Variable weekend. And the (predicted) return of The Blob.

There will remain a chance of showers most or the day today but it should mostly be a day of transition.  It was windy around Cameron Lake this morning with plenty of leaves and a few branches on the road. The clouds were rushing by the full moon in the western sky.

Saturday should remain dry with some breaks in the clouds in the morning but general cloudiness returning in the afternoon in preparation for a bout of rain Saturday night.

Saturday night rain to start around 8PM

Showers will linger again throughout Sunday.

The storm that was predicted to come to the Pacific Northwest region for Sunday night has now disappeared from the forecast model so we need not worry about that anymore.  It has been replaced by a pretty consistent back and forth pattern of showers and rain with a day of rest between each system.

The Blob is Back – As Predicted

You have likely heard in the weather news that “the blob” of abnormally warm sea surface temperatures is back off our coast.

We had this same phenomenon in 2014 and 2015 and it lead to an extremely dry 2015 where the City of Port Alberni had to go on Level 2 water restrictions for the first time ever.  The return of that warm ocean water, combined with a weak El Niño, again mimicking 2014/2015 raises the possibility of another very dry winter and spring.

In my last post about the Blob back in October 2015 I referenced some studies compiled by the US NOAA that showed that the background warming of human caused climate change makes extreme versions of otherwise natural cycles of warm and cool waters much more likely.

For the [North East Pacific], the probability of SST anomalies such as those observed during 2014 has become about five times as likely with human influences. 

…. When such natural climate fluctuations act in conjunction with a warming background mean state, annual or seasonal regional extremes are highly likely to continue, resulting in extreme patterns similar to natural climate variability.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/bams-state-of-the-climate-2015

So unfortunately we should not be surprised at the Blob’s return. In future we may simply come to see it as normal as we continue to force the climate to change further.

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