More Clouds, Less Sunshine Coming Up
Happy Thursday everyone! Hope you are all enjoying the last few weeks of summer. As many of you have noticed, the days are getting shorter and the nights are feeling a bit more comfortable. This caps off what has been a relatively mild summer. No signs of any 100 degrees heat anytime soon. Historically speaking, if we do not hit 100 degrees by August 20th our chances decline rapidly thereafter. We have been as hot as 105 degrees on September 2nd 1988, but that was an extreme anomaly and there are no signs of anything like that on the horizon. How about last nights moon? That was quite a sight. Smoke from area fires helped to create a reddish look to the sky, along with passing clouds.
The overall weather pattern for the next seven days will be taking a turn as an area of low pressure off the coast will move a little closer to the Pacific Northwest. This will push the ridge of high pressure currently over us to the east. The result will be more in the way of clouds and less in the way of afternoon sunshine over the next 5-7 days. Afternoon high temperatures will fall from the 80’s to the mid-70’s across the Portland / Vancouver area beginning Saturday and lasting into next week. There will also be a few showers from time to time, but those should not amount to much. Mostly folks will notice more in the way of clouds and less in the way of sun. Spotty areas of morning drizzle are also possible over the weekend. It is still a little too early to look ahead to the Labor Day holiday weekend forecast. More on that next week.
Here are my forecast high temperatures for Portland / Vancouver over the next few days:
Today – 85
Friday – 81
Saturday – 77 (morning drizzle?)
Sunday – 75 (morning drizzle?)
Monday – 76
Tuesday – 77
The Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) has just inked two great meetings slated for September and October that will be free and open to all ages of the general public. Mark your calendars now for September 25th when former Oregon State Climatologist and Meteorologist George Taylor will speak to our chapter in Portland. His complete presentation is detailed on our website. Then we will host our premier meeting of the season. The 21st annual Winter Weather Forecast Conference will be held Saturday, October 26th 2013 beginning at 10am at OMSI in Portland. This annual meeting is a blast! Weather forecasters from across the Pacific Northwest 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. This meeting normally attracts a capacity of 300+ attendees. If you are a meteorologist and would like to be considered for one of our four (4) open forecast slots this year, please download and submit your RFP (Request for Presentations) no later than September 3rd. We will also consider other related earth and atmospheric science presentations, as times allows. To view complete details on both of these meetings or to download an RFP, please see: http://www.ametsoc.org/chapters/oregon/
Stay tuned!
Steve Pierce
President, Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
Columbian Newspaper Weather Blogger
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 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