January Weather In the PNW

[Phil]

Anyone else having issues with wunderground? Been glitchy for me since 1/4.

[Front Ranger]

Candian ensemble mean is best yet. Following an 0z EPS that was best yet. I wouldn't get too caught up in the GFS fluctuations past day 7.

 

[Phil]

Big trade burst right over the west-Pacific warm pool starts tomorrow morning. Should cool the waters there somewhat via evaporative cooling/throughflow into Indo domain.

[Front Ranger]

Big trade burst right over the west-Pacific warm pool starts tomorrow morning. Should cool the waters there somewhat via evaporative cooling/throughflow into Indo domain.

 

WHAM the WHEM warm pool for the WHIN!

[Phil]

Actually, looks like the strongest trade burst above 5N over the warm pool since 2011. That should make people in here pretty happy.

[Deweydog]

Actually, looks like the strongest trade burst above 5N over the warm pool since 2011. That should make people in here pretty happy.

Cue the Jaws music...

[Geos]

Anyone else having issues with wunderground? Been glitchy for me since 1/4.

 

Been pretty good for me. I did notice on a couple days last week that the webcam icons on the map weren't updating though.

[Phil]

WHAM the WHEM warm pool for the WHIN!

Haha. WPAC vs MJO/trade burst. Fight to the instraseasonal (temporary) death. Who’ve you got?

 

My money is on the MJO this time. I think.

[stuffradio]

It would be nice to be able to come in here and not read a post where people are attacking other people.

[Phil]

[crf450ish]

You have little to complain about.

I know. I leave east of the cascades where the real seasons exist...

[Kayla]

Anyone else having issues with wunderground? Been glitchy for me since 1/4.

 

Yeah, my station reports there have been off and on since then as well. My station is still reporting on NWS MADIS though so its not a station issue. Wunderground must be having some server issues as of late.

[Phil]

Sometimes it helps to look at SSTs without all the fake colors exaggerating the importance of high latitude waters over the tropical waters.

 

While there are actually two “warm pools” during boreal summer (Atlantic and Pacific), during boreal winter, the west-Pacific runs the show. It’s the primary long period heat pump to the extratropics, as well.

 

What La Niña does is produce a zonal thermal gradient across the tropical Pacific, between the warm pool to the west, and the cold tongue to the east. It allows for a more efficient overturning (Walker) cell, ventilating heat from the WPAC while cool return fluxes from the poles enter the EPAC. Which is why the location/orientation of the WPAC warm pool matters so much in Niña winters..it’s the center of..well, everything.

 

[Frontal Snowsquall]

12z ECMWF showing some pretty warm anomalies this weekend. Good day to go up to the mountains.

 

[Phil]

As the La Niña circulation has strengthened and established, the west-Pacific warm pool has gradually begun retracting southwestward, especially since Christmas.

 

Good news for the west. Needs to keep going, though.

 

[Geos]

It would be nice to be able to come in here and not read a post where people are attacking other people.

 

Yes lets stop the attacks. Maybe some people need to take a timeout from the board as well. 

[TT-SEA]

A dry MLK Day on the 12Z ECMWF... big improvement from the 00Z run.    Maybe even sunny too.  

 

That would make for a perfect MLK weekend with all 3 days being mostly sunny, dry, and mild.    

 

If the 12Z ECMWF is correct... it would probably be in the low 60s and sunny here on Sunday and Monday.  Not bad for the middle of January.

[HighlandExperience]

A dry MLK Day on the 12Z ECMWF... big improvement from the 00Z run. Maybe even sunny too.

 

That would make for a perfect MLK weekend with all 3 days being mostly sunny, dry, and mild.

 

If the 12Z ECMWF is correct... it would probably be in the low 60s and sunny here on Sunday and Monday. Not bad for the middle of January.

What is Euro showing for Tuesday?

[TT-SEA]

What is Euro showing for Tuesday?

 

Light rain... mid to upper 40s around Seattle.

[Phil]

She’s a late bloomer. Can’t say I expected Niño 3.4 to reach -1.5C, but multi-year -ENSO does fit post super niño climo.

 

[Geos]

As the La Niña circulation has strengthened and established, the west-Pacific warm pool has gradually begun retracting southwestward, especially since Christmas.

 

Good news for the west. Needs to keep going, though.

 

 

Does the west Pacific warm pool have a normal position that it resides at?

[Geos]

Wow, it really tanked in the last day.

 

[Frontal Snowsquall]

12z ECMWF still showing wind gust up to around 55 mph for the Willamette Valley on Thursday. NWS Portland thinking just 30 to 40 mph gust for now.

 

The latest models suggest the low moves onshore somewhere near Cape Flattery of the southern half of Vancouver Island Thu afternoon. With this in mind, seems gusty winds increasing across the region by early Thu afternoon. Good bet will see south to southwest winds to gust 50 to 60 mph on the coast and coastal mountains as well as the Cascades. Likely will get 30 to 40 mph gusts across the interior lowlands. Winds will ease early Thu evening. Pyle/Rockey

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

What is Euro showing for Tuesday?

You don't need to go to a paid site to see some of the Euro.  Go here and look for free.  Also give increments in 3 hours instead of 24.

 

https://weather.us/

[TT-SEA]

Yipppeee... both the SEA and coastal radars are down at the same time!  

[Deweydog]

Yipppeee... both the SEA and coastal radars are down at the same time!

The Arctic front looks dry anyway...

[Kayla]

Long range 12z ECMWF actually looks somewhat promising. Nice SE ridge popping up at the end as well.

[Geos]

You don't need to go to a paid site to see some of the Euro.  Go here and look for free.  Also give increments in 3 hours instead of 24.

 

https://weather.us/

 

Nice.

How's your snowpack holding up with the above freezing temps the last couple days there?

[Phil]

Does the west Pacific warm pool have a normal position that it resides at?

For a Niña? Or just generally speaking?

 

It’s “normal” location/size/shape varies over long periods of time, depending on various large scale boundary conditions/pseudo-entropic processes, etc.

 

The early-Holocene warm pool (deglaciation) was the largest/most northward-shifted of the last 120,000yrs, and it remained in this state (while only modestly contracting southwestward) through the middle Holocene, at which point it began to retract more rapidly to the Southwest, though the warm pool itself didn’t actually cool significantly until after 3000yrs before present, and this continued into the LIA/beyond.

 

The LIA warm pool was actually warmer than the 20th century warm pool, however it was shifted so far to the Southwest, that the warm SSTAs were confined to the Southern Hemisphere, while the Northern Hemisphere portion of its (former) domain cooled.

 

The warm pool continued cooling into the 19th and 20th centuries, however it started migrating northward again in the 1700s, increasing the heat fluxes to the NH and by consequence the entire globe since the northward biased warm pool is a conduit to +NAM/+SAM (too complicated to get into right now) which reduces tropical/subtropical convection and cloud cover, adding to the global heat budget over longer periods of time.

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

Nice.

How's your snowpack holding up with the above freezing temps the last couple days there?

It has gone down a little, but we had an inch or so of snow last night.  It doesn't melt here as fast as it would elsewhere, at least I think, because if we have 12 inches on the ground, it is not because of a single 12 inch snowfall, it is compacted down from 24 inches, so much more solid and slower to melt.  And we are expecting a good dumping of snow Wednesday night through at least early Thursday afternoon, and maybe all day Thursday.  Thursday afternoon it may or may not mix in with rain, it is hard to get a good forecast here, as the graphical forecasts that the NWS uses for their point and click are notoriously awful for here, but from what they are saying in the AFD it may stay as snow all day.  Close call, but at least good snow through early afternoon for sure.

 

The point and click forecast often shows rain for us when it really snows, like on the 19th it called for rain with a high in the mid to upper 30s, but it stayed in the low 30's with 6-8 inches of snow.  And sometimes the graphical forecasts calls for us to be warmer than areas like Moses Lake, which is ridiculous.  

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Yipppeee... both the SEA and coastal radars are down at the same time!  

If my repairs were that poor on my customers cars I would be out of business! They fail every other month.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

It has gone down a little, but we had an inch or so of snow last night.  It doesn't melt here as fast as it would elsewhere, at least I think, because if we have 12 inches on the ground, it is not because of a single 12 inch snowfall, it is compacted down from 24 inches, so much more solid and slower to melt.  And we are expecting a good dumping of snow Wednesday night through at least early Thursday afternoon, and maybe all day Thursday.  Thursday afternoon it may or may not mix in with rain, it is hard to get a good forecast here, as the graphical forecasts that the NWS uses for their point and click are notoriously awful for here, but from what they are saying in the AFD it may stay as snow all day.  Close call, but at least good snow through early afternoon for sure.

 

The point and click forecast often shows rain for us when it really snows, like on the 19th it called for rain with a high in the mid to upper 30s, but it stayed in the low 30's with 6-8 inches of snow.  And sometimes the graphical forecasts calls for us to be warmer than areas like Moses Lake, which is ridiculous.  

 

Thursday looks good for sure, I'm trying to figure a way to escape my business a couple days lol.

[Geos]

For a Niña? Or just generally speaking?

 

It’s “normal” location/size/shape varies over long periods of time, depending on various large scale boundary conditions/pseudo-entropic processes, etc.

 

The early-Holocene warm pool (deglaciation) was the largest/most northward-shifted of the last 120,000yrs, and it remained in this state (while only modestly contracting southwestward) through the middle Holocene, at which point it began to retract more rapidly to the Southwest, though the warm pool itself didn’t actually cool significantly until after 3000yrs before present, and this continued into the LIA/beyond.

 

The LIA warm pool was actually warmer than the 20th century warm pool, however it was shifted so far to the Southwest, that the warm SSTAs were confined to the Southern Hemisphere, while the Northern Hemisphere portion of its (former) domain cooled.

 

The warm pool continued cooling into the 19th and 20th centuries, however it started migrating northward again in the 1700s, increasing the heat fluxes to the NH and by consequence the entire globe since the northward biased warm pool is a conduit to +NAM/+SAM (too complicated to get into right now) which reduces tropical/subtropical convection and cloud cover, adding to the global heat budget over longer periods of time.

 

Generally in the last century is what I was getting at. But thanks for the historical record of it. 

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

Thursday looks good for sure, I'm trying to figure a way to escape my business a couple days lol.

Snow will start overnight Wednesday night/Thursday morning, so make sure you leave tomorrow.  Here is a map from the NWS Spokane:

 

[Geos]

It has gone down a little, but we had an inch or so of snow last night.  It doesn't melt here as fast as it would elsewhere, at least I think, because if we have 12 inches on the ground, it is not because of a single 12 inch snowfall, it is compacted down from 24 inches, so much more solid and slower to melt.  And we are expecting a good dumping of snow Wednesday night through at least early Thursday afternoon, and maybe all day Thursday.  Thursday afternoon it may or may not mix in with rain, it is hard to get a good forecast here, as the graphical forecasts that the NWS uses for their point and click are notoriously awful for here, but from what they are saying in the AFD it may stay as snow all day.  Close call, but at least good snow through early afternoon for sure.

 

The point and click forecast often shows rain for us when it really snows, like on the 19th it called for rain with a high in the mid to upper 30s, but it stayed in the low 30's with 6-8 inches of snow.  And sometimes the graphical forecasts calls for us to be warmer than areas like Moses Lake, which is ridiculous.  

 

I imagine some reasons why your graphical forecasts are off is because of the cold air damming/drainage out of the mountains and probably due to the fact that the air is so dry you get a lot of evaporational cooling when precipitation arrives. 

[James Jones]

Anyone else having issues with wunderground? Been glitchy for me since 1/4.

 

Seems like they've been dicking around with it the last few years, it's been getting worse and worse.

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

I imagine some reasons why your graphical forecasts are off is because of the cold air damming/drainage out of the mountains and probably due to the fact that the air is so dry you get a lot of evaporational cooling when precipitation arrives. 

I think that is probably right.  Cold air damming is a big deal, and I don't think the models handle it very well, they often want to push warmer air here before it actually gets here, if it does.  Of course sometimes we do get rain, but in those marginal situations, it is often wrong.  I know the NWS uses their graphical forecasts for their point and click, but I don't know how they get their graphical forecasts.  And it often gets the precip type more accurately closer to the event, though the marginal situations will always be tough to forecast, no matter the location.  That one day where we had 6-8 inches of snow when it called for rain, had it been a couple of degrees cooler, it would have been 8-10 inches, a couple of degrees warmer it would have been mixed rain and snow with no accumulation.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

I think that is probably right.  Cold air damming is a big deal, and I don't think the models handle it very well, they often want to push warmer air here before it actually gets here, if it does.  Of course sometimes we do get rain, but in those marginal situations, it is often wrong.  I know the NWS uses their graphical forecasts for their point and click, but I don't know how they get their graphical forecasts.  And it often gets the precip type more accurately closer to the event, though the marginal situations will always be tough to forecast, no matter the location.  That one day where we had 6-8 inches of snow when it called for rain, had it been a couple of degrees cooler, it would have been 8-10 inches, a couple of degrees warmer it would have been mixed rain and snow with no accumulation.

Same with up near my cabin, I have seen it snow at 2000ft in the area with a 4k snow level. Impossible to predict the area with much detail.

[Geos]

Eastern slopes look to cash in pretty good late week.

 

https://weather.us/model-charts/euro/washington/acc-precipitation-snow-total/20180112-1200z.html

[Prairiedog]

Think positive, people. We could all be dead before our winters go to complete s**t across the board.

Death by a thousand paper cuts will on our death certificate.