Significant Storm This Weekend

Steve_Pierce_078

Thursday Morning Update —

Confidence is increasing this morning for a potentially significant rainfall event this weekend across NW Oregon and SW Washington. A strong September jet stream will consolidate across the Pacific Ocean and aim its energy at the Pacific Northwest beginning Friday night and lasting through the weekend. This is fairly significant by September standards and would be something we would expect to see later in the fall or winter months. The most significant of these systems will arrive Saturday night. Remnants of a tropical typhoon will be entrained into the jet stream which will help add to the precipitation rates across the region. Latest model data out this morning shows the continued trend for potentially significant rainfall amounts across the central and northern Oregon coast, the coast range mountains, the northern Oregon Cascades and interior valley locations of NW Oregon and SW Washington as the system stalls over these areas Saturday night. If model trend data verifies, there is the potential for 72 hour rainfall amounts to exceed 6″ in the mountains and nearing 3″ in the valleys come Monday morning. This comes on the heels of a very wet September already. The Portland International Airport has received 2.24″ of rainfall to date which is more than 1″ above average for September. The wettest September on record at the airport was in 1986 when 4.30″ of precipitation fell. Period of record is 1940-Current. If model forecasts are correct, Portland may challenge the top spot by the end of the month Monday. The focus of this weekends system will be rainfall, and lots of it. I will post further updates here on the blog if anything changes substantially. Feel free to hyperlink to this blog. Get ready for another wet and wild ride this weekend!

Here is a the latest U of W WRF model showing 72 hour rainfall map ending at 5am Monday. This would be significant by September standards. For instance, the red color is rainfall totals between 5-10″ in the northern Oregon Cascades and areas of the northern coast range.

72 hour precip

Stay tuned!

Steve Pierce
President, Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
Columbian Newspaper Weather Blogger

The Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) will host the 21st annual Winter Weather Forecast Conference on Saturday, October 26th 2013 beginning at 10am at OMSI in Portland. This annual meeting is the single largest conference of its kind in the Pacific Northwest! Weather forecasters from across the region will once again converge on Portland to give their best prognostications for what this upcoming winter will bring weather-wise to Oregon and SW Washington. This meeting is also free and open to all ages of the general public. Please arrive early if you want a seat. We will also raffle off a $300 Davis home weather station to one lucky winner. This meeting normally attracts a capacity of 300+ attendees. To view complete details on this meeting please see: http://ametsoc.org/chapters/oregon/MeetingInfo/2013/2013_10_26_OR_AMS_Meeting_Announcement.pdf

Don’t forget — you can get my latest weather and climate updates via Facebook. Send me a friend request at http://facebook.com/stevepiercevancouver and I will add you in. Don’t forget to also bookmark this blog at http://blogs.columbian.com/weather. Are you an amateur simply interested in weather? Maybe you are a professional meteorologist? Why not join the single largest chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in the country with 180 fellow members? The Oregon chapter hosts eight monthly meetings from September through June. All of these meetings are free and open to the public. We are always looking for new members. Dues are just $10 a year! For Oregon AMS meeting details and a membership application, please see http://ametsoc.org/chapters/oregon

 

Steve Pierce

Steve Pierce

Steve Pierce is widely known as Oregon and Washington's "go-to-guy" when it comes to fast, accurate historical meteorological research and forecasts. Steve is currently the President of the Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Steve is also recognized as a regional weather commentator and blogger who can be heard on local radio stations and seen in print media outlets across the Pacific Northwest. His Weather Blog is hosted by the Columbian Newspaper in Vancouver. Check it out! He is a third generation resident of Vancouver, Washington and holds a degree in Communications. Both sets of Steve's grandparents migrated to Vancouver during World War II. One set traveled from Lenox, Iowa to work in the Kaiser Shipyards supporting the war effort. The other set came to Vancouver from Olympia, Washington to work as educators for the rapidly expanding Vancouver School District. When the war was over, both sets of grandparents decided to stay in Vancouver and continue raising their families, as did thousands of other families at the time. Those who are most familiar with Steve can attest to the fact that weather is his true passion. His love for "all things weather" began at the age of 7 when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980. He was fascinated with which direction the ash plumes were headed. Then came the very powerful windstorm of Friday, November 13, 1981, also referred to as the "Friday the 13th" storm. This was the strongest storm to hit the Portland / Vancouver area since the great Columbus Day Storm of 1962! At age 11, he was asked to publish an extended weather forecast for his elementary school's weekly newsletter. In the 1980's, at age 14, Steve was the youngest of KGW-TV's local "weather watchers" and would phone in his daily Vancouver weather stats to then television meteorologist Jim Little for use on-air. Steve has lived through all of the major Pacific Northwest weather events of the past 30 years, and then some. The most notable events include; the bitterly cold winter of 1978-1979, the record setting snow storms of January 1980, the summer heat wave of August 1981, the windstorms of November 1981 and December 1995, the severe arctic blast of February 1989, the record flood of February 1996, the historic ice storm of January 2004, the Vancouver tornado of January 2008 and the record setting snow storm of Christmas 2008. Not to mention every Mt. St. Helens volcanic eruption in between. With access to the most extensive set of historical weather records available to date, Steve has personally designed and integrated a proprietary system that gives him the ability to quickly locate and manipulate weather data as far back as the 1800's. As one local Meteorologist put it, "Steve has fast access to historical weather data that is needed for media, agriculture, business, personal, historical and other climatological needs. He can quickly manipulate the data in many different ways. His forecasts are also quite accurate, especially at longer lead times." Steve also provides local storm assessments, narratives and weather presentations to the general public, as requested. In his spare time, Steve enjoys spending time with his family, the outdoors, vacationing at his family's coastal cabin and just relaxing! By the way, do you like your weather on the "extreme" side? So does Steve! Whether it is collecting damage assessment data & photos after record setting 125 mph winds at the coast in December 2007, being one of the first on the scene after the January 2008 Vancouver tornado, or feeling (literally) the awesome power of 100 mph wind gusts at Oregon's Crown Point in January 2010, Steve has experienced it all! As Steve says, "don't just love weather, live weather!" Check out Steve's personal weather website at: http://www.piercevideo.com/weather.shtml

Scroll to top