Snowy Weekend on the Mountain!

If you are planning on volunteering this weekend, please be careful and safe.  If the weather is too bad or you just feel unsafe being out in these conditions, let your supervisor know and stay home!

 

=======================================

.SYNOPSIS...AN OCCLUDED FRONT WILL SPREAD RAIN AND SNOW TO MOUNT
RAINIER THIS MORNING. EXPECT HEAVY SNOW SHOWERS THIS AFTERNOON
THROUGH SATURDAY AFTERNOON WITH STRONG ONSHORE FLOW. AN UPPER
LEVEL TROUGH WILL REMAIN OVER THE REGION SUNDAY THROUGH TUESDAY
FOR SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS.

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 8 AM THIS MORNING TO 3 PM
PST SATURDAY...

.FRIDAY...VERY WINDY. RAIN AND SNOW LIKELY IN THE MORNING...THEN
RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS IN THE AFTERNOON. SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 7 TO
12 INCHES. SNOW LEVEL NEAR 4000 FEET DECREASING TO 3000 FEET IN
THE AFTERNOON.
.FRIDAY NIGHT...VERY WINDY. RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS IN THE
EVENING...THEN SNOW SHOWERS AFTER MIDNIGHT. SNOW ACCUMULATION OF
5 TO 10 INCHES. SNOW LEVEL NEAR 2000 FEET.
.SATURDAY...SNOW SHOWERS. SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 2 TO 6 INCHES.
.SATURDAY NIGHT...SNOW SHOWERS. MODERATE SNOW ACCUMULATIONS.
.SUNDAY...SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY.

.EXTENDED FORECAST...

.SUNDAY NIGHT...SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY.
.MONDAY...BREEZY. CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW SHOWERS.
.MONDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW SHOWERS.
.TUESDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW SHOWERS.
.TUESDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW SHOWERS.
.WEDNESDAY...PARTLY SUNNY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW SHOWERS.
.WEDNESDAY NIGHT...RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY. SNOW LEVEL NEAR
2500 FEET.
.THURSDAY...RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY. SNOW LEVEL NEAR
2500 FEET.

NPS Photo / VIP Ed Hunds

It's going to be hot... be careful out there

Mount Rainier's recreational forecast is predicting hot temperatures this weekend, peaking on Saturday with a high of 84 degrees at Paradise. While this is nowhere near the mid-nineties predicted for the lowlands, it's still a very intense temperature, especially when you factor in ultraviolet exposure at 5400 feet elevation (or higher at Sunrise). Please be careful!

From the National Weather Service's Special Weather Statement for the weekend:

...HOT WEATHER IS EXPECTED FRIDAY THROUGH THE WEEKEND AS WELL AS
RISING FIRE DANGER...

DURING HOT WEATHER IT IS IMPORTANT TO STAY HYDRATED BY DRINKING
PLENTY OF WATER. IF YOU ARE MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE HEAT...STAY
INSIDE IN AIR CONDITIONED AREAS. AVOID LEAVING CHILDREN AND PETS
UNATTENDED IN CARS...AS TEMPERATURES INSIDE PARKED CARS CAN RISE
VERY QUICKLY TO DEADLY LEVELS. REMEMBER TO APPLY SUNSCREEN IF YOU
ARE OUTDOORS. 

There are a lot of activities scheduled in the park this weekend. The Washington Trails Association will be working on trails... Meadow Rovers will be out in force... Citizen Scientists are in bloom... and our intrepid volunteer program assistant, Crow, is still looking for people to help with Adopt-a-Highway litter patrol on Sunday morning.

Please make safety your number one concern. Watch your hydration and sun exposure, and take shelter if it becomes too much. Remember: the first rule of having fun is to STAY SAFE!

New Mount Rainier weather information through our climbing blog

Paradise Wx Telemetry Graph as of 10:50am today

Eagle-eyed observers of this blog may have noticed, about two weeks ago, a new link in the "Helpful Resources" section in the right-hand column. It's the time of year when everyone talks about the weather, and wherever I go, inevitably the question comes up: "how the snow at Mount Rainier?" If your friends and family know that you volunteer on The Mountain (and if they don't, why not?!), they're probably asking you the same thing.

Now, you can talk weather like a pro! The Mount Rainier climbing page has compiled, in one helpful page at http://www.mountrainierclimbing.us/weather/email/forecast.php, all the information you could dream of wanting:

• Recreational forecast ("Windy. Rain and Snow." Yeah!)
• Infrared satellite images (lots of big green clouds!)
• Temperature, pressure, and wind gradients (low pressure and steady winds)
• Freezing level trends over the last 72 hours (fairly steady)
• Avalanche forecast (increasing loose wet snow avalanches)
• Avalanche danger level at treeline (considerable)
• Winds aloft forecasts (54 knots at 12,000 feet, with a temperature of -7)
• A 48-hour "Meteogram" showing forecast trends at Paradise (50 degrees, breezy, cloudy and wet)
• Snow depth compared to average (60 inches vs 133)
• The Paradise webcam (parking lot mostly bare, wet, and empty)
• Paradise and Muir telemetry (39 degrees, 15 mph wind, 0.82" precip and 60" of snow at Paradise)
• Paradise telemetry graphs (steady temperatures, rising winds, increasing rain and humidity, but little change in snow depth)
• Links for even more weather and stream flow information

Ladies and gentlemen, start your browsers!

New webcam at Longmire!

At long last, our webcam at Longmire has gone live! We now have six webcams at Paradise, for goodness sake, and a summer webcam at Camp Muir, so it was high time we got one at Longmire. The camera is located in the conference room on the second floor of our administration building, just two doors down from my office, so you can now see roughly the same view I have out my office window, looking across the grounds to the Longmire Museum and the road leading up from the Nisqually Entrance, with the National Park Inn hidden behind the trees in the distance. Watch for school groups gathering at the beginning of the Trail of the Shadows. In the summer, look for shuttle buses arriving to take visitors up to Paradise. This time of year, you might see people building snowmen in front of the administration building. Enjoy the show!

The above is Longmire. Here, just for comparison, is the view from the visitor center at Paradise:

And from Camp Muir (don't expect anyone to go up and defog the camera lens until spring):



Volunteers needed to review pocket guide and collect weather data

Two unique volunteer projects have come across my desk today:

Mount Rainier Pocket Guide
Damian Fagan, a freelance author in Bend, Oregon working with the Globe Pequot Press contacted me looking for someone who could review the text of a "Pocket Guide" he's putting together about Mount Rainier National Park. He suggested that maybe some of our volunteers could look it over and proofread it. I think that's a great idea, so I'm passing the project on to you. Here's a link to the DRAFT text of the guide. Download it, look it over, and then send any feedback or corrections you have to me. I'll compile the responses and send them on to Mr. Fagan. Please respond by February 17 if possible. Here's the complete request:

I am a freelance writer working on a project for the Globe Pequot Press about Mount Rainier. GPP is publishing a series of small guides to national parks called "Pocket Guides." About the size of the old Golden Guide natural history books, these introductory books will have 2 oragami-like maps in the front and rear pockets of the book; hence, their name. Patti Wold [our Interpretive Media Specialist] has taken a look at the text and I've made changes based upon her recommendations. I'm writing to you to see if there might be a volunteer who would be interested in taking a more in-depth review of the text. I don't think it would take too long, and I would appreciate any feedback. As a small 'thank you' the reviewers name would be included in the text and I'd make sure that they receive a copy when the book is out. They could make electronic edits and just e-mail the text back to me. I've attached the text so that you can see the length and format. You'll see in the text that there are hours listed for visitor centers, as well as program times and locations. Changes are inevitable and the caveat in the text is for visitors to "Check for current times and locations." Still, I'd like to be able to include current programs the park offers.

For those who contribute, be sure to keep track of the time you spend, and send that to me for tracking in our volunteer database.

Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network
I also got an e-mail today from Greg Carstens, passing on a request from the National Weather Service for volunteer weather monitors in the communities around Mount Rainier National Park. Specifically, they want to monitor and study precipitation patterns, in order to improve their ability to predict and respond to flood events. If you're interested in participating in the study, send me an e-mail, and I'll pass the word along to Greg and his contact at the Weather Service. Here is Greg's original request, with more detail about what he's looking for:

Me and Ted Buehner [at NWS Seattle] need some help with a local weather project in and outside the park. Ted has asked me to see if anyone in the park is interested in helping out with this project inside the park as well as outside of the park. He knows like I do that some who work in the park also live right outside of it. Ted Buehner and Jeff Michalski are looking for volunteers interested in measuring local rainfall. This program called the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network will not cost the park itself one penny. That's the best part about it. It does require the volunteer to buy the standard 8 inch manual rain gauge which costs around $30.00. The National Weather Service and University of Washington Office of the State Climatologist sponsor the program. Jeff Michalski at NWS Seattle is the coordinator for the Mount Rainier and surrounding area for the Network. Ted has told me more than once it would be great if we could find at least a few volunteers who perhaps live in or around the communities of Ashford, Elbe, Mineral, Morton, Eatonville, Randle, and Packwood. The Network helps researchers and scientists monitor and study precipitation patterns and it also has a online intense precipitation report that goes immediately to the NWS Seattle office after it is reported. This feature is great to get a handle on flooding events. The website for the Network which originated at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado is www.cocorahs.org... Ted and Jeff would like to see more volunteers from the Cascade foothills so I told Ted I would write to you to see if we could help in at least some small way. I think the more volunteers in the area there are the better the NWS will have a fix on getting forecasts out for severe flooding. This is one way folks can help out their local community to say safe from severe flooding.

Inversion

Here's a current live webcam image from Seattle:

Now here's the current webcam image from Paradise:

It's 50 degrees in Seattle, and 55 degrees at my home in Eatonville. Here's our air quality camera at Paradise, looking down toward the valley. Note the current temperature: 58 degrees!

Now here's the explanation. A still from the current Seattle satellite image (you can clearly see snow-capped Mount Rainier in the center of the picture):

The clouds are coming in off the ocean, rising into the mountains... and evaporating. That's because it's colder at lower elevations than it is at higher elevations. Moisture condenses into clouds at cold temperatures and evaporates at warm temperatures. What we have here, folks, is a classic inversion!

The moral? When it's cloudy and cool in town, check the weather maps... and if we have inversion conditions, come up into the sunshine and volunteer!