That was a loud awakening.
And, no, the jolt didn’t originate from a garbage bin tumbling outside or from a plane flying overhead. Rather, the booms originated from thunderstorms that the National Weather Service reported around 5:45 a.m.
Thunderstorms drifting through the Pacific Northwest aren’t an oddity, and they typically form around this time of the year, according to Colby Neuman, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Portland. The storms were not severe other than general risks posed by sporadic lightning strikes.
The region isn’t a common breeding ground for a bellowing sky, Neuman said, though there is something unique about today’s thunder.
“It is pretty unusual for us to get as widespread as thunderstorms as we’re seeing right now,” he said early Thursday morning.
Scattered storm clouds stretched between Salem and Eugene, Ore., all the way through Olympia. They will drift farther inland and develop in eastern Washington and Oregon later this evening.
So, why don’t thunderstorms happen frequently in the Pacific Northwest?
Unlike warmer and humid areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean’s cold water and dry air provides a tiny amount of vertical temperature difference, or the amount of heat that radiates from the ground to the cool atmosphere, according to Washington State University Insider.
These conditions are less likely to spur thunderstorms, which traditionally form when warm air rises into cold air and mixes with water vapor – a “fuel” of sorts that kick-starts a cloud’s development.
On the chance the Pacific Northwest does experience thunderstorms, it’s the result of unstable warm, moist air flows, according to the National Weather Service.
Thursday’s storms brought nearly a half-inch of rain as of about 2 p.m. to Pearson Field in Vancouver. Scattered rainfall and cool air will continue to linger in the region through Friday night, with increasing showers expected to occur on Saturday.
