Forecasters see chance of warmer, drier winter

By John Dodge | The Olympian • Published October 02, 2008

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SEATTLE – This winter could be a little warmer and not as wet as last year, according to a Northwest outlook released Wednesday by the National Weather Service.

Last winter, which brought record snowpack to the mountains and plenty of rain to lowlands, was a La Nina-influenced weather season, but 2008-09 is shaping up as neither a La Nina or El Nino year, said Kirby Cook, a science and operations officer for the weather service in Seattle.

He said the latest models predict normal sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean, compared with the cooler waters of a La Nina year or warmer waters of an El Nino, both of which affect the jet stream's delivery of storms to the Northwest.

He said the outlook is laced with uncertainty because it lacks the stronger signals that La Nina and El Nino provide.

"There's a slight chance of above-normal temperatures and an equal chance that it will be wetter or drier than normal," he said.

However, he added that neutral years in the past have featured many damaging storms, including the 1962 Columbus Day windstorm and the severe lowland flooding of 1990-91 and 1995-96 in Western Washington.

"We can have crazy weather here anytime," Cook said.

Puget Sound Energy

Officials of the state's largest private utility, which provides electrical service to all of Thurston County, said it is better prepared than ever to reduce and respond to power outages, which are typically caused by limbs and trees falling across power lines during windstorms.

Since the December 2006 windstorm, the utility has:

• Boosted annual funding by $2 million for tree trimming around power lines to $12.5 million.

• Replaced 800 aging power poles.

• Spent $247 million in the past year on infrastructure improvements to its electrical system.

• Increased the number of employees — 79 to 197 — trained to assess storm damage to better direct repair crews.

• Developed an online power outage map to provide neighborhood-level information about outages and estimated restoration times.