Plaincast
What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.
Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for Spokane, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.
Cooler storm systems arrive Friday into the weekend bringing rain, high mountain snow, and gusty winds. Areas of fog will continue to impact travel each day. Cooler next week with potential for rain and snow though there remains considerably uncertainty with the track of the incoming systems.
Friday-Saturday: The next upper-level trough approaches today and limps inland tonight into Saturday. The slow movement is due to an appreciable amount of meridional stretching while also taking on a slight negative tilt. Friday will deliver one more dry day before a band of light rain slowly tracks west to east Friday night into Saturday. Higher range of the rainfall totals will be near 0.25 inches for locations near the Cascade Crest and around the Camas Prairie. Between these areas, rainfall amounts will range anywhere from a trace to less than 0.15 inches. We are observing a heavy influx in high clouds right now and this is limiting fog development so far despite a very moist boundary layer. Motorists will encounter patchy areas of dense fog Friday morning but confidence is low that conditions will warrant the extent of dense fog that we have observed over the last few mornings. Breezy east to southeast winds across the Camas Prairie, L-C Valley, and Palouse will keep these areas fog and low cloud free.
Winds will largely be out of the east and southeast across the Inland NW will breezy conditions across the ridgetops and across the lowland expanding from the Palouse to the Waterville Plateau. Local wind gusts of 20-30 mph will be common with gusts closer to 35 mph along higher ridgelines. The easterly flow will keep temperatures cooler across the East Slopes of the Cascades and mild from Lewiston to Grand Coulee topping out in the upper 50s to lower 60s. Winds will shift back to the west/southwest Friday night into Saturday with the arrival of the cold front. The westerly push will be weak but still capable of breezes of 10-20 mph. Areas of low stratus will be likely with the rain with Friday night into Saturday morning with patchy fog Temperatures will cool back into the 50s for Saturday with increased odds for areas of dense fog redeveloping Saturday night.
Sunday-Thursday: Storm systems will continue to move across the Eastern Pacific and into the Pac NW. However, the general trend will be for these systems will be to weaken while coming onshore with the strongest dynamics coming in south of the Inland NW. So while there is moderate confidence for additional rounds of precipitation, at this time there are no signals for any real impactful storm systems. The next cold front and period of precipitation will arrive Sunday. This system will have a bit more jet dynamics to work with versus Friday night's front and less dry air to overcome equating to more areas receiving between a 0.10 and 0.40 inches of rain and upwards of 0.50 for the Cascade Crest. Cooler air will arrive with this system leading to increasing chances for light snow on Sherman and Washington Passes for Sunday. There is lower confidence for snow impacts at Stevens Sunday with snow levels not falling close to pass level until Sunday night as precipitation is winding down. Lookout Pass will remain on the warm side of the front through Sunday with no concerns for snow. Sunday's trough will also undergo meridional stretching slowing down the cold front passage through Idaho through the day on Monday and in general, this will not create a lot of wind across the region as we cool down the air mass to more typical November standards. Something to monitor will be a transition from rain to snow for Lookout Pass and over the higher benches of the Camas Prairie Monday night into Tuesday morning with indication of 850mb temperatures dipping near 0 to -0.5C. Tuesday looks to be a transition day with the Sunday-Monday front shifting east and another deep low wobbling toward the coast. The track of this system comes with 50% of the ensembles favoring a track south of the Inland NW through N CA and Oregon while 50% are further north across WA- OR. With a cooler air mass in place, this will need to be monitored closely for more impactful snow on the mountain passes and mix of rain and wet snow for some lowlands, especially around the Camas Prairie, Palouse, and Blue Mountains.
Friday-weekend: There is good agreement (80-90%) that high pressure will return to the Northwest bringing another period of light winds and dry conditions. There is a strong likelihood that this will promote another period of expansive fog and low clouds following in the wake of precipitation events this week. This will likely result in cooler, near normal temperatures given the poor mixing. /sb
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Spokane discussion at /o/OTX/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.
Data from the National Weather Service. Translated by Claude. About · For developers & agents · Subscribe: RSS feed for this office · Source on GitHub