We've had strong winds, heavy rain, mountain snow, hail, lightning, thunder, and mammoth coastal waves over the past 24 hours. But for those of you playing weather bingo today, if "funnel cloud" was the last one you needed to make the winning line, stand up and shout "Bingo!" now.

A strong storm cell moved through the Enumclaw Friday afternoon, providing what appeared to be a funnel cloud.

The photo above was taken by Tyson Gambin from Enumclaw next to Mt. Peak.  And here is some video and a photo Laura Cole of Enumclaw snapped from her cell phone:

And here is another photo of the storm by Steven Williams of Buckley:

And here are two more taken by Mark R. Taeschner:

A little later, another line of rain and thunderstorms moved through the Seattle area. Here are some lightning strikes that hit just after 5 p.m., looking north from Fisher Plaza near Seattle Center. (Thanks to KOMO Radio's Tom Glasgow for getting the video)

 

 

The funnel cloud was just the latest event in a very stormy period that started with high winds in Northern Washington Thursday that buffeted Bellingham with 50 mph winds through the day, reaching a peak gust of 58 mph.

As we got into the evening, a strong cold front moved through, bringing a burst of heavy rain and gusty winds to 40-45 mph across the rest of the Puget Sound area. A gust of wind at Paine Field in Everett registered 55 mph at 7:30.

The weather calmed down for a few hours afterward, but then came the Big Kahuna -- a line of strong thunderstorms that formed and moved through the greater Seattle area around 11 p.m. with ferocious lightning, heavy rain, and hail.

Here is what it looked like on the radar:

Lightning struck a power pole in Seattle's Leschi neighborhood and knocked out power to 83 people. Overall, about 11,000 people lost power in Seattle while 5,500 were in the dark in Tacoma.

Showers continued overnight and into Friday, but they were fairly calm until around 3 p.m. when the funnel cloud blew though.

Showers and thunderstorms were expected to continue through Saturday afternoon before calming down into Sunday.

One Big Storm

The weather fireworks were all caused by a massive storm that formed in the Gulf of Alaska.

As we mentioned in Thursday's blog the storm from which our rain and wind came from was quite incredible. A buoy out in the middle of it in the Gulf of Alaska reported a pressure of just 946 millibars, which is about 27.95" on the mercury scale and just short of Category 4 hurricane strength, had it been a hurricane.

But in addition to the thunderstorms, funnel clouds and wind, it also created some mammoth waves along the coast. Waves were as high as 25-28 feet.

And it'll also be bringing the season's first big mountain snowstorm. As much as 6-12" could fall in spurts in the Cascade passes through Saturday evening, with perhaps 2 feet of snow in the higher elevations.

Weather looks a bit calmer next week, although still soggy. But those of you waiting for "dust storm" or "blizzard" to make your Bingo... I would probably go find another card :)

Most of you weather geeks here probably already have Dr. Cliff Mass' weather blog bookmarked too, but in case you don't, take a peek at what he's got in there today.

He's highlighting an incredible storm that is roaming around in the Gulf of Alaska right now. Forecast models peg the center pressure at 946 millibars, which is on par with a strong Category 3 hurricane (just shy of Category 4 status). For those who have a home barometer thingy with the little dial on it, go look at it. See the lowest number where it says "stormy"? This would be even worse -- a central pressure of 27.94".

Cliff says models forecast a wide swath of sustained winds over 60 mph with much higher gusts in and around the storm, which hogs up most of the Gulf.

You can get a sense of wind by how packed together those black lines are on the forecast map. Those are pressure lines (isobars) and the greater the difference in pressure, the stronger the wind. You can see the black lines aren't quite so close together over the Northwest -- although more noticeable over northwestern Washington, where we are expecting some gusts to 50 mph Thursday.

For you hikers and mountain climbers, another visualization is think of it like a topographical map with each rung showing a decrease in altitude toward the "hole" that is the center of the storm. Now picture putting a metal ball bearing there on the edge (or, a hiker in roller blades) and imagine how steep a decline it would roll down toward the middle and how fast it would be going.

It is this storm's cold front that we are getting on Thursday, which would explain the forecast for heavy rain and wind, although the storm center is so far away that the wind here won't be too exciting.

It is eventually forecast to weaken a bit and make landfall just north of Juneau on Saturday, battering the Alaska Panhandle with some really good winds (which is why the cruise season ends in September :) ) but one thing that will be quite noticeable across the northern Pacific will be the ocean swells. They are predicted to be as much as 40 feet near the storm (so, four stories tall!) and be 20-30 feet when those swells reach the Washington and Oregon coast.

So aside from the driving rain Thursday along the coast, by Friday, the waves crashing on the beach will be incredible!

P.S. the storms are not considered hurricanes because they are not a tropical storm, but doesn't mean they can't be as powerful.

Yesterday's blog theme was when sun and ice get together. Today, it's when sun and fog get together. Top photo was taken by Peter Woodcox of east Olympia.

And this one below was taken by Cathy Chauvin from the Snoqualmie National Forest a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

Those of you out and about early Monday morning might have been treated to a spectacular sunrise that featured a nice optical display of a sun pillar.

The pillars are caused when the sunlight reflects off ice crystals from clouds high up in the atmosphere. Sure enough, we had some thin cirrostratus and altostratus clouds that had plenty of ice crystals to make this radically awesome effect.

Thanks to Tina Starck for sending in the photo.

Sea-Tac Airport received 1.21" of rain Monday in that storm's drenching, but as the late George Carlin used to say, no one lives at the Airport.

CoCoRahs to the rescue. No, that's not a new cereal, it's s GAS (Government Acronym Speak) for "Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network" -- a community based weather reporting system that allows anyone with interest to join a network of other residents who report their daily rainfall to a database, which is then compiled and displayed to anyone who wants to see it.

The National Weather Service is using the data to better understand local variances in rainfall -- and those variances are quite large in Western Washington due to our terrain and vast topography. In fact, with Monday's storm, an observer in Friday Harbor reported just 0.18" while in North Bend, it was 2.19"

To participate, they ask that you have at least a standard 4" rain gauge. You can buy one on their site for roughly $29 including shipping or find one at a local hardware or marine supply store. Those of you with fancy digital home weather stations can use that rain gauge just fine.

You can find more information at cocorahs.org. The site also has tips on how to properly set up a rain gauge, how to report the rain, and information on training seminars. And it's a great resource for watching just how much rain is falling with each storm.

Just came across this today, even though the event was a few weeks ago, of a great satellite shot showing two typhoons in the Western Pacific near the Philippines. This is a composite satellite image -- one taken of Typhoon Parma at 10:35 a.m. on Oct. 7; the one of Typhoon Melor taken a few hours later but it shows the correct geography of where both storms were at that time.

It's fairly rare to have to storms so close together, although I've seen it a few times with our fall and winter type storms here. You'd think they'd merge to form some sort of super storm, but actually, many times, the storms end up battling against each other for energy and can mess up the weather flow to keep them going. Other times, according to NASA you can get something called the Fujiwara Effect, where both storms will begin rotating around a center point.

That's apparently a bit what happened in this case shown above, as the approach of Melor actually pulled Parma back out to sea a bit.

You can find more about these storms and a higher resolution photo at NASA's Earth Observatory page.