Results tagged “weather”

Steve Pool is promising eighty degrees by Saturday, but we know better than to hang our hopes on the emptiness that is a Seattle weather person’s five-day forecast. Just go outside, shit is cold. If summer is going to spring back into form like a sunny Lazarus, we won’t complain--but right now it’s taking more faith than us heathens can afford. Coming off maybe the wettest Bumbershoot in memory, this feels like an appropriate time to reflect on the summer in the past tense.

Ye Olde Probcast has the weather predictions for Wednesday, and the forecast is a 90-degree day (as hot as 95, as cool as 85). We're glad summer ain't over yet, but we're also glad we'll be in an air-conditioned office for most of tomorrow.

After our recent heat wave, UW meteorologist Cliff Mass emphasized that weather shouldn't be confused with climate change. Then he added, with scientific sangfroid, "I suspect mankind will not act fast enough to reduce fossil fuel use to stop large global warming effects and that we will learn to live with it."

Make no mistake about it. Last Wednesday was an epic event. The thermometer was just so many numbers. But no one who has lived here, in recorded history, had ever been through anything like it.

How dry we are! Only 0.24 of an inch of precipitation recorded at SeaTac for all of June and July, says KING 5's Jeff Renner via Twitter. Old record? 0.48 of an inch. We're told we may see some of the wet stuff by Thursday or Friday, but in the meantime, keep moisturizing.

Over the past six days, King County Animal Care and Control received 35 reports of dogs locked in very hot cars, during what's been Seattle's most dramatically hot week ever (!). Thankfully, no fatalities occurred from pooches being left to suffer and pant their way through 130-degree temperatures.

You don't have to be as intrepid, for refreshing water can be had from any altitude or elevation round these parts...even from 0 feet above sea level. Take off early; we'll write you a note.

Under normal conditions, we have nothing but scorn for spoiled, complain-happy Seattleites who start griping when the temperature climbs above 75F, but on this day--THE HOTTEST DAY EVAARRRRRR--by all means, be our guest.

Stare at the above photo and repeat to yourself, "The city needs more snow plows."

ARTSBLOG sent us this picture he shot of a few of the 280 people in line to buy air conditioners at the North Seattle Home Depot. "The guy up front said they started lining up this morning, said a truck of various air conditioners just pulled up. He said there was no way there were enough air conditioners on the truck for even a third of the people in line. The guy said they’ve been telling people this all day but nobody is leaving the line and they keep lining up," reports Art. "Man, nobody was talking and you could cut the tension with a knife. They were just sending people out with air conditioners that they were taking off the truck and they were sending them out through the lawn and garden department so there wouldn't be trouble." Check out his full post on the Great A/C Shortage of '09.

• Monday evening, Seattle police discovered an unidentified human body that had drowned in Lake Washington and washed ashore the beach of Lake Cottage Park.
• Good news for ORCA card holders: Seattle Transit Blog says the Seattle Streetcar will be adding ORCA readers to stations starting next year.

The Pink Door has large black canvas shades to keep the sun out of your eyes, but said shades don't keep the heat out. All evening we were patting our temple with our cloth napkin like a 19th-century lawyer.

There is no question this week is going to be a hot one, as temperatures reach into the high 90s and perhaps even 100 degrees. As many people crank up the power and seek an air conditioned refuge away from the heat, Seattle City Light--here's their energy-saving tips to beat the heat--warns that their old equipment may fail as temperatures climb. Customers need to be prepared for potential outages. Grrreat.

• As of 9 a.m. this morning, Sea-Tac's cell phone waiting lot has re-opened. The new lot is twice the size, with nearly 100 spaces and can be found just north of the old lot on Air Cargo Road.
• My Ballard reported that around 3 a.m. this morning, a car collided smackdab into a utility pole at Market Street near Third Avenue, leaving the 27-year-old driver trapped inside. Rescue crews were able to cut the driver free, who was then sent to Harborview with non-life threatening injuries.

If you didn't stock up on fans, porches, and Mint Juleps this past weekend to brave the heat, you may want to rethink that decision. This week (and perhaps even longer) Seattle will be experiencing one helluva summer heat wave--to the point where an excessive heat warning has been issued for our area until Thursday, July 30.

The good news is that UW weather guru Cliff Mass says we're not looking at a record-breaking temperature spike coming up--but the bad news is that it's still a pretty sharp spike to be poked with. (In the same post he's got reader pics of noctilucent clouds, which, in a movie, would be a signal for supernatural doings afoot. Go take look. Real pretty.)

The heat's already gotten to our squirrel neighbor, and it's just after nine a.m. KOMO says 85 degrees today, tops. Cliff Mass says in New England, people are complaining about their cold, dreary summer, but we've got temps in the 80s as far as next Monday.

A week ago, news of Fisher Plaza’s fire-induced power outage came as a surprise to gullible emergency management types who were guaranteed the media "fortress" could withstand even the most modern of technological curveballs. But in light of the present truck stop generator makeover that's sprung up on John Street, we're not so sure.

Thanks to a study led by Julian Sachs, a UW associate professor of oceanography, scientists tracked rainfall from 1400 to 1850 at four Pacific islands, and found, in scientific-ese: "that the Pacific intertropical convergence zone was south of its modern position for most of the past millennium, by as much as 500 km during the Little Ice Age."

Seattle weather guru Cliff Mass has some unsettling news: May 20 to June 30 was the driest such period in the 116-year history of Seattle weather-record-keeping. Seattle got a mere .18 inches of rain--not enough to chase a whiskey--deblitermashing the previous record by a full .1 inch! Suck it, 1934.

We’ve spent the last two Junes bitching about the weather, so we are using this gloomy Friday to rave about all the blue sky and warm temperatures we’ve had so far. Seriously, Greek god of weather, get over here so we may perform many high fives.

Cliff Mass says no rain was detected at SeaTac (despite a few drops in Seattle yesterday), and so we've moved into contention for the "longest dry run in May-June" in recorded history. Truly these are days of miracle and wonder.

• Seattle's famed musician Dave Matthews is never too good for a ride around Green Lake. He's one with the locals, and we like that.
• Powerball no more. That means, no bouncing balls spinning in a bubble, no cheesy ball reader wearing sequins, and no additional $12 million for the state of Washington.

The crazy hot weather--that we've either loved or hated--turned on us last night, when the record-high 90-degree temps dropped and all hell broke loose. The high winds came whipping in across Puget Sound, knocking out the power to either 12,000 or 14,000 folks in Thurston, Pierce and south King County. Seattle City Light reported that power had been restored to customers in west and north Seattle, while about 25 percent of Rainier Beach is still left to be recovered from the dark.

We have to talk about something serious, you guys: it's summer. We know, it was warm yesterday and it's gonna be warm today. But it's not that bad. Wednesday was a record-breaking day, and the official temp at SeaTac didn't even hit 90. Today's going to be more of the same, but we're sure we'll make it through this terrible ordeal just fine.

Once again, enjoy the hot, hot heat, Seattle. It's going to be another golden day of temperature highs in the low 90s--we are talking record-breaking here. Okay, admit it, how many went out and bought an air conditioner this week? Well, in his last morning weather report, KOMO's weatherman Jim Castillo (he's moving to the evening newscast) said today's heat wave is thanks to crazy thermal trough patterns, which are holding back the sea breeze and sucking in all the hot air from the east. So hydrate people, HYDRATE!

"Beat L.A." "Beat L.A." The chant never worked in basketball, we never tried it for weather. But check it! Gloat away, Seattle. This week's weather is absolutely boomin'. After the jump, see how we house the rest of America's big cities. Yes, Chicago can suck it.

Lookit, today is a downright glorious day--way too glorious for the beginning of a workweek. We could encourage you to attend all kinds of events, including scads of SIFF films and at least two shows (the dirty electro of Peaches at the Showbox or ex-members of the Unicorns and Arcade Fire making up Clues at Neumo's). But we won't.