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The Weather

Friday, February 3, 2012

The Weather Your Seattle Weekend Forecast

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 5:30 PM

From weather.com (sorry, National Weather Service, but their suns are all bright yellow):

Screen_shot_2012-02-03_at_5.27.10_PM.png

weather.com

Shorts weather, kind of! Have a lovely weekend.

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Two-Block Radius / The Weather Summer in February: Seattle Sheds Clothes at 58 Degrees

Posted by Kelly O on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 4:43 PM

That's right suckas, IT'S IN THE FIFTIES! Where's my tank top? And my shorts?**

** I love Seattle and sun deprived worshipping.

More photos after the jump...

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Friday, January 27, 2012

The Weather Your Weekend Weather Forecast

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 8:35 AM

There's a wall of fog outside the Stranger Weathercenter and everything's very cutely frosty. The National Weather Service reports "Patchy Fzg Fog," with a graphic of some dim car headlights and then a sunny sun, which translates to:

Today: Patchy freezing fog before 10am. Mostly sunny, with a high near 41. Light and variable wind.

Then it's going to rain some on Saturday and more on Sunday and then until the end of time or maybe July, whichever gets here first. Up side: Good matinee or listening-to-records-and-doing-laundry weather.

Screen_shot_2012-01-27_at_8.25.04_AM.png

What? You live somewhere else? Madness. Check your forecast here. (Denver: high of 37, with a 40 percent chance of snowflakes! Tonight, a low of FOURTEEN. We'll take the rain. Then again, your weekend is all sunshiney suns, with a high of 58 on Monday.)

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Life / The Weather Life Will Out

Posted by Goldy on Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:51 AM

Looks like my kale and collards emerged from the deep freeze mostly unscathed.

Goldy | The Stranger
Looks like my kale and collards emerged from the deep freeze mostly unscathed.

It wasn't so long ago that my winter vegetable garden was battered by five inches of snow, an ice storm, and consecutive days of sub-freezing temperatures. So how'd all those fragile leafy greens fare? Not so bad.

Goldy | The Stranger
Brrr. Things looked cold last week.

It turns out the worst damage was to some of the more mature mustard greens, some of which snapped, presumably under the weight of the snow and ice. And with the snow peas still covered by snow, it's too soon to see whether they'll make it to spring. But the kale, collards, parsley, and broccoli all managed to survive just fine.

Even the leaf lettuce, protected under a flimsy plastic cold frame, appears little the worse for wear.

Goldy | The Stranger
Lettuce is hardier than you might think.

Throw a bowl of salad or a head of lettuce into the freezer, and imagine the mushy mess you'll have after defrosting. But when exposed to cold, many living plants will concentrate sugars in their leaves that work as a kind of natural antifreeze. That's why some leafy vegetables will not only survive a mild freeze, they can actually be tastier afterwards.

So all in all, my garden weathered the cold spell well, and we continue to eat freshly harvested organic lettuce and greens only a month before my first direct sowing of the new year. (More photos after the jump.)

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Chow / Life / The Weather Winter Gardening in the Mild Pacific Northwest

Posted by Goldy on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 4:33 PM

Goldy | The Stranger
Think maybe I waited too long to harvest all that kale and collards?

You know all that stuff I wrote about the joys of winter vegetable gardening in our mild maritime Pacific Northwest climate. Yeah... well... not so much.

I haven't had the nerve to peek inside the plastic cold frame protecting my lettuce—don't want to compromise the insulation—but I'm pretty sure I won't have edible leaves when they thaw out. As for the mustard, collards, and kale, well, we'll see.

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The Weather The Real Cause of Snowpocalypse 2012 Is Not Global Climate Change

Posted by Grant Brissey on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 2:33 PM

It's this guy and his minions.You've been warned!

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The Weather Freezing Rain and Power Outages

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 10:58 AM

Over 120,000 residents across King, Pierce and Snohomish County are without power this morning, thanks to freezing rain, toppled trees, and severed power lines.

But there's more, via the Seattle Times:

As many as 90,000 customers of Puget Sound Energy were without electrical service this morning. Additional outages are likely, according to a PSE spokesman.

In the Tacoma area, an estimated 25,000 customers were without power.

Overnight, PSE had 10,000 customers without power and had restored service to 38,000, "but this morning it's taking on a whole new picture," said spokesman Roger Thompson.

What's worse, the icy weather conditions are making it difficult for repair crews to get in and fix the damage.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Music / The Weather Slayer Snowman!

Posted by Megan Seling on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 4:00 PM

So this is what happens when metal fans play in the snow.

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The Weather Did You Know This Week's Stranger Cover Is Also A Handy-Dandy Ruler?

Posted by Kelly O on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 1:34 PM

Click to enlarge. Sweet Jesus, lookit all that snow!

Kelly O
Click to enlarge. Sweet Jesus, lookit all that snow!

It's true! You can use the ruler for measuring varied degrees of Seattle Snowmageddon 2012! Look, at Cal Anderson park, we have a whopping 3-somethin'-err-other inches!

Oh hey, also speaking of inches: Two-something inches seem to have disappeared from this other local paper. Two inches and quite a few pages...

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The Weather 14.75 Inches

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 1:12 PM

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Olympia's 14.75 inches

You just got spanked, Seattle

Slog tipper (and photo taker) Diana Arens writes, "It has stopped snowing for now."

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City / The Weather What Bars Are Open Today/Tonight?

Posted by Grant Brissey on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 1:01 PM

Chime in over here.

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The Weather It's STILL Still Snowing!

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 12:10 PM

Andrew just sent us this cool video he made from the traffic camera at the north end of Broadway:

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Teh Internets / The Weather Shit Seattle People Say When It Snows

Posted by Megan Seling on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 10:13 AM

I'm tired of this meme too, BUT! I will make this exception for a very timely, local edition:

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The Weather It's Still Snowing!

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 10:03 AM

Our friends at the National Weather Service are still saying total accumulation of 1 to 3 inches, stopping right around .NOW...:

.NOW...
MODERATE SNOW WILL CONTINUE THROUGH 10 AM THIS MORNING ACCUMULATING AT A RATE OF AN INCH OR TWO PER HOUR. NORTHERLY WINDS WILL INCREASE THIS MORNING TO 15 TO 25 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 35 MPH CAUSING DRIFTING SNOW. WIND CHILL VALUES WILL GENERALLY BE IN THE 10 TO 20 DEGREE RANGE.

...but it's 30 degrees and still snowing with vigor at the Stranger Weathercenter, with a good 3 inches of accumulation already.

Send photos of your sledding*, snowman, flask, whatever, and we'll put 'em up!

And we'll see you at Liberty at 5:30 for local gin!

*WATCH OUT FOR CARS or care bear will yell at you!

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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Education / The Weather No School Wednesday

Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 5:04 PM

Seattle Public Schools have announced that they're going to be closed tomorrow. More information can be found here and here.

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Booze / The Weather National Weather Service Regrets Its Sobriety

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 4:21 PM

Slog tipper Rev. Jesse sends this link to the local National Weather Service at 4 a.m. yesterday:

...AN ACTIVE WEATHER PATTERN IS EXPECTED THURSDAY THROUGH NEXT WEEKEND.

&&

.SHORT TERM..."LOOKS LIKE I PICKED THE WRONG WEEK TO QUIT DRINKING" STEVE MCCROSKEY

PRETTY CHALLENGING NEXT FEW DAYS FOR THE FORECAST OFFICE...

Right now (as of 3:35 p.m.), our friends at the N.W.S. are shouting a winter storm warning:

.A MAJOR WINTER STORM WILL MOVE INTO WESTERN WASHINGTON FROM THE SOUTH LATE TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY...BRINGING WIDESPREAD HEAVY SNOWFALL TO MUCH OF WESTERN WASHINGTON...

* TIMING...LATE TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY EVENING.

* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS...THE SEATTLE METRO AREA AND THE CENTRAL COAST SHOULD RECEIVE 5 TO 10 INCHES.

Cliff Mass was waffling and invoking Faust this morning and promises an update at 9 p.m.

In any case, come join us over here. Poor Steve McCroskey.

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Teh Internets / The Weather What Are We Going to Do on Wednesday, You Guys?

Posted by Megan Seling on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 8:41 AM

January 18th is going to be a very long day.

First, the massive online protest of SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) will cause the internet to go black. Reddit will be down, Wikipedia will be down, the entire I Can Haz Cheeseburger empire will be down, and more websites and companies are joining the cause every hour.

No big deal. We'll do what we did before the internet! We'll go hang out with friends and see movies and have dinner and drinks at local restaurants and act like civilized people who aren't addicted to their computers.

BUT WAIT! We're going to get 6-14 inches of snow tomorrow? We'll all be stranded! SOPA shuts down the internet, SNOW shuts down our real lives.

What are we supposed to do with ourselves!?

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Monday, January 16, 2012

Panic / The Weather Cliff Mass Says Wednesday Will Bring "Snowmageddon"

Posted by Anna Minard on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 3:42 PM

PANIC NOW!

The bottom line is that there is a serious threat on Wednesday of 8-15 inches of snow over the region, with a minimal turn over to rain. The biggest snowstorm in years. Anyway, before anyone goes out and buys a snowblower, lets see what tonight's runs show. If they continue this trend then Slushmageddon might be replaced by Snowmageddon. In almost any conceivable case, Wednesday morning is going to be very problematic for travel...I suspect there will be a lot of school cancellations and the like.

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The Weather Snow Knowledge: Please Help

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 11:10 AM

Would those of you that grew up in places with real weather please enlighten those of us who grew up here in Seattle about two snow-related items?

1. How is it a good thing to shovel your sidewalk down to an extremely hard, very slightly lumpy, very slippery few centimeters of compacted snow-ice? Shoveling to a bare, wet sidewalk (maybe that involves salt?) seems to make sense, but creating this slick surface that crackles ominously when you walk on it seems worse than leaving the snow to pack down unevenly, giving you at least a chance of some traction when, say, going downhill.

2. Is there a term for the very small-gauge (quite a bit smaller than a BB) tiny balls of snow that were falling from the sky last night and a little bit this morning here at the Stranger Weathercenter? Here in Seattle, we famously have more than 100 different terms for rain, so we're just curious.

At Cal Anderson Park. Current conditions at the Stranger Weathercenter: Main roads slushy but driveable; very, very light snow falling; gray sky; still approx. four inches of snow on the ground in the park! And the abovementioned sidewalk situation.

Josh Bis/Flickr
At Cal Anderson Park. Current conditions at the Stranger Weathercenter: Main roads slushy but driveable; very, very light snow falling; gray sky; still approx. four inches of snow on the ground in the park! And the abovementioned sidewalk situation.

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Dudes / The Weather A Snow Penis, and a Snowman With a Penis

Posted by Grant Brissey on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 10:45 AM

See them and more right over here.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Weather Snow This Weekend?

Posted by Grant Brissey on Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 1:29 PM

Rich Marriott from King 5 says so. I hope Rich Marriott is right, and that it doesn't melt by Monday. I love it when a little snow brings the city to its knees.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Weather Thanks for the Mammaries

Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 8:17 AM

Mammary clouds appeared over our city on Monday...

Kevin Shurtluff

Kevin Shurtluff spotted them from the water taxi terminal in West Seattle. I saw them above Columbia City around 2 pm. These slow and dark breasts were later replaced by lower and unimpressive clouds that rained cats and dogs.

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Monday, January 2, 2012

Chow / Life / The Weather It's January, and I'm Still Eating Garden Lettuce

Posted by Goldy on Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Goldy | The Stranger
Lettuce in January. Yum!

The good news is that it's January, and thanks to our mild winter, my daughter and I are still enjoying occasional pickings of fresh garden lettuce, from both inside and outside my small plastic cold frame. The bad news is that so are the slugs, and without a hard freeze sometime this winter to kill insects and eggs, my garden will produce a bumper crop of pests in the spring and summer.

In addition to lettuce we're still harvesting carrots, cilantro, dill, parsley, arugula, collards, kale, and mustard greens. We've also got some snow peas and broccoli over-wintering just fine, with the potential to produce an early spring crop. And yeah, while these short days don't fuel nearly enough plant growth to meet our salad consumption this time of year, the lettuce that does survive will start to take off as the days lengthen, filling in the gap between the time I direct sow my first crop in mid-February, and the time I'm ready to eat the first thinnings.

So I'm curious: What's growing in your garden this winter?

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Friday, December 30, 2011

The Weather Today Is Going

Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 4:29 PM

What was all of this nice weather about? Where did it come from? And where is it going?

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

City / The Weather May Your Day Be Merry and Bright

Posted by Goldy on Sun, Dec 25, 2011 at 2:09 PM

About 18,000 Seattle City Light customers are burning their Christmas trees for warmth today, as wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour downed lines and caused scattered power outages throughout the region. "Crews are making repairs as quickly as possible," reassures a City Light press release.

But you know, as long as none of the city's movie theaters and Chinese restaurants lose power, I'm fine.

UPDATE: At last report, power had been restored to all but 3,700 homes.

UPDATE, UPDATE: City Light says all power was restored by 2:30 a.m.

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

The Weather Christmas Eve in Seattle

Posted by Goldy on Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 4:01 PM

Goldy | The Stranger
My dog Feisty taking a Christmas Eve polar bear plunge in Lake Washington

I don't think we're getting a white Christmas in Seattle this year. And with beautiful weather like this, I don't think anybody much minds.

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Friday, December 9, 2011

Film / The Weather In This Week's Concessions: Killer Winds, Falling Trees, and a New Christmas Movie You Will Love

Posted by David Schmader on Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 10:37 AM

From Lindy's latest report from La-La Land:

Once a year, this thing happens called the Santa Ana winds (they are nothing compared to the Rob Thomas winds!), wherein all of Los Angeles falls over and nobody will shut up about it. This year, they tell me, the Santa Ana winds moved 90 miles in one hour! That is so many miles! As a result, a tree tried to murder me by squishing my house while I was "asleep" in it ("asleep" = "weeping in terror and waiting for death"). Thanks, Santa Ana, you dick! You are the shittiest saint ever! Santa Ana is the patron saint of both tree murder and having to throw away everything in your refrigerator because the power was out for six days. Smooth move, pope!

Miraculously, this near-death experience morphs into crazy love for the latest film from Nick Park's Aardman studios, Arthur Christmas. Read the whole thing here.

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The Weather Your Seattle Weekend Forecast

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 8:33 AM

It is VERY foggy (and frosty!) and 31 degrees at the Stranger Weathercenter this morning. The weekend looks cold (for Seattle—it's 23 degrees in Denver right now) and sunny and fine (well, except for the AIR STAGNATION ADVISORY that the National Weather Service is shouting about—just don't breathe so much).

Sunset: around 4:20 p.m. this weekend.
Right now: 7 hours and 45 minutes of daylight remaining.