Weather Eye: Today will be wet, windy and one hour ‘longer’

I wish I was delivering better news weather-wise, but today will be a stormy one in the great Northwest. High winds along the coast could reach 90-100 mph on some exposed coastal headlands, with high surf, heavy rain in the coastal mountains, moderate to heavy rains farther inland, then heavy snow in the higher Cascades eventually falling down to pass levels late today. A good “winter storm” in anyone’s book.

It may be a good day to do indoor activities of some sort. Maybe plan that trip for when the weather turns warm and nice. Or maybe plan your garden while waiting for dry weather to turn the soil. Or take the chance to just chill out and read a good book by ten fireplace.

Of course, I bet some of my weather friends will be out storm-watching at the coast. That’s always a good option.

Although we may have heavy clouds overhead this evening, we will notice that “extra” hour of daylight that will linger well past 7 p.m. Seems like we have switched to daylight savings time forever and in recent years, Congress has pushed date earlier. I guess we trade an hour of lost sleep for an hour of daylight at the end of the day.

With a very strong jet stream from the west and southwest, I have had a couple of e-mails about the potential for radioactive fallout from Japan. Of course if things evolved in a catastrophic situation and radioactive debris were released into the atmosphere, it would indeed get caught up in the jet stream, but according to what I have read it would be highly diluted before descending upon the West Coast.

It is amazing, however, that what occurs thousands of miles away can still have an effect on us, as the tsunami did Friday. Or remnants of an old typhoon that arrive here as a heavy rainstorm. I guess we are not as isolated as we think.

Pat Timm is a local weather specialist. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Reach him at http://weathersystems.com.