click here for all photos of this event

when i first arrive to seattle mid-march, it was cold and rainy for the first three weeks… rain pretty much non-stop and i loved it! then the storm systems became less and less though it was still pretty cool and cloudy through early may thankfully. early to mid may arrives and the solid cloud cover breaks and we start to see more sun, and even less rain (ugh…not the sun!). june, pretty much all sun and no substantial rain to amount to anything.

now for the heat that has been plaguing the west for the past couple of weeks. on of my recent photo blogs discussed how the cascades and pacific prevented the seattle area and western washington from getting very hot, but the long range models were showing a change in the weather pattern that would allow things to heat up considerably. well, they were right and it’s been bloody hot here for the past two days (hot for pacific northwest standards that it). coming from texas, this really isn’t all that hot as temps yesterday peaked in the lower 90s, though today will likely top out near 100 (it’s 95 right now in seattle with at least one or two more hours of baking sun remaining today). outside the heat is not all that bad because you know what to expect. however, just like in new york when i was living there, pretty much no one has air conditioning indoors as it’s not needed. there were definitely more air conditioners in new york than there are here since it gets hotter there more often during the summer than here. so that makes the heat that much more intense. people in the south laugh and joke about how northerners in the northeast or pacific northwest complain about temperatures in the middle and upper 90s when they deal with them and 100s on a normal basis. however, they fail to look at the fact that pretty much no building exists in the south without air conditioning and every modern building built within the last 20-30 years has a strong central air conditioning system. that’s not the case in here!

i don’t have air conditioning in my apartment, which i’m totally fine with because my electricity bill for a two month period is only $20 and it’s not really needed here. just leave the windows open all the time and it stays cool. plus the fresh air from outside is always more pleasant than recycled indoor air that you get with central air units. the downside is that when it gets this hot outside, it stays hot inside. right now my trusty thermometer at my desk shows that it’s 90 degrees in my apartment, which doesn’t feel all that bad coming in from outside. if it doesn’t cool off much at night, then it won’t indoors either even with the windows open. the one thing i can be thankful for is that when there is an intense heat wave here in the pacific northwest, it also means that there’s pretty much no moisture in the atmosphere since the onshore flow has been completely reversed. dewpoints remain low (32 degrees right now in seattle) and thus the heat index is not much higher than the actual temperature if higher at all. in new york, the heat waves were disgusting since there is still a lot of moisture in the air due to the southwest flow that brings in the hot air from the west. this flow also draws in gulf of mexico moisture into the northeast which makes heat index values skyrocket.

luckily the onshore flow returns tomorrow as the hot ridge of high pressure overhead now drifts east over the central rockies, and this brief heat wave will be over. temps will return back to the normal middle 70s for highs and lows in the lower to mid 50s once again! these past couple of days have just reminded me that no matter where i’m at, the weather will never cooperate and there’s just no escape from the f’n heat!

at first i was going to write about the recent 2008 presidential debates that were held on cnn, but after realizing that i could go on and on about it and that i really don’t feel like writing all that much this evening, i scrapped that idea (for another time i’m sure). plus, i’ve also written several politics-related entries so i’m sure you don’t want to hear yet another.

instead, i wanted to write about something more pleasant…the weather here in seattle as of late. in case you didn’t know, we did have a “heat wave” (well, a heat wave by pacific northwest standards) last week, where temperatures got well into the lower and mid 80s several days in a row. i can honestly say that i have been spoiled by the nice cool weather here since i arrived, where it did not get above 70 degrees probably until may and even then it was only in the low 70s. so of course when it gets up into the 80s it feels drastically hotter. luckily i’m used to the brutal summers in texas where it’s 90 degree and higher from may through september, so it didn’t bother me too much. i definitely don’t miss the texas heat, though i really do miss the severe storms you get there this time of year (which they have been getting a lot of lately). oh well, i’ll take the nice cool, rainy weather over the heat and occasional storms anyday!

so this week the heat wave of last week is only a memory and it has turned drastically cooler. high temperatures have only been in the 50s most of this week and only got above 60 today. the days have been nice, dreary and gray with off and on rain and drizzle… the kind of weather i love aside from major winter storms. it’s been cool enough to warrant needing a jacking during the days which is new to me. jackets in june? thanks to the cold waters of the pacific ocean and puget sound, whenever the weather is cloudy and drizzly the temperatures are persistantly cool when there is an onshore flow. sun returns tomorrow, but thankfully will be short-lived as another more potent storm moves in saturday brining rain and cool temperatures well into next week.

just look at the long range forecast guidance for days 6-10 away… depicting well below normal temperatures for all of the pacific northwest. below normal temperatures continue into days 8-14 according to this latest guidance issued by noaa. it would be nice to avoid any temperature at or above 90 degrees the entire summer here in seattle. it’s possible as last year there were only FOUR days the entire summer that reached or went above 90 degrees!

i was somewhat bored, so put together another collage of the puget sound from my walk the other day…

hopefully i can get my lease stuff worked out in seattle by tomorrow, and then i can finally book my airline ticket to make it set in stone… the date when i move to seattle

just look at the latest radar animation, which is how the precipitation has been all day since late last night!

some areas just to the west of austin have received 2-3″ of snow so far and it’s still falling… not to mention the large accumulation of ice on surfaces. for us here in atlanta, the local forecasters are simply ‘wish-casting’ by putting in a chance of sleet in the forecast for late wednesday night and early thursday morning. i’m definitely not holding my breath, and if it does indeed happen then it will a few pellets if that