February 2017 Observations and Model Discussion for the Pacific Northwest

[MossMan]

Sun is warm today. Had to roll the windows down and turn on the AC

You are going to get yelled at on here for turning on your AC. How dare you. 

[MossMan]

Great story bro

It was a lovely snow shower while it lasted. 

[Deweydog]

Great story bro

 

It went east.  

[Perturbed Member]

18z GFS looks great for Friday AM.

[ShawniganLake]

Sunday has looked good for the puget sound.

[HighlandExperience]

[Jesse]

I have all the windows and doors in my house open right now with the AC blasting.

[Jbolin]

Wow what a pipe dream. Awesome if that works out!!

 

Really like the 18z. Let's hope this continues!!

Yes but what kind of pipe?

Weed

Meth

Crack 

Schedule 80

?

?

?

[FroYoBro]

I have all the windows and doors in my house open right now with the AC blasting.

 

Same, but also I'm naked with blocks of ice covering my entire body.

[Timmy]

Just picked up a dusting here. Reports of snow in vernonia. Positive windshield splat test at 26 and Jackson school.

[FroYoBro]

Just picked up a dusting here. Reports of snow in vernonia. Positive windshield splat test at 26 and Jackson school.

 

Pretty good graupel shower coming down in Beaverton right now. 

[MossMan]

I have all the windows and doors in my house open right now with the AC blasting.

High maintenance! 

[snow maniac]

Sunday has looked good for the puget sound.IMG_0572.PNG

Southern Olympic rain shadow in full effect, yuck

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Friday and Sunday look like they have some decent potential.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Interesting how the models have split into two very distinctive camps for the March 3-7th period.

 

Cfs is in the cold camp

[Jesse]

High maintenance!

Not quite as high as my energy bill!

[Guest Dome Buster]

Just a little play by play for those of you still stuck at work in PDX area.

 

Off work at 230 in Gladstone: 47 and partly cloudy

 

Stopped for a drink, left Gladstone @ 2:50: Clouding up, light rain beginning to fall, large drops. Quickly dropped to 42

 

Went the back roads so I could go up over hills. 3:10: Over Rosemont area/West Linn, S. Lake Oswego, heavy graupel/hail shower left a quick dusting.  Temp started at 41 near the hwy 43 exit off 205.  Dropped to 36 during the shower.

 

Dropped down into Lake Grove, near the Lower Boones Ferry exit off of I5 around 3:20.  Light rain and temp rose back up to 40.

 

Continued down Tualatin/Sherwood Hwy, got to Sherwood around 3:40:  Heavy rain and the temp dropped to 37 by the time I got to 99W.  I was eyeing Cooper Mtn., surely at least heavy wet snow up there.

 

Continued past 99W on Roy Rogers Rd., temp dropping with heavy precip.  Over Cooper Mtn. around 4:00 it was heavy wet snow and temp bottomed out at 34.  Nothing stuck but was pretty fun for an appetizer.

 

Made it back down to the Beaverton/Hillsboro area.  Funny how at the bottom of Cooper Mtn. it quickly shot up 6 degrees to 40.  Wavered between 39 and 41 all the way home to Tanasbourne.  Have to love these micro-climates around here.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

A solid dusting of snow when I arrived home this evening.

 

42/30 today.

[Jesse]

Interesting how the models have split into two very distinctive camps for the March 3-7th period.

 

Cfs is in the cold camp

Mid-60s vs low-60s?

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Mid-60s vs low-60s?

 

Low 40s?!

[ShawniganLake]

Someone needs to cutoff the drunk uncle's alcohol supply. He's getting downright sloppy.

The 12z was similar but with the bullseye over the south sound.

 

[Tenochtitlan]

Wow! Wait, you're in Eugene now, right?

 

That first picture with the deer is amazing.

[Front Ranger]

Also, this QBO state is just absurd. Not even a hint of a downwelling easterly in there. The precursory SAO in the mesosphere is already back-cycling, so I doubt we see the easterly in the upper sigmas until at least mid-summer.

 

However this turns out, it's obvious that something has happened to the QBO. It just isn't functioning properly anymore. Scientists worldwide are scratching their heads over this. We've followed the QBO since the 1950s, and nothing like this has ever been observed.

 

I expect studies very soon attributing it to global warming.

 

Any time something unusual happens, that happens.

[VancouverIslandSouth]

Yes, just SW of Eugene at 850 ft. elevation.

 

The deer just happened to walk by as I went out onto the deck to gawk at the snow and take photos.

 

Here's one more, after the snow stopped, as the light was failing:

 

 

Nice! The Arbutus and Oak mix in the forest there looks a lot like something you'd find here or in pockets along East Vancouver Island.

[VancouverIslandSouth]

Yes, I have a nice southwest exposure that the Madrones (as we call them here) like.  They weren't very happy about last December's ice storm, though.  LOTS of breakage - entire 50' trees snapped off near the base.  A massive cleanup that I'm still working on.

 

That sucks, my parent's place in Nanoose lost pretty big branches during previous heavy snowstorms, but the worst damage has come from a type of fungus that turns the branches black and usually eventually kills the trees.

[MossMan]

Down to 30.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Yes, I have a nice southwest exposure that the Madrones (as we call them here) like.  They weren't very happy about last December's ice storm, though.  LOTS of breakage - entire 50' trees snapped off near the base.  A massive cleanup that I'm still working on.

 

Nice property!

[bainbridgekid]

00z looks good for Sunday for Seattle.

 

Really nice track. Timing will be key with this feature. If it is able to come in closer to Sunday morning I like our chances of getting something rather widespread. If it holds off till the afternoon it would make accumulations much tougher to come by.

 

[VancouverIslandSouth]

The 0z GFS continues to look good for Sunday; this is a near classic looking shortwave coming down the BC coast, which generally works out well for the Puget Sound area. If it had just a bit more amplitude we could be looking at an Arctic blast coming in behind the snow, but it still has lots of potential as a snow event alone. The consistency of this feature across all the models now is pretty impressive too given the way they struggled on earlier events.

 

Hard to believe it was 6 years ago today that we were entering one of the most impressive late February blasts on record; 3 years later there was another significant snow event in northern areas. This event looks like a blend between those two; quicker, colder and more widespread than Feb 2014, but not nearly as cold as Feb 2011.

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2017022300/gfs_z500_mslp_namer_14.png

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Sunday looks pretty good up here. Probably good for 2-4" above 1000' in NW Oregon.

[VancouverIslandSouth]

The 0z GEM develops the secondary low behind the Sunday low and brings in another shot of snow on Monday. The other models have been hinting at this possibility as well but don't develop it to the extent the GEM does.

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gem/2017022300/gem_mslp_pcpn_frzn_nwus_21.png

[HighlandExperience]

The Gem shows close to 12 inches in Whatcom county. Probably overdone, but nice to see.

[Jesse]

Was nice to see PDX pull off a mid-winter esque 45/31 today.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Just had a good little shake. 4.1 belfair.

[HighlandExperience]

WRF shows something.

[ShawniganLake]

The 0z GFS continues to look good for Sunday; this is a near classic looking shortwave coming down the BC coast, which generally works out well for the Puget Sound area. If it had just a bit more amplitude we could be looking at an Arctic blast coming in behind the snow, but it still has lots of potential as a snow event alone. The consistency of this feature across all the models now is pretty impressive too given the way they struggled on earlier events.

 

Hard to believe it was 6 years ago today that we were entering one of the most impressive late February blasts on record; 3 years later there was another significant snow event in northern areas. This event looks like a blend between those two; quicker, colder and more widespread than Feb 2014, but not nearly as cold as Feb 2011.

 

[HighlandExperience]

IMG_0575.PNG

Oh wow. Is that Four runs in a row now? Excited to see what Euro shows.

[snow maniac]

Just had a good shake here, looks like a 4.2 earthquake just NW of me

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Was nice to see PDX pull off a mid-winter esque 45/31 today.

 

PDX was busy pulling off 29/11 type stuff this winter!

[Jesse]

PDX was busy pulling off 29/11 type stuff this winter!

Very true, winter was made great again!