Sunny & Brisk Start to December

After a windy Monday with some heavy rain early in the morning, a large high pressure ridge will bring sunny and brisk weather for the remainder of the week. 

Below are the peak wind gusts on Monday around the South Sound. (Click to enlarge).

Peak gusts were 20-45 mph in the South Sound, with 45+ mph on the coast and hurricane force winds at Camp Muir on Mount Rainier. Take a look at the Camp Muir wind readings today. 

Wow. That’s some serious wind! Wind chills were in the range of -10 to -30 degrees, with peak winds of 96 mph, with gusts to 126 mph! You would find those winds in a Category 2 hurricane! Additional hurricane force (74+ mph) gusts were found on nearby ridge tops (below).

That includes an 82 mph gust at Crystal Mountain!! Wow!

Enough on crazy mountain wind gusts...let’s take a look at our weather situation. Below is an upper level pressure map for Monday morning. 

The red and blue shading is vorticity, or energy in the atmosphere. More vorticity is red (more active weather), less vorticity is blue (calmer weather). 

The map above, from Monday morning, shows bright red for vorticity and close lines (troughs, or active weather). The overall trend was a frontal system bringing active weather to the area. The exact opposite of what we’re about to see.

Now, take a look at the predictions for Tuesday evening.

Wow. That’s a huge difference. We’re under a large high pressure ridge, and in turn we will experience sunny & brisk days with chilly nights. Pressure will get up to near 30.60”, which is much above normal (30.06”).

Here’s the Puyallup forecast from weather.com for the next 10 days.

What this forecast doesn’t show is the northerly winds that will be blowing on Tuesday and Wednesday. While the winds will be light (5-15 mph), with chilly temperatures it’ll be brisk. Then, rain looks to make a return by next Tuesday.

Expect low temperatures of 28-36 degrees this week. With these temperatures, black ice and frost is possible. 

In addition, fog and/or freezing fog is possible across the area this week as well.