NW Weather Resources for Alpine Climbers

[JosephH]

This winter, I'm hoping folks heading out for an significant alpine ventures will really be looking hard at the incoming weather. To that end, here are some excellent resources which, taken as a whole, make for a pretty good picture of what's headed towards the NW at any given point in time.

 

Take note the 'Stormsurfing' site is for surfers, so you have to read through the surfing/wave aspects of what they put out - BUT - these folks carefully watch weather events over the NW Pacific as far out as Siberia and it is well worth paying close attention to what they are saying about incoming storms.

 

- Intellicast Pacific Infrared Sat Loop

 

- Stormsurfing - Pacific Storm Forecast

 

- Stormsurfing - North Pacific Surface Pressure and Wind

 

- Stormsurfing - North Pacific Jet Stream Wind and 250 mb Pressure

 

- Intellicast - US Jetstream

 

- National Center for Atmospheric Research - Forecasts

[ivan]

thanks - i usually just use my cowbell for weather prognostications...

[kevbone]

Or lick your finger into the wind!

[dan_forester]

hmm, I usually just rely on my tauntaun's natural instincts for bad weather...

 

just kidding, thanks Joseph. here's a couple more that might be useful:

 

Nat'l Weather Service - Western Region

 

and

 

Northwest Weather & Avalanche Center

[Jim]

This is an independent weather consultant's site. He gets hired for expedition work. It concentrates on the mountain forecast.

You also can sign up for his email forecasts.

 

http://www.wowweather.com/

[selkirk]

Great resources JosephH!

 

Mod's This would be worth making it sticky

[Stefan]

I have been playing with the MM5 forecaster thing recently.

 

It is the best forecasting tool out there for precipitation of where precip will happen and when.

 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/

 

Edited October 18, 2007 by Stefan

[spicoli11]

TODAY...SE WIND 40 TO 50 KT...BECOMING SW IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 11 TO 15 FT. SW SWELL 19 FT AT 11 SECONDS...BUILDING TO 21 FT AT 11 SECONDS IN THE AFTERNOON. RAIN CHANGING TO SHOWERS.

 

 

Strait is going off

[wayne]

Already too many stickies.

I just bookmarked the page into Favorites!

Thanks Guys!

[Bcdadush]

Thanks for the information.

[JosephH]

It you look at the link from the first post up above:

 

Stormsurfing - North Pacific Jet Stream Wind and 250 mb Pressure

 

you'll see we're in for some pretty serious storms for the next two weeks or so. Just a heads up...

[hafilax]

thanks - i usually just use my cowbell for weather prognostications...

 

Anyone have a Tempest Prognosticator? What can't leeches do?

[jmace]

Out of curiosity what do you expect to learn from the wind speeds at 30 000 feet?

 

And from that map can you point out the serious storms you see?

[JosephH]

jmace - oops, you're absolutely right - sorry, false alarm. Jumped the gun looking at the 250mb jetstream map. The next major weather will likely go north of us and leave us with just winter rain.

[Toast]

I thought this was a pretty pimp find, linky. It maps all of the telemetry stations in the area, in this case, Silica Road, i.e. Vantage. If you click on the link to the right, you'll see the data mapped out over time.

[johndavidjr]

checking forecast is rocket science?

[JosephH]

checking forecast is rocket science?

 

Well, if last winter was any indicator...