Pacific NW: More Active Weather!!!

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, Michael Snyder, Pacific Northwest Weather Watch. Today is May 14th and right now we are looking at the infrared satellite imagery. Pacific Northwest at the upper right, of course, and you can see our next system with some cooler air aloft. It's going to be moving in here over the next few days.

[00:00:16]We'll take a look at what kind of weather we can expect and what we might be dealing with here across the region.

[00:00:22]Even a thunderstorm chance here over the next couple days and we'll take a look at the extended forecast as always as we go through the video this morning. So, taking a look at yesterday, want to back this up and look at that line of thunderstorms there through portions of western Montana and some of eastern Idaho as well. Did have some strong wind reports out of that. Some gusts well up into the 70s and I saw some over 80 mph as well, but look at all that lightning moving across western Montana there and then you can see the sunset and we come back out towards this morning. There's actually a few areas of some sunshine peaking out there as well. Let me stop that and you can see that some of the central sound a little [clears throat] bit of sun peaking through the Willamette Valley, maybe and a little bit sunnier there east of the mountains there as well. But you can also see the next frontal system and the cooler air aloft start to push its way towards Pacific Northwest. More on that here as we go through the video. So, these were all the wind reports out there. If you click on some of this stuff, it looks like an 85 mph wind Big Sandy, Northwest Montana Mesonet and we can look out towards where is this one here? We're looking towards Broadwater County, 78 mph gust in portions of Idaho as well.

[00:01:26]Again, 75 mph gust there.

[00:01:29]Yeah, pretty crazy stuff there in Butte County.

[00:01:32]Love miles west-southwest of Atomic City. So, yeah, there was that thunderstorm activity pushing off to the west or off to the east there yesterday.

[00:01:40]Now, taking a look here at day one thunderstorm outlook. You can see nothing in store for us today according to the Storm Prediction Center, but as we go on in through tomorrow, look at that. Start to introduce some of that across some of southwest BC and some of western Washington as well. And then we look off in towards Saturday. You can see it continues to show some potential for thunderstorm activity. And that's going to be because the cold air aloft that's coming across the region. More on that here in a bit as well. So, uh speaking of lightning, this this weather station here has its own lightning detection system, solar powered, and uh very fun stuff. It's got an ultrasonic anemometer, haptic rain gauge, does UV index, solar radiation. So, very fun system. You can actually detach it right here and it you can screw it into like a a wood deck or whatnot, or you can order this pole separately, and it curves and you can mount it on pretty much anything you like there. So, easy to set up, fun stuff. And uh now, taking a look here at where we are and where we're going. So, let's go to where we are right about now. So, there we are on a Thursday. You can see again, there's that next wrinkle here in the 500-millibar flow, which is about 18,000 ft up. We're looking at the mid-levels of our atmosphere. So, there's our next system here. And as we scroll through the day today, there's this afternoon. You can see that push through, and then we have another system rolling through here as we go through the day on Friday. Troughing hangs out as we go through portions of this weekend, and this one really dives down here across the Intermountain West with a ridge rebuilding here out over the Pacific Ocean. It may allow us to warm up a bit here as we go through next week with a troughing here across some of the Rocky Mountains. Now, if we scroll a little bit further, I'm going to see that ridge kind of stay out there. The Gulf of Alaska low weakens a bit here.

[00:03:21]So, yeah, we're probably cutting off the precipitation for a while. So, do enjoy what we are getting here over the next few days. And if you want to be an online weather spotter, actually online weather spotter talk, you can become a weather spotter here. This is Friday, June 5th, and you can scan this QR code.

[00:03:36]See if it works here from what you're viewing on your screen. But otherwise, you can go to uh National Weather Service, Missoula, Montana here, so you can increase your weather knowledge. So, check it out. Now, also for Missoula, Montana, still some strong winds ongoing out there in the wake of that system.

[00:03:51]So, I thought I would mention that and kind of trending significantly cooler and showery as we go with maybe 14th through 19th. Now, taking a look here, uh let's take a look at what we have across the region coming up here. So, we put this in a motion, you can see the precipitation increasing again here as we go through tonight. Some areas are going to be fairly rain shadowed.

[00:04:09]Another decent shot of some precipitation for the Cascades of Washington. You see not much here for Eastern Washington. You pick it back up once you get across some of Northeast Washington, some of the Rockies of uh British Columbia there and Idaho and Montana here as well. Much lesser amounts for Oregon versus Washington and some of British Columbia. We now scroll on in through Friday and we got that one more system to go. The air cools down a little bit. It brings a little bit of some mountain snow up there. For the higher peaks, it does a bit better. So, if you're way off across some of the higher elevations, you will get better amounts out of this system. And then we scroll on into the sub-coming weekend.

[00:04:45]The trough kind of hangs out, but then we start to dry out as we move on in towards next week and going to put an end to the big-time precipitation at least for a while. We'll scroll up towards what about Tuesday [clears throat] night right there.

[00:04:58]Now, looking at the last 48 hours, so there some pretty decent amounts here across some of the Cascades. The The models were overdoing actually what fell into some of the lower elevations, kind of what I was talking about a bit there.

[00:05:10]A little bit for some of Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon here also, but again, the best amounts showing up across some of the higher terrain and you can see lesser amounts to further south you go across portions of Oregon and some of the coastal range got up over an half inch for some locations as well though. Some of the Cascades though up over an inch for several locations even down in towards Mount Hood there also. So, since January 1st, you know, we badly need that precipitation here because we've been well below normal here for many locations. I mean, some select areas out there were slightly above normal, but again, it doesn't take much to kind of skew those numbers. But look at Northeast Washington, a lot of the Washington-Oregon Cascades, Western Oregon, Washington was quite a ways below normal for this year and that's kind of, you know, discouraging because we were in La Niña conditions. We got an El Niño coming up and probably next year. Average temperature here and you can see we have been above normal significantly so for some locations since the beginning of the year. Now, the National Blend of Models, so this is on the day-to-day. Again, you can kind of see how Seattle is rain shadowed.

[00:06:12]Only picked up a few hundredths of an inch of rain by tomorrow morning. The Cascades do better. We go through Friday. It does bring a bit more rain into Seattle. Lesser amounts down into Oregon, but again, some of the higher terrain making out fairly decently, but again, the rain shadowing goes on proportion to Eastern Washington and then we scroll on into the extent of forecasting. You can kind of see how we dry out. We're not bringing a lot more into much of the region as we go all the way out through the 12-day period or 11-day period.

[00:06:39]Now, composite reflectivity, let's take a look at that thunderstorm potential.

[00:06:43]So, as we scroll through the day today, kicking off some more of those showers as we go through the day today and then we go on into tonight. That system kind of slides through and Friday's system, a little bit chillier air aloft. A little bit more of an active day here and there is some thunderstorm potential with some of these showers here moving across the area. A bit of mountain snow as well and then we're going to go on through Saturday and you can kind of see the upper level low will still be with us.

[00:07:07]Some chilly air aloft and a thunderstorm threat will be possible with some of the shower activity. We'll revisit that again tomorrow morning. Now, looking at lightning flash density potential on the European, let's scroll on into the day on Friday. You can see it does show some of that instability around. Saturday looking a little bit better though. Look at Washington up into British Columbia.

[00:07:27]Almost pretty sharp cut off right along the border there. But yeah, there is a thunderstorm threat there as we go through Friday and Saturday coming up.

[00:07:36]Let me scroll a little bit further off.

[00:07:37]You can see Sunday we kind of keep some of that going for Eastern portions of British Columbia, Northeast Washington, maybe across some of the Rocky Mountains out there as well. And then we go on and through Monday, one more day of some thunder possible, and then it starts to kick off to the east a bit more. Now, looking at 850 millibars, about 5,000 ft up here, we're getting the chillier air starting to move in here now, and then we scroll through the day today. Again, the coldest air probably arrives as we get on in through portions of Friday.

[00:08:05]You can see finally at 5,000 ft, some areas start to drop below freezing. It's fairly high up, and as we go through Saturday, we keep some of that cool air around, and one more day on Sunday with the troughing still there. And then we're going to start to warm things up a bit more as we start to get some ridging off the coast, and you can kind of see the warmer air trying to build in there.

[00:08:24]And as far as snowfall, so if I scroll through this, again, this is for the higher terrain out there, getting some of these are magic, you see Mount Rainier right there, but like Snoqualmie Pass and Stevens, you're just talking about a couple inches maybe for Snoqualmie, and maybe, you know, 3-4 inches for Stevens Pass or hopefully it does over-perform. And with some of the showery nature of this stuff, that is a possibility here, but again, this is not a lot of snow. This is definitely going to not going to make up for one of the lowest snow packs on record here in the Pacific Northwest also. So, yeah, it's just really at that point of the year where it becomes very difficult to really build a lot of snow across our higher terrain that would be meaningful anyway. And if we look at snow depth in inches, you can kind of scroll through here, and you can kind of see how it was 44 when we started, and you know, not much of a net gain here over the next 6 days. Now, looking at daily 2-m maximum temperature, this is Thursday, May 14th, 62 for Seattle, some mid-upper 60s, Willamette Valley, some 70s in the Treasure Valley, some 70s out there for eastern Oregon, maybe some Tri-Cities out there in the low 70s as well. We go on and through Friday. Look at some of these temperatures drop off, only 55 for Seattle, Vancouver, BC, probably low mid-50s there as well. A little bit warmer, you want to go down towards the Willamette Valley where east of the mountains there, but look it's going to be pretty raw there across some of the mountainous areas of Washington up into British Columbia. Saturday, not much better here. Still pretty darn right chilly across much of the region with that upper level trough right over the area. Then we go Sunday, Monday, we start to warm things back up a bit as we go through next week. Look at that, some of the 70s returning there for Seattle and for some of western Oregon there all the way up into southern BC. So, we'll see how that goes. We'll break that down day by day. Uh here's the 15-day precipitation anomaly. And again, above average for some areas of western Washington, but again, kind of hit and miss here in Oregon. Uh again, not getting too much in the way of precipitation. Idaho, Montana, and you can kind of see it's a bit of a mixed bag here. So, it was nice to have this these systems move through, but again, not a big drought buster or anything by that, you know, by any stretch of the imagination out of that in the last few systems there. Although, rain is always welcome. Now, look at the 46-day and see continues to dog us with this below normal signal as we go on in through the month of June. This goes out 46 days on the European weeklies.

[00:10:45]Um yeah, check me out on Facebook, check me out on Patreon as well. And what else? I may be chasing uh coming up this week and I may leave Saturday night and go out for a few days out in the plains.

[00:10:56]We'll see how that goes. I'm about to check the forecast. I haven't even looked at anything yet this morning. Um but otherwise, um I will bring my show on the road. I will try to get a microphone set up for my laptop so the audio is a little bit better there as well. So, I'll probably be out there in a hotel and yeah, so hopefully you guys can tune in for those. But yeah, again, thanks to everybody who subscribes and who comes back and checks on a daily basis. All my monetary uh supporters here. Again, this channel is not possible without you. So, thank you very much for that and I will catch you guys in tomorrow's forecast.