Hi Tweets,



I come across birders fairly regularly that aren't familiar with the
University of Washington's NW Weather modeling site.



I use this site all the time to look at where precipitation is likely to be
in western Washington before going birding, and find it to be much more
useful than the regular weather forecast. It often correctly predicts which
parts of the sound will be in the rain shadow.



Getting to the data takes a few clicks, but here is a method to get there
that is pretty easy to remember:



1. Go to https://atmos.washington.edu/

2. In the menus at the top, choose "Current Weather" -> "Northwest
Modeling"

3. On the new page, there is a section at the top left labelled "WRF-GFS".
Click the "4km" link in that section

4. On the new page, scroll down to a light blue section of the table
labelled "4km Precip." In the row labelled "Western WA 1-hour
precipitation," click the "Loop" link.


The new page will start looping through an hour by hour precipitation model
that is usually 84 hours long. There are buttons at the top you can use to
pause or step more slowly through the model.


The model is obviously more accurate in the nearer part of the predictions
than it is 2-3 days out, so it makes sense to wait until the last minute
before checking the model and possibly modifying your plans based on the
data.


Todd Sahl

Redmond, WA
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