News of an impeding wind event has been prevalent for a few days, but a blizzard?
We had reports from several people around the Portland area that their cell phones and computers chirped to life Sunday afternoon with alerts of a blizzard warning issued for their area.
The blizzard warning is real, but unless you live in the mountains, it was not for "their area."
What a day to be out on the waterfront in Rocco on Italy's northwestern coast!
A photographer captured this 7-minute long video of a waterspout off the coast:
We all know the Willamette Valley gets a lot of rain, but have you ever thought of just much water really falls in a big rainstorm?
Local engineer Dale Smith had the burning question pop into his head when he read about a statistic that says our "Pineapple Express" type rain storms transports an amount of water vapor equal to between 7.5 to 15 times the average flow of liquid water out of the Mississippi River.
If you were looking for the one spot in the Lower 48 that might qualify as the absolute worst place to be Thursday night, Mt. Shasta might be the winner.... or loser, as the case may be.
As a major storm bears down on Northern California, the mountain's top is about to be battered with about the absolute worst Mother Nature has to offer.
Through Saturday, the forecast is for winds of 75-95 mph gusting to 115 mph with unbelievable amounts of snowfall. The forecast for Thursday night alone was for 36-42 inches of new snow.
It's been quite the week for my inbox to be filled with links to gorgeous weather shots from both the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
First up is a majestic sunrise around Seattle by Jonathan Cooper:
The holiday shopping season is here -- is there someone on your Christmas List who is a meteorologist? (Or aspires to be?) Since we have yet to be able to gift wrap a snowstorm and hide it under the tree, here are some humble suggestions for what could be the next-best thing.
An Arlington photographer who was looking for some way to find beauty in the persistent rainy weather of late struck gold on Wednesday morning. These photographs show raindrops suspended on a poor spider's web just after rain let up earlier this week.
But I'll let Angela Kelly, the photographer, tell you the story of how the photo came about:
There's been a lot of talk around the U.S. lately about The Weather Channel's controversial naming of winter storms on their own, which was fresh on the heels of the debate over what to have called Superstorm Sandy.
But did you know the Germans have not only been naming storms for decades, they allow you to choose them?
Yes, if you ever wanted to name a stretch of nice weather after yourself, or perhaps saddle an incoming winter storm with the name of that P.E. teacher that made you run extra laps, the German equivalent of our National Weather Service gives you that opportunity.
If you had any thoughts this week might be amazing, the Weather Channel has news for you:
It won't.
While Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy made history books for its destruction, its follow up storm is making history for a different reason: its name.
The Nor'Easter bearing down on New England Wednesday has been given the name "Athena" by the folks at The Weather Channel -- the inaugural name on the list of winter storm names the channel created this season.
As you might have heard, The Weather Channel went on their own and created a policy of naming winter storms in October, figuring a named storm will make communications easier, especially on social media where the storm could become a hashtag.
Autumn might be best known for the changing of the leaves and, around here, the coronation of the rainy season. But there is another little-known benefit to the season: It's when the sun rises in the right spot to make for some dramatic sunrise photos.
Starting about mid-to-late October and lasting through the end of the year or so, the sun begins to rise far enough south that it comes up from behind Mt. Rainier. The mountain then becomes the region's largest shadow puppet, casting it's triangular shape across the skies of Puget Sound.
Sandy is a mammoth storm, and perhaps no better way to grasp its size and strength by looking at a satellite image.
NASA had their GOES-14 weather satellite go into "super rapid scan" mode where it took a photograph every minute between 6 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on Monday.
"The changing angles of sunlight highlight the motions and different structures in the clouds," The NASA Earth Observatory wrote on their YouTube page:
Autumn is certainly my most favorite season of the year -- not just because it's when the storms come back, but for the intense beauty the changing leaves provide.
Seattle photographer Jonathan Cooper has been going around capturing some of this local scenes ablaze in fall color: