Hawaiian Air Reaches Seattle

When I walked outside this morning I was startled.    It felt and smelled like Hawaii.  Everything about the air was Hawaiian...the humidity, the smell, the character.   But was it my imagination?  A deception fostered by our savage winter and spring?

No, it was real.  Hawaii has come to Seattle.  And I can prove it.

How?  By calculating three-dimensional air trajectories by using the wonderful NOAA HySplit trajectory system.  Specifically, I calculated back trajectories....using three-dimensional analyses produced by NOAA to figure out the origin of the air over Seattle this morning.  Trajectories represent the three-dimensional path of air over time.

Here are the Hysplit trajectories ending over Seattle over the lower atmosphere (below 3000 meters...10,000 ft).  They all came from near Hawaii!

The moisture in the air this morning was amazing.  The dew points (a good measure of water vapor content) were very high for Seattle (upper 50sF to low 60s)--see below.

And the tropical moisture content caused the air to become saturated, with low ceilings and fog.   To illustrate here is the image from the Space Needle cam around 7:15 AM this morning.

So, if you are in Seattle, take off your shoes and grab a Mai Tai.... no need to fly to Hawaii today, just breath deeply and the air of Hawaii will fill your lungs.



from Cliff Mass Weather Blog http://ift.tt/2pIeJEg