Nevada to actually get a little bit more of them. Yeah, Colorado.

[00:19:05]>> Yeah. Mhm.

[00:19:07]Yikers. Um okay, so this is interesting too. I always am curious of these lightning fatalities. We hear them all about them on the news a lot or someone, you know, unfortunately gets struck by lightning, but and sometimes they live.

[00:19:20]Um I obtained this graphic, I want to say back in March and there was none.

[00:19:26]>> Mhm.

[00:19:26]>> Since then, we have had four.

[00:19:28]>> Oh, wow.

[00:19:29]>> fatalities.

[00:19:30]>> Okay. Yeah.

[00:19:32]>> So, this is not in Oregon, to keep in mind. This is the entire US and states are two in Florida, one in Wisconsin and one in Illinois.

[00:19:42]>> Mhm.

[00:19:42]>> Um very interesting causes. One was walking to a vehicle in the grocery store parking lot.

[00:19:48]Um another was kayaking and then another was just in the water, someone was swimming or something.

[00:19:53]>> Mhm.

[00:19:54]>> Um and then the last one was unknown.

[00:19:56]So, ages were 41-year-old male, 18-year-old male, 51-year-old male and a 7-year-old female, which is >> Oh.

[00:20:03]>> really sad.

[00:20:04]>> That's horrible.

[00:20:05]>> I know. They said that it was in like a backyard, but >> Oh.

[00:20:09]>> or the like I guess reasoning was unknown, so.

[00:20:12]>> Yeah. Wow.

[00:20:14]>> I know. It's really sad. Um in Oregon, we've only had 10 fatalities since 1959 from lightning, so.

[00:20:21]>> Mhm.

[00:20:22]>> Not too bad.

[00:20:23]>> Yeah. That's definitely the positive side of not getting very many thunderstorms, right? You avoid You avoid the dangers of them, too.

[00:20:30]>> Yep. I know, but it also has another side where is when we get thunderstorms, I feel like people are at higher risk because they might not know that it's not okay to sit under a tree or >> you know, all the things. Be on the water in a boat.

[00:20:43]>> Right.

[00:20:44]Yeah.

[00:20:45]>> Oh, goodness. Okay. Well, wildfire update. Uh Camilla updated this guy.

[00:20:50]>> Yeah. And so, I noticed uh I mean, I check those morning briefings from the Northwest Interagency um center from time to time and I did notice, I think when I worked a couple days ago, there were only eight, six or eight large fires and that number jumped to 12 uh in a couple of days now there's 11 large fires in Oregon alone.

[00:21:11]That East Evans Creek fire near Medford has been super active. It's blown up quite a lot. Now it's at more than 11,000 acres. Only 5% contained so that one is emitting a lot of smoke which I believe we'll touch on momentarily. And yeah, we were hoping that we would get more measurable rainfall even if it's like pockets here and there from these thunderstorms that rolled through but man east of the Cascades it seemed like it was a lot of dry storms.

[00:21:41]We got a little bit more rain in the western valleys and the coast but still not a lot. I mean definitely not enough to soak the ground and really make a difference.

[00:21:51]>> Yeah, we definitely needed a lot more to I don't know just kind of put it off the right foot kind of into the next few weeks of fire season. And yeah, you're absolutely right Camilla. I mean I didn't work Monday or Tuesday but I know Wednesday I mean breaking news is like every almost top of after the break you're just talking about new fire or updated evacuation levels and all that.

[00:22:14]Um I took this just a few minutes ago and yeah, just showing you the East Evans Creek fire. It started on the 10th so it's about a week old.

[00:22:25]>> Mhm.

[00:22:26]>> Um and see what else we got going on here. Not much information. I think it was that the cause is still unknown.

[00:22:32]>> Yes.

[00:22:34]>> correctly.

[00:22:34]>> Yeah. You know what my beef is with a lot of the fire maps that we use? They obviously they label they label creeks, rivers but I wish they would put cities in there.

[00:22:47]>> Yeah.

[00:22:47]>> Have you noticed that? Cuz I will literally have to put the map next to another map to be like, "Okay, so this is like okay, just northeast of XYZ."

[00:22:57]You know what I mean? Like why don't we put city names in there?

[00:23:00]>> I know. And like Shady Grove, if you live in Shady Grove, >> Oh, Shady Cove.

[00:23:05]>> you. Excuse me. Say say Shady Cove. Why did I say Grove? I added a couple letters there.

[00:23:11]Um Shady Cove, I'm I'm sorry. I just never heard of Shady Cove Shady Cove.

[00:23:15]So, I wish I could identify that on a map, but if someone said they were from there, I wouldn't know.

[00:23:19]>> Yeah.

[00:23:20]>> You know.

[00:23:20]>> Yeah, they need to put more of the big cities on there. But anyway, that >> Yeah.

[00:23:24]>> That's a side story. Side rant.

[00:23:27]>> Side rant. Um Well, let's talk about smoke here in a second, but tomorrow, or if you're listening to this on on a Friday, uh Friday conditions are looking hot again, lowish relative humidity around below 20%, and then little breezy again from kind of the west northwest.

[00:23:44]>> Yeah.

[00:23:45]>> Yeah, so that highly determines where the smoke goes. I'm going to show you near ground level, like surface level smoke, and then we'll go to the upper level smoke.

[00:23:55]>> Yeah.

[00:23:55]>> Um this is where it gets dense and it's low, and probably will affect air quality than the upper level smoke.

[00:24:02]>> Mhm.

[00:24:02]>> Um so, obviously, Medford's in the thick of it. Uh that stretches over to Klamath. Bend is now getting a bit of that because of the wind shift from today.

[00:24:11]Um and it's just kind of lingering in central Oregon. Not so much going straight up by five like it did on Wednesday.

[00:24:17]>> Right.

[00:24:19]And I'm wondering we're just getting enough like westerly push, maybe from that system going by, that that's helping to keep us a little more clear west of the mountains.

[00:24:28]>> Yes. Yeah, and I think this is, you know, a better depiction of the upper level uh stuff. So, this line you're seeing that goes all the way even um through Mount Hood area and all that, that's going that was it going directly through Portland and even through Eugene and Salem on Wednesday.

[00:24:45]So, >> Right.

[00:24:46]>> Yeah, now it's just fully east, which is I guess good for metro, but not great for Bend and stuff cuz um not only are they getting the surface smoke, but also some upper level smoke.

[00:24:56]>> Yeah.

[00:24:57]>> Yeah. Not great.

[00:24:59]Um speaking of smoke Oh, never mind. Hold on. One more graphic.

[00:25:03]>> I tried to get a red flag warning.

[00:25:04]>> Red flag warning.

[00:25:05]>> Yes.

[00:25:06]>> Um this was Is this new? From from today?

[00:25:09]>> I just checked it today. So, wanted to see if there were any other uh fire related alerts. And it looks like the only red flag warning out there is yeah, proportions of Klamath and Lake counties. So, east of Medford, not far from the East Evans Creek fire.

[00:25:25]Uh for tomorrow. So, I think it said between 2:00 and 8:00 p.m. Something like that Friday due to the dry conditions and the gusty winds. 25 to 30 mph gusts.

[00:25:35]>> Got you. Yeah, and I saw them um there was supposed to be a red flag warning for central and eastern kind of eastern Gorge area >> Mhm.

[00:25:43]>> through 11:00 p.m. today, but they kept kind of moving it north, I think, as the thunderstorms moved north as well. So, >> Yeah. That makes sense.

[00:25:50]>> That's not overhead anymore.

[00:25:52]>> Mhm.

[00:25:53]>> Um fire danger is relatively the same Friday, Saturday. So, Saturday is a little bit higher. Um just mainly the eastern Gorge. We have the west wind.

[00:26:03]Excuse [clears throat] me. And I mean, level five, level six risk out of eight is pretty elevated. So, yeah, mixed with all those dry fuels we got got gusty wind, warm air.

[00:26:14]>> Yep.

[00:26:15]>> We could very well see more fires or um you know, expansion of fires that are currently happening.

[00:26:21]>> Mhm.

[00:26:23]>> Okay, this is what I wanted to talk about. We had We ran a few stories about this, but um I like this smoke graphic a lot. It's fun to look at. It looks very 80s to me.

[00:26:31]>> It does. It does. It's kind of weird looking.

[00:26:34]>> It is so weird looking, but it I mean, it makes sense. Um there's some wildfires in Canada that are really making it smoky, especially in um New York, D.C., Toronto, um even heading uh even to Chicago. I I there's some been some poor air quality. And it's just lingering through the weekend. So, I don't see it changing much.

[00:26:56]Um but it's crazy how smoke, especially in the upper levels of the atmosphere, can travel thousands of miles. Like all it takes is a huge pattern change and we could even get some of this smoke. So >> That's right. Yeah.

[00:27:08]Crazy.

[00:27:09]>> All right. Well, here's our good news.

[00:27:11]We had no changes in the drought monitor.

[00:27:13]>> Yeah, that is good news. Yay.

[00:27:16]>> Updated this week. So, um yeah, last week we had a little bit of some worsening uh D3 and D2 drought, I think. Maybe even D1, I don't know.

[00:27:25]Uh I forgot already.

[00:27:27]Uh [laughter] But yeah, Northwest Oregon is still drought free. So, that's >> Yeah, and Portland would still be under us just dry, abnormally dry.

[00:27:36]>> Mhm.

[00:27:36]>> For now. Yes.

[00:27:38]>> not quite drought, yeah.

[00:27:39]>> Right.

[00:27:40]>> And no um D4 drought, which is always a nice nice thing.

[00:27:45]>> Yeah.

[00:27:46]>> Okay, what is ahead? So, I decided to go Euro AI route today.

[00:27:52]>> love.

[00:27:53]>> Yep, for the 500 millibar heights. Um this is this evening as we're recording this. Again, this is uh July 16th on a Thursday. And yeah, the low it's kind of moving uh just to our Well, it's kind of moving overhead, but it'll move eventually to the north.

[00:28:06]>> Yeah.

[00:28:06]>> Um and exit the region and it'll be pretty seasonal the next 2 days. So, our average high this time of year is 82 and will be right around 80.

[00:28:15]>> Yeah.

[00:28:17]We think. We'll see if the clouds clear tomorrow. I'm I'm a little worried about it, but we'll see.

[00:28:22]>> True. Yeah, our graph model uh you like our tried and true model did terrible with thunderstorms, the clouds today.

[00:28:31]So, we have some beef with it right now and I don't >> Yeah. [laughter] >> We don't know whether to trust it for the next couple of days, we'll see.

[00:28:38]>> It also has been trending like way cool overnight.

[00:28:41]>> Yes, I noticed that, too. It really wants to put our lows in like the low 50s. I'm like, you crazy. Yeah, I'm like, no, no, no.

[00:28:49]>> Yeah, that's too chilly.

[00:28:50]>> Yeah.

[00:28:51]>> Um moving ahead to through the weekend and into Tuesday because we have this ridge that's been sitting over the southwest. Gets a little Excuse me, gets a little stronger. Um boosts boosts temperatures into the low 90s for a few days early next week. Um I saw Camellia, you lowered Sunday and then shifted the 90 to Wednesday. It seems like it's a little more delayed.

[00:29:12]>> Uh-huh. That's what I was seeing. Yes.

[00:29:14]And I just think like the warm It just seems like the system is sort of just taking its time to head out. So, I think that's just going to mean a more gradual, like slower warm-up for us over the next few days. That was the biggest change, I think, in the 7-day from yesterday to today.

[00:29:30]>> Gotcha.

[00:29:31]>> Yeah.

[00:29:31]>> Yeah.

[00:29:32]>> Um and then jumping ahead to a week from now, over a week from now, Friday evening. I've been watching this cut-off low, and you can even see it in here.

[00:29:41]Yeah, this is um Tuesday afternoon, and you can see a Friday evenings, too. So, this is a low that kind of just sits there. It's almost lodged between two strong ridges of high pressure, so it doesn't have anywhere to go. Um However, it's close enough that it may start to shove the high pressure a little bit out of our region enough to protect us from extreme heat.

[00:30:03]>> Yeah.

[00:30:04]>> Um there are some models that will want to give us triple digits, which is really crazy.

[00:30:08]>> Yeah.

[00:30:09]>> Um and there's some models that are still in the mid-upper 80s. So, >> Yeah.

[00:30:14]>> largely dependent on where this low goes and kind of see what the last few days of July look like. Um but you can see it kind of starts to take over as that ridge retreats to to east. And so, maybe a little cooler for those last days of July.

[00:30:29]>> Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice. And I mean, this could be it wouldn't necessarily be anything dramatic. It could just be like, oh, we're seeing temperatures around 80. Great.

[00:30:38]>> Yeah.

[00:30:39]>> Yeah.

[00:30:39]>> Yeah.

[00:30:40]I know I know there's like mixed feelings, especially on a day like today where it's cloudy and 60s.

[00:30:45]>> But, as seasonal as we can get is awesome, just because even so far we have the 10th warmest summer on record, even though it hasn't even been that bad.

[00:30:52]>> Exactly.

[00:30:54]>> We should have done a summer so far graphic. I have it I had it from the weekend.

[00:30:58]>> It may be slightly outdated, but um >> Mhm.

[00:31:01]>> Next time.

[00:31:01]>> Oh, well. Next time we'll do that. We'll remember.

[00:31:06]>> Um okay, yeah. This kind of shows the same thing. So, uh just as Euro AI again, 10 to 15-day anomaly outlook, and it looks warm, but >> bit of weak troughing kind of along the West Coast. Yeah. Ridging stays in in the central part of the country.

[00:31:23]>> Yeah.

[00:31:24]So, much cooler than the central US, but still most likely warm.

[00:31:28]>> Mhm.

[00:31:29]>> Just cuz it is summer, after all. So, it'll probably still be around 80.

[00:31:33]>> Yeah.

[00:31:34]>> Um yeah, look at this. I was looking at the last weekend of July, and um it seems like this model at least agrees, this is just the Euro, not the Euro AI, but um agrees that we may have a little dip in temperatures.

[00:31:50]>> By next weekend, yeah.

[00:31:52]>> Uh-huh.

[00:31:53]>> Yeah, we'll see what that little low pressure system does, but clearly the Euro wants to put that little closer to us or right over us to lower those temps. Yeah.

[00:32:01]>> Yeah, so something to watch.

[00:32:03]>> Mhm.

[00:32:04]>> Um rain sauce. It's like no rain.

[00:32:08]>> Dang. Just nothing.

[00:32:10]>> And if you're wondering why that one part is so green, it's because it's showing Is it showing tonight? No, this is yeah, this is afternoon.

[00:32:18]>> Oh, you mean at the beginning?

[00:32:20]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:21]>> Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that sh- cuz it starts starts at 12Z there. Yes, that would be this morning. So, yeah. So, this uh Euro ensemble um 24-hour QPF is looking pretty darn blank after, well, today.

[00:32:37]So, just a handful of models want to put trace amounts here and there, but you'll you'll see that a lot. That doesn't mean uh we're expecting anything coming.

[00:32:47]>> Mhm. Yeah, and a large majority are are fully dry. This is all the way through the final day of July, by the way. So.

[00:32:54]Wow, so I wonder >> You know what? We'd have to check the climatology. I wonder how many Julys we've seen zero rainfall.

[00:33:03]>> Wow.

[00:33:04]>> That'd be interesting. Something to look for for next time. It's a possibility.

[00:33:09]>> Uh yeah, I think it's a high possibility at this point. We just don't see unless that low magically starts to carry some moisture with it, which it still doesn't look like. It looks like a dry system.

[00:33:16]>> Yeah, it looks pretty weak. Yeah.

[00:33:19]>> Um okay, wanted to do a little switch up. GFS ensemble.

[00:33:23]>> Oh, I never really look at the GFS ensemble.

[00:33:27]I should from time to time.

[00:33:29]>> Me neither, but I felt like of all the models that we normally look at meteorograms, >> Mhm.

[00:33:34]>> this one matched our forecast the best.

[00:33:36]So.

[00:33:36]>> Interesting. Okay.

[00:33:37]>> Yeah. Yeah, I feel like um they were either showing triple digits, which I didn't want to scare anybody, and then or maybe just staying in the mid-80s, which I was like, "Nah, I don't know."

[00:33:47]>> Yeah.

[00:33:48]>> So, yeah, this one shows a very gradual heat up, but also very gradual cool down into next week.

[00:33:54]>> Yeah.

[00:33:55]>> Um I just feel like the pattern we're in is so slow, and when we have zonal flow, things just fly by. All right, the the zonal is that very flat west-to-east flow.

[00:34:04]>> That's true.

[00:34:05]>> like when you're driving straight, it's easier to drive really fast, right?

[00:34:09]>> Yeah.

[00:34:10]>> Um but if you're on a curvy road, >> Yeah.

[00:34:12]>> Yeah, you got to meander, and things have to follow the jet stream in a certain way, they get stuck, um and they get stagnant, so I think that's kind of what's happening is it's struggling to change patterns. We're not seeing anything dramatic here in the in the next 10 days or so.

[00:34:27]>> Yeah.

[00:34:28]>> 15 days, yeah.

[00:34:30]So, back to normal into July. I love that.

[00:34:33]>> Mhm. Okay, uh so 7-day forecast.

[00:34:37]Um well, just kind of illustrating everything we've talked about. So >> Mhm.

[00:34:40]>> Yeah, so I think morning clouds, afternoon sunshine for the next 3 days.

[00:34:44]And yeah, we'll see how long the morning clouds linger, but yeah, we've got that gradual warm-up, mid to upper 80s by Sunday, maybe, and then low 90s for I think 3 days, Monday through Wednesday, with lots of sunshine those days.

[00:34:57]>> Yeah, it'd be actually our first heat wave of July. We haven't hit 90 yet this July.

[00:35:02]>> Oh my gosh, that's actually really interesting. I hadn't thought about that. But you're right.

[00:35:07]>> Yeah, I know. It is really interesting.

[00:35:09]>> Yeah.

[00:35:09]>> What an odd July. It's been a very odd July.

[00:35:11]>> has been a weird July. Not complaining.

[00:35:14]Would have loved to see a little bit of rain, but yeah, temperature-wise, I mean, we've we've skated by, got pretty lucky.

[00:35:20]>> Yeah. Yeah, we definitely have.

[00:35:22]>> Mhm.

[00:35:22]>> Um oh, yes.

[00:35:24]>> I forgot about this.

[00:35:25]>> We added this to the end because we were going to do it in the beginning, but the lightning had to be at the top. Uh >> Yes.

[00:35:30]>> Top Top Top topic of conversation.

[00:35:32]>> Mhm.

[00:35:32]>> Um this is not the chicks right now.

[00:35:34]This is 2 weeks ago, our gold chicks. If you don't know what we're talking about, we had discovered a nest on top of a hotel near our Seaside for is for fun camp. And we've been watching these little gold chicks grow up, and it's been so cute.

[00:35:48]>> It's so cute. So, there's three of them.

[00:35:51]Uh yeah, you can see mom or dad bird there. And okay, so like Okay, memorize their head size, and also the length of their legs as we show you the next pictures.

[00:36:02]>> Right?

[00:36:03]>> Yeah.

[00:36:03]>> This is last week.

[00:36:05]>> Mhm, already stretching out.

[00:36:07]>> Yep, and I was saying even with their legs, they look like little teenagers with their scrawny legs and their >> Super awkward.

[00:36:13]>> fluffy bodies. I love it.

[00:36:15]>> And then this is today. Look at them.

[00:36:17]>> Look at them. Like their heads look small now for their bodies.

[00:36:21]>> I know. And their fluffiness is kind of tapering off. It gets not as voluptuous as that. It looks like a cotton ball.

[00:36:31]>> [laughter] >> Oh my gosh.

[00:36:32]>> They're so cute. And actually, um mom or dad, cuz seagulls mate for life and they also parent 50/50, which is really cool.

[00:36:39]Um mom and dad was fully across the roof watching them. So, I feel like that's the most distance I've seen >> Yeah.

[00:36:47]>> parent leave. Um >> They're letting them explore.

[00:36:50]>> Mhm.

[00:36:50]>> I wonder when they lose the little speckles on their heads.

[00:36:54]>> I know, I wonder. And I wonder how close they are to flying, cuz they must be really close.

[00:37:00]>> I know, cuz it's been what, 3 weeks now since they've hatched?

[00:37:03]>> Like four? Yeah, actually no, probably 3 weeks.

[00:37:06]>> Yeah.

[00:37:08]Wow.

[00:37:08]>> They're so cute. Well, we will try to keep you updated next week, but man, if I look, one of these days we're going to pull up the camera and they're not going to be there.

[00:37:16]>> We're going to be We're going to be mourning in the weather center when we lose our our sweet little family.

[00:37:22]>> They grow up so fast.

[00:37:24]>> [laughter] >> Oh my gosh.

[00:37:28]No, it's it's been really fun. Um not too often you get to have a front row seat to that. And um it is pretty pretty awesome.

[00:37:35]>> Yeah.

[00:37:36]>> Well, shoot, I was going to do comments, but I don't think we've been streaming this whole time on Facebook, which stinks.

[00:37:44]>> That's okay.

[00:37:45]>> That's all right.

[00:37:45]>> You know what? Email us your questions and maybe we'll get to them next time.

[00:37:50]How about that?

[00:37:51]>> Well, also, Michael had a suggestion for our First Alert Weather Extra Show, so 7:00 p.m. If anyone has a question, they can record themselves horizontal tweet, hamburger style.

[00:38:03]>> Um and ask the question, then we can show you in the First Alert Weather Extra Show and answer your question.

[00:38:07]>> Yeah, so it's like a twofer, because not only do you get your question answered, you get to be in the show. Like your face and your voice. That's kind of cool, right?

[00:38:15]>> Yeah, so cool. And also, we are doing I think a viewer photo of of day now, too, there. So, um if you got a cool one we had a nice whole pound punch cloud yesterday and nice cleaner too for us, so that was awesome. So if you're ever thinking looking at the sky and going hmm, what kind of cloud is that or I've never seen this formation, then send it to us. Maybe we can answer your question.

[00:38:39]>> Yes.

[00:38:41]>> All right, well that is all. Um man, it's Thursday, so it's almost the weekend, but we will be back I think next Thursday.

[00:38:50]I haven't looked at the schedule that far to be honest. Um >> One of those days. It's usually Wednesday or Thursday.

[00:38:56]>> [snorts and laughter] >> Yeah, one of those days next week. But thank you for watching and listening again. First what with our extra is on our website too if you want to check out those episodes. We've been making those about three days a week, so you can go check out some kind of long form form weather explainers that we do.

[00:39:13]But thank you so much and we'll see you next time.

[00:39:15]>> You're waiting >> [music] >> and hesitating and tell us please tell us about the weather [music] right away.