Airports in Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. are bracing for a long round of extreme weather, expected starting tonight over a wide swath of western North America. The area has seen substantially dry conditions for months. But a very slow-moving “atmospheric river” is moving in, expected to bring high winds and torrential rains. According to the website Weather West, the expected flash flooding will be worse, given how wildfires earlier this year (more than 1 million acres burned throughout California) have cleared trees and other vegetation.
The first low seems to be filling and has fizzled out. The next low is moving shorewards but looks to be a garden variety that occurs regularly this time of year. It is the cool scotchgard season in the Pacific northwest, nothing very remarkable.
Hey!, Seattle has what some refer to as a Mediterranean climate though not as warm.
Dry summers, wet winters.
Rarely goes over 80F in summer, but feels humid when it does.
Summer attractions for aviation people include the Blue Angels performing over Lake Washington around the time of the unlimited hydroplane races, in early August.
I like to tell non-aviation people of Tex Johnston rolling the Dash80 jetliner prototype in front of the hydroplane crowd.
To show it wasn’t a fluke he turned around and did it again.
Claim is the president of Boeing turned to the president of Bell and asked if he could have one of his heart pills. (Many aviation executives in the crowd that day including potential customers.)
Claimed that the president called Tex on the carpet on Monday and demanded to now what he was doing. ‘Selling airplanes’.
(He did a descending barrel roll to keep positive acceperation on the airframe.)
I don’t like Seattle per se but western Washington is one of the most beautiful areas of the country, on a sunny day, rivaling California. The trick is to find the sunny day.
Ah, Tri-Cities area is on other side of those nasty little mountains that pilots need to be very wary of - high precipitation rates etc. (The Cascade mountains.)
Not counting volcanic activity - a Pacific Western Airlines crew saw St. Helens blow ahead of them. Some time later we had to deal with ash drifting across SW BC, AB, and east but nothing like hit Spokane.
Cliff Mass at University of Washington is a credible meteorologist, does research on weather prediction and has a blog which includes discussion of the unusual offshore phenomenon this month.
Over west of Port Alberni, the Philippine Mars water bomber was beached for engine work so less vulnerable to winds. It is headed to an established museum in Pima AZ. But after testing at high speed on Sproat Lake Coulson decided to swap one engine with a known good one from Hawaii Mars which is now at BCAM at YYJ, for good.
Indications are that Philippine Mars will overnight in San Francisco Bay then in San Diego before going inland to a lake in AZ from where it will be disassembled and transported on land to the museum. (A former Mars base and main base, respectively.) People hope the Blue Angels will escort it into AZ, if they are at their winter base near SD by then. The Canadian Snowbirds escorted Hawaii Mars around Victoria BC to YYJ, after their performance at the Abbotsford Air Show.
After engine change, high speed taxi testing on the lake, then at least six hours test flying, it can head south.
One of the big issues here is adapting to webbed feet. Some folks only get fungus infections which can be dealt with using copius amounts of local fermented wine. Others need to move to dry, arid climates where the secretions of cactus plants will cure these maladies. Still doing much research.
