The Washington State Hiking Podcast

Preparing for and getting weather information for Washington hikes

• Episode 79

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 Welcome to the Washington State Hiking Podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, 

and I'm your co-host Craig Romano.

Craig and I are happy to have you here. We provide practical and timely seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners, and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun, and inclusive.

 

 Hey, Craig. Hey, Jennie. How you doing? Good. I grew up in New England and mark Twain, even though we associate him with Missouri and Nevada, he spent a lot of time in New England. He lived in Hartford, Connecticut, wrote, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur Court.

But it was, and you hear this quote used a lot mis, missed attribute places, but it was Mark Twain. In New England who said, if you don't like the weather here, just wait a minute. 

Yeah. 

And that's actually very true for most of Western Washington. I don't think Mark Twain ever did make it out here.

But so yeah, with that said I'm looking outside. It's sunny right now, but there's no guarantee when I go for my run later on in the afternoon, it's still gonna be this way. So Totally. So I need to leave right now and go for my run, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah. 

We should come back to this later.

Okay. I'm really excited that we are talking about this topic 'cause I know it seems. Very obvious duh, weather. But I think especially, with smartphones and things like that, it's pretty easy to just be like, oh, it's sunny. Or my phone says it's sunny or whatever. So when we are out, especially in the back country now, if you're in a, on a hike that's close to town and the weather changes you can just go back to your car.

Totally not a big deal. But when you're in the back country. Knowing how to pay attention to what's going on with the weather and get good information is super important. And I'm glad that you started with changing things because I can't even count the number of times that I have been on a hike and things change dramatically or didn't follow.

Forecast. So I have definitely gone on some of these big view hikes in the Cascades middle of summer, and you know how we get that pretty typical like cloudy marine layer in the morning and western Washington and over the mountains, and then it clears up. Occasionally it just doesn't clear up and it stays pretty chilly all day.

Or you can have a thunderstorm come up and get rain, or it can be hotter than you expected or colder. I'd love to talk a little bit today about how to help other hikers find this data and make good decisions about the weather. So what thoughts do you have about that to start, Craig? 

First of all, everyone's always talking about the weather, but nobody's doing a damn thing about it.

And. And that's actually, here's the point because you can't do a damn thing about it. But what we do have the power, and this kind of goes into what the Europeans say is there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choices. And so that's my point. We can't control the weather, but we can totally control how we interact with the weather and how we go out there.

And that's so important because. The weather doesn't care what you're wearing. No, it's true doesn. So we need to, to meet the weather head on. And in this day and age it's amazing how accurate. How accurate the forecasts have gotten. Now, of course, there's been so many cuts to, to know and everything, and we're really worried about that.

Yeah, we'll see if that plays out. But but for the most part weather, the weather forecasting is incredibly accurate as it, as compared to the past. But with that said, still doesn't mean, a 95% chance still means there's a 5% window that it's not yeah. And yeah. This is the kind of stuff that we have to go.

So first and foremost, wherever I go for a run or a hike or anywhere. Matter of fact, I even do this, it's interesting. Before I travel someplace, I'm already, I've got my favorite weather areas. I already, I'm already looking at the long-term forecast to see if I, what I have to prepare for. Yep. Where do I go from my weather? Various sources. There is weather dot com, which is the weather station which is a actually very accurate. They're really good. Yeah. And I I should back up. First of all, I dunno if you're aware of this, it's like the maps, that all the different map companies get their data off of the same.

Data Bank, Matt, and then they interpret Sure. The weather's the same thing. They're all coming, it's all, they're all coming, it's all coming from the National Weather Service. And then they're looking at their things and making their own plugs and changing and around that. So I do go to Noah too, which is the national what I, but what I find with Noaha is interesting is that their forecasts are tend to be the more.

Conservative of the ones, they're always like the ones that's gonna reign the most or be the hottest and everything. And I find that it's usually not, I go to these other sources and they tend to be more specific. They seem that they wanna take a little bit more look into it and say, oh, it's not gonna rain as much, or it's that.

But when it comes to the back country, here are the sources that they can't be beat. These are incredible sources. One is mountain weather. Yes. Mountain weather.com. Yep. I've got that bookmark. It's incredible. You can zone in. And this is around the world, I believe. This is a European a European app.

You can go into, you can go into all your elevations, so you can say Mount Rainier, I wanna go out, what's the weather gonna be at Paradise? 5,000 feet. Type that in. Yeah. What's it gonna be at the summit? What's it? Because weather, this is an, and I find, I, I found this website to be pretty accurate. Of course, nothing is a hundred percent accurate.

Things change. There's so much, so many variables and everything. But again I'll act often, consult three or four different weather. Sources and kinda seeing they're all saying the same thing. And that's a pretty good chance it's gonna be that way. Yeah. The other one, and this is a fascinating one and I've never looked at this on a phone because you wanna look at it on a computer windy.com.

Do you know this one? 

Yes. Windy is a fantastic resource. 

It, 

and 

it was developed by a, a check. I, Ivo Luca Kovic, I don't speak Czech, so you know, I probably destroyed that. But and he's got actually full-time workers on this thing. This is beautiful. You pull this thing up, there are 33 different weather phenomenon that you can look at and wind sources.

Yeah. And and you put this beautiful mat and you zoom. I have found that to be incredibly accurate too. Yeah. But I've never taken it on a phone is a while. I'll do it before my trip. 

They have an app. You have to have service to use it, right? But I use it quite often actually.

It's really good for marine wind Yes. As well. Yes. And flying. Yes. It's not just for hiking, it's for anything where you might care about the wind. I'll also just say about Wendy. So this is W-I-N-D-Y. Yeah. That if you're, if you like things, patterns that are very visually pleasing, oh, it's 

beautiful.

You will love looking at this. Yeah. Oh, website. You can tell 

that a bunch of tech geeks put this thing together. They had a lot of fun. Fun. And it was, he was developed. These are tech people. Developed it as a hobby. And it just became so set. He actually, there's full-time workers on this and everything and it's it's becoming a two go site for a lot of people.

And you, good thing you mentioned it, right? It's not for hikers though. You can zoom in any spot on the Glacier Peak wilderness and everything. Yes. It's definitely exactly people that wanna use it for the outdoors. Yeah. But these are weather people. These are serious, hardcore they, they love weather.

And that's. 

Yeah, that's really important, Craig, because. The weather, it doesn't matter what you're doing. It's not like you need a special weather app for hiking, right? You need to know what the weather's gonna be. And I'm glad that you mentioned mountain weather because that is also so important.

If you look at the weather on your phone, for example, let's say for Olympic National Park, it's going to give you the weather in, like your phone is gonna give you the weather in Port Angeles or maybe forks or maybe Olympia, right? That has nothing to do. It might have be the same weather that's happening in the mountains.

Yeah. But very often the weather regime as far as the temperature and the precipitation is totally different. And then also with altitude, you're gonna have changes in the temperature as well. And winds. 

Yeah. 

That's one of the things that's so valuable about mountain weather and also. Last spring we had an episode with the Northwest Avalanche Center and they do fantastic mountain weather forecast only in the winter and early spring.

So that's not available all year, but when they. They are both their app, which is the AbbVie app, a VY, and then their website, which is NW US, have really detailed fantastic information about weather, not only avalanches during avalanche season. So it's another great resource. 

Yeah. Such a good point.

Which you made. The thing is if you're in areas like Kansas, Nebraska where you don't have the, the changes in elevation. Yeah, a lot of the weather is gonna be pretty consistent across a large area, but when you get into mountainous terrain it could just even be in a small area.

Even like the small state of New Hampshire I grew in, I grew up in, it would be not unusual where it's warm and sunny in the southern part of the state and it's, yeah it's snowing and know just 50 miles to the north and the mountains because you've got elevation. Yeah. And then you've got weather patterns.

You've got coastal. Yep. You've got coastal winds, you've got stuff coming down from Canada. So all these things are gonna contribute. To weather. So it's so important that you know what the weather's gonna be at your elevation and also at the time of day. And this is really important too, if you're on, an ultra run.

When I'm looking, I'm on a trail at five in the morning. I, what's the weather gonna be at noon? It's gonna be very different. And it's same thing, your backpacking too. So making those adjustments, and I will. Get into that next about dealing with weather. But I wanna say one other source, while we're talking about Great Source and there's so many good sort of, and I'm gonna mention this blog, it's he's polarizing in some respect.

People either love him or you don't. Cliff Mass. So we're here in the northwest. He's a professor at the University of Washington. He's very outspoken. Yeah. More than just weather. And I think that's what a lot of people EE either you're gonna love it or not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think, Cliff's got some dirty laundry that he's he's, he airs in his blog sometimes. Yeah. But if you can get over all of that he is a brilliant a brilliant meteorologist. Yeah. And I have found a lot of his a lot of his, forecast to be incredibly accurate. And he's also, he's somewhat of a contrarian in a lot of areas.

Just a little bit. And and it might bother you in climate change, and he's not a denier, but just some of his interpretations. But lots of times when the the network news is calling something and Cliff is saying, no, that's hogwash, or it's gonna be much bigger than what they're saying.

And most of the time, not always. Again he hits it on the knee. He's predicted some of our crazy weather patterns, ice storms and things that we've had here recently that were missed by other people. So again like everything else take a look at his blog. But read, don't, don't use it as word, like anything I said, I go to multiple sources and this is just should do a lot of things.

This is part of, having a critical mind, looking at multiple sources and all right, piecing those together. With all that said, now I've got, and it should be the number one thing you do before you plan a trip to go out is checking that forecast. 'cause you have to know what the hell's am I gonna wear?

What am I gonna put in my pack? Prepare for it all. And Jamie, we talked about I did this 50 mile run. This past spring was my hardest one ever. And what made it hard was the weather. And again 10 days before I did the race, I've been monitoring the weather incredibly. And as I kept watching it, the weather continuously got worse and worse than I, so I knew what I was up against and I made all the.

Changes. I made sure that I had all the layers, the clothes in my drop bag, the extra clothes, the change. And that was the difference between not getting hypothermia. I was in a, I was in a 30 mile hour sustained wind on a high ridge being pelted by rain. That, that, that's weather that can kill you. By having, getting out of those clothes before the shiver zone and everything, if I did not pay attention to this or didn't think I wouldn't have finished or could have been worse.

And I can't say how many times too in hiking, I worked as a back country ranger back in the White Mountain National Forest, which is notorious for its weather. Some of the worst wind and everything. Yeah. And we had a, we had on our ranger station, a map of the presidential range with little dots, with dates.

They were all the casualties. Yeah. How many people died because so many people died. Now here's the interesting thing too. A lot of the deaths were hypothermia. Do you know most people will die of hypothermia. It's not in the wintertime. It's in the summer, it's it's in, because in the wintertime you tend to put on a jacket, you know it's going on.

But in the summer you're not thinking you gotta, you got a t-shirt on when it's 60 degrees and all of a sudden you get soaked in rain and now it's 45 in the wind, you're screwed. So a lot of people die of hypothermia. It's not in the wintertime. It's more in, in we temperate seasons. 

Yep. Don't become one 

of those.

Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned that, Craig. 'cause think about all those days. Again, we are talking about Washington State. Incredible diversity of climate. Yes, with elevation. Microphones here are amazing with west and east, with north and south in very small areas and people can really get in trouble.

On hot summer days when all of a sudden it's not hot where you are. So I'm so glad you mentioned that. And the importance of always having an extra layer, always having a rain jacket. It can be a super lightweight rain jacket. It's really important. It's gonna make difference. So when you're going into the back country, yeah.

Keeping your body 

heat just even a layer as opposed to no layer. And we've talked about cotton, how you get cotton's wet it, it's not gonna dry out. I have, yeah, so many fabrics that I use running and everything. It's amazing. Some of the, that they get wet and the minute the sun hits them again, they're dried out.

It's just incredible. Some of the clothing. Yeah. The other thing I should mention too, again, with Washington. This fascinated me when I moved out here, and it took me a while to learn the patterns, is that I can avoid the rain in, in, in so many cases by knowing, so one thing you hear on on the weather about that convergence zone, what the hell is the convergence zone?

And basically the Olympic Mountains acts as a big wedge and the storms come in and the mountains kinda split it and the clouds go north and they go south. So they go north to the straight to Wanda Fuca, and then through the Puget Trough, and then they meet up again. Where they meet up Star and usually where they meet up is, sorry, Snohomish County, but it's Snohomish County.

Yeah, 

but it, yeah, it shifts. 

It goes, it does vary between north and south and, but there's areas like the Mountain Loop Highway which is in the heart. The core of the convergence zone is some of the wettest places in the north, in, in the Cascades. So if you're in a rainy period time and you're trying to mitigate that.

Probably best to stay out of the convergence zone where it's almost guaranteed it's gonna be wet. What you wanna look for are the rain shadows, and Washington has a lot of those. So the northeast corner of the Olympics is one of 'em. Where the clouds are being rung out along the coast. Then 40 inches swim.

Swim gets something like 16 inches of rain a year where forks gets what? 60. The difference in that, because it's in the rain shadow, where I live in Skagit County is a rain shadow. So many times to the north of me in Bellingham to the south of me and Snohomish, it's raining and cold and the sun is shining.

The Anacortes, the San Juan Islands, these areas are in that shadow. So learn the rain shadows and you're gonna be ama, you'll actually be able to. On a rainy day, avoid the rain. Yeah. In a lot of places. Yep. 

You know another thing too that I wanted to touch on here, Craig, is changing weather when you're out and maybe you don't have access to an updated forecast.

So I'm thinking about especially. In Alpine areas, open ridges, places like that, where especially right along the Cascade Crest, so like places like along the North Cascades Highway or along I 90 or Stevens Pass, like just when you get to the East side but you're still in the mountains, not when you're truly in Eastern Washington.

I have, I'm thinking in particular about. Lake Ingles, which we talked about in our goat episode. And that is a place where many times I have been there and you can see like a wall of cloud on the west side and you're just right next to it. So anytime you see that, you gotta know things. One way or the other could change pretty fast.

Learn, learn what a lenticular cloud is. A lenticular cloud is a guarantee that it's, that precipitation is coming. Yeah. Usually within 24 hours. So if you're out backpacking and you see that land, those are those caps that form on the top of Mount Rainier and a very distinct cloud. Yep. It looks like a little 

hat, like you said, just sitting on top of the mountain.

Yep. It's 

it. It means you're out a multi-day backpacking. It's probably the. You're gonna wake up to rain the next day. Yeah. And we should talk about, maybe we'll do, I think we should do a whole another episode on this because Hey, Jennie, I'm gonna reveal something to you again. So many things you don't know about me, I've written about this.

I had a weather related event. I had a near death experience when I was 32 years old. I almost died in an electrical storm on the top of Mount Shasta. I think we need to talk about lightning. It doesn't not as much here as other parts of the country, but it does occur here, particularly more on the eastern side of the state.

I think we need to have a whole thing on lightning and lightning safety and all that. I think 

that's a good idea. I think for right. And you have told me that story. I have told that. Okay. Is terrifying. I think. Probably for today, it probably is good to mention that if you hear thunder or see lightning, you need to get down.

You need to not be on a summit during that. That's the most important thing. And also going back to those changing conditions. Thunderstorms and even nont thunder rainstorms can come up suddenly in the mountains. So if you're seeing a sudden wind shift or clouds and there were no clouds half an hour ago and now there's lots of clouds, like that's something that you really need to pay attention to.

Yeah. 

I think we, yeah, we definitely should explore that further. There's a lot of things you could take classes too. The mountaineers have cla it's really important to know this stuff. You can read instead of oh my, my crazy old uncle is knees cranking. Is getting cra achy so it means rain's going.

But the funny, there's actually things like all of a sudden the crickets aren't. Cricketing, it's like something, because there's a change in the atmospheric pressure. There's actually some, so there are things again, in, in learning wind patterns when wins in certain ways you know it's gonna happen.

So I'll tell you two good sources. You absolutely. I can recommend. I Jeff Renner, if Jeff Renner, he was a longtime meteor. I is he retired? I haven't he was a longtime meteorologist. Great guy. I've met him in person. He's a wonderful guy. 

Yeah, he's, and he is written a couple of books about weather.

He's written I think at least three books. I've read a couple of his books for the Mountaineers books. Fun reads. Great Reads are not very big books. He's got one just on lightning. Yep. Definitely pick up his books. Yeah, if you're, to learn more, I think he'll give you a lot of insight on the weather here.

And he's based here in western Washington, so a lot of it is very appropriate to, to our area. Yeah. 

Yep. Absolutely. Anything else we wanna say about weather today before we wrap up, Craig? 

Oh boy. Again, getting back I've. Yeah, I grew up in New England and I've hiked all over the country and it's funny out here, people complain when it's 80 degrees or it's 40 degrees, but really the weather is like among the best out here.

It's it is truly temperate. We live in such a great area for weather, so even when it's raining it's a warm rain. Me do it's not snow. I could still go out and run in the winter time. Yeah. Yeah. So appreciate the weather here. But I will talk on more of a somber note too, and I think any long time people who've lived in the area.

There is a different, another difference between weather and climate. I've lived here for 35 years, and let me tell you it the patterns are all different. It it was wetter in the past and snowier in the past and things are changing and so yeah, again. That's something to take in consideration too.

Yeah. 'cause when you're planning, just because something was one way or another doesn't mean it's gonna be, the climate is definitely changing and that's affecting weather patterns. And it's making, fire more prevalent and yeah 

and I think that's a good point, Craig, because when things become more unpredictable.

It's more important to really pay attention to this, to keep yourself safe. 

The extreme weather events not just here in, but across the country. We're having more and more extreme weather events than ever before, and that's a pattern that's probably going to continue. 

Yes, absolutely. All right. Pay attention to the weather, everybody, and we'll see you next week.

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Jennie Thwing Flaming

Host
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Craig Romano

Co-host