November 18, 2024

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Last updated 12:45 PM, Monday, November 18th, 2024

By: Michael Hardie, Leo Luo, Nick Shepard, and Alec Weise

Hey Huskies, you might think it’s week 9… when in fact it’s bomb cyclone week! What exactly is a bomb cyclone? If a center of low pressure deepens by 24 millibars in a 24 hour period, it has undergone bombogenesis. With many forecast models going for a 50+ millibar drop in the 24 hours preceding Tuesday evening, we are comfortably in bomb cyclone territory. Below is the upper air chart showing a deep cut-off low off the west coast.

The rapidly deepening low pressure will make it a bad hair day Tuesday as all day, it will be very gusty.. Strong Easterly winds will impact the mountain passes as widespread 50-60mph gusts can be expected there. More locally, the winds wont be quite as strong but we can still expect gusts in the mid thirties. A wind advisory for much of the region is in effect from 2PM Tuesday to 4AM Wednesday.

Since we are experiencing a low temperature on Monday morning, we do expecting some snow events happened in western WA. We already observed some graupels this morning, but pure snow is unlikely goes down to the low-lands in the next 3 days since we still expecting a relatively high freezing level for snows. However, if we shift our eye to the mountain area, a significant snow storm is coming up. If you wanna meet with a beautiful winter scene, head up to the mountains this weekend would be a great idea. But just keep in mind the long-time precipitation during week days would make roads be slippery, be safe on you way!

As we look ahead for right here in Seattle for the next three days, of course there will be that Tuesday night wind, but also rainy conditions. Temperatures are sitting around the normal highs and lows for this time of year, with Tuesday being a bit chillier. Expect wet conditions throughout the next 3 days, but it likely won’t be huge dumps of rain.

There’s only 2.5 more weeks (Thanksgiving week is only 3 days!) left until finals, dig in for the final push Huskies!

Reach forecasters Michael Hardie, Leo Luo, Nick Shepard, and Alec Weise at uwdawgcast@uw.edu, on X/Twitter @TheUWDawgcast, or on Instagram @uwdawgcast.