Heavy Rainfall Update, Tornado Recap Meeting & The Blog!
Heavy Rainfall Update 2pm Sunday —
Here are the 24 hour rainfall reports I just compiled through 2pm Sunday across western Oregon and Southwestern Washington and they are quite impressive. Over 8 1/2″ in the northern Oregon Coast Range as well as the northern Oregon Cascades. Most valley locations from Eugene north to Seattle are in the 1-2″ range. The list below includes all reporting stations registering 4″ or more in a 24 hour period through the times listed below.
Stats are listed in the following order; Station name, elevation, latest report time, 24 hour rainfall through latest report time —
Mt. Hebo HEBOWX 3160 ft 1404PST 8.53″
NORTH FORK 3120 ft 1300PST 8.40″
Newport WA7ZVY-4 128 ft 1405PST 6.61″
JUNE LAKE 3340 ft 1300PST 6.30″
LOG CREEK 2800 ft 1406PST 6.10″
BLAZED ALDER 3650 ft 1300PST 6.00″
Mount Hood Meadows 5249 ft 1200PST 5.84″
CEDAR 2220 ft 1310PST 5.69″
YELLOWSTONE MTN. 3080 ft 1317PST 5.62″
Washougal DW6319 1114 ft 1344PST 5.61″
GOODWIN PEAK 1800 ft 1401PST 5.55″
Cape Mear MEARES 1421 ft 1401PST 5.43″
MT HOOD TEST SIT 5400 ft 1300PST 5.40″
Ariel DW4453 463 ft 1352PST 5.03″
LEES CAMP RAIN G 655 ft 1400PST 4.80″
Road’s E W7KKE-3 89 ft 1403PST 4.61″
WANDERER’S PEAK 4350 ft 1407PST 4.56″
TILLAMOOK 11 ft 1312PST 4.53″
Government Camp 3600 ft 1200PST 4.49″
Lees Camp DW0237 699 ft 1400PST 4.40″
RED HILL 4400 ft 1300PST 4.40″
Corbett DW3605 1755 ft 1345PST 4.39″
LARCH MT. 1150 ft 1309PST 4.37″
JUMP OFF JOE 3500 ft 1300PST 4.30″
BOULDER CREEK 3570 ft 1358PST 4.22″
CALAMITY 2500 ft 1300PST 4.20″
Lincoln C LINCON 187 ft 1403PST 4.16″
DRY CRK 1500 ft 1314PST 4.11″
Swift Dam 1010 ft 1345PST 4.05″
LITTLE MEADOWS 4000 ft 1300PST 4.00″
Tornado Recap Meeting
The Aumsville, Oregon Tornado was one month ago today (Dec 14th) and was the strongest tornado to strike western Oregon since 1992. The Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society is hosting a special meeting this coming Thursday, January 20th, 7pm, at OMSI in Portland. This meeting is free and open to the general public. We hope to see you all there. The National Weather Service will be presenting a technical recap of exactly what transpired in the moments leading up to the Aumsville tornado. This is going to be a very interesting technical presentation, along with damage photos and assessments. Please feel free to share this information with others. We are expecting a packed house. You can view the complete press release for this event here. Room capacity for this meeting is 350 people. Please arrive early for the best seating.
Blog Update
Thanks to all of you out there who have been reading this blog over the last two weeks. We are now closing in on nearly 20,000 visits! Those numbers are great, considering this blog is basically still in its infancy. Please feel free to share the blog link with others. I always encourage people to sign up and post their weather thoughts here! Again, have a great holiday weekend and stay dry!
Crown Point Wind Gauge Is “LIVE!”
Finally, I would like to mention that my friend and fellow Oregon AMS chapter councilor, Mark Nelsen of KPTV Fox 12 has installed a portable weather station at Crown Point / Vista House! Let’s be honest, this is pretty cool “weather nerd” news! It will be rolled out in the fall and brought back inside in the spring. Now any of us can see real-time wind speeds from what is likely one of the windiest spots in the Pacific Northwest. Great job Mark! To see live data from this station click here. It is important to note that this station is brand new and there are some technical difficulties getting a good wireless signal and power up there. These are all things that will be worked out in due time. If you do not see any data, just check back every so often. He will get it all dialed in soon enough. This station was funded primarily by Mark and I am personally grateful for that. Thanks Mark!
Stay tuned!
Steve
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