If rainy weather makes you blue, don’t worry. The sun will come out on Saturday, and the weekend will bring us back to the pattern of sunshine.
KPLU weather expert Cliff Mass sounded a bit surprised to see rain coming down on Friday, amid one of the sunniest winters we’ve experienced in a long time.
“It’s actually raining out right now, and that seems unusual. We’ve had a dry spell, and for the last two or three weeks, it’s hardly rained at all,” he said Friday morning after blogging earlier in the week about how happy people around him seem lately. (Here in the Emerald City, light boxes and high doses of Vitamin D are common treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder, a low mood state which, comes from lack of sunshine.)
Friday morning in the central Sound, Mass said there was half an inch of rain. And in the south sound there was an inch of it. “I mean, that’s the most rain we’ve had since the beginning of February,” he said.
Mass says a low pressure zone called a “low center, or weak disturbance” is moving down the coast, bringing in the cloudy wet stuff. He expects it to shift southward quickly. “And we should see drying out, by the middle of the afternoon,” on Friday.
“And dry is the word for the weekend,” Mass said.
“Saturday and Sunday should have no precipitation, temperatures should get up probably into the lower to mid-50s on both days, considerable sunshine on Saturday and real sunshine on Sunday, so really nice days.”
'In Like A Lion Out Like A Lamb?'
As we transition from February to March, I asked Cliff about the old saying I know about the month of March: in like a lion, out like a lamb.
He says that really only applies to the East Coast and central United States. (You can hear more about this by playing our full podcast, or clicking on the “play” icon at the top of this post.)
Mass says around here, in the western U.S., the lamb shows up the third week of February.
“And after we get through that (and we’re though it now), the chance of getting any big weather – the big windstorms, the big snowstorms, the big flooding – all those kind of bad weather events, severe weather events, really decline in frequency greatly," he said. “So if there’s going to be a lamb and lion here, it’s going to be February ... not March like on the east coast.”
So relax and soak up some rays this weekend. We’ve made it out of the dreariest darkest woods of winter. Spring will soon be here.
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A Note From Cliff Mass On The Pacific Northwest Weather Workshop:
Interested in attending the big local weather workshop of the region? The Pacific Northwest Weather Workshop will be held in Seattle at the NOAA facility on Feb. 27 to Feb. 28. Everyone is invited and the majority of talks are accessible to laypeople. To attend, you have to register or they won't let you in the gate. There will be a major session on the Oso landslide. There is a registration fee that covers refreshments and food, and special student pricing. If interested, check out the event website.
