Perturbed Member

Really close to the coast

It looks to stay pretty far south. This is about as far north as the precip gets.

Cold air damming (and upsloping) for sure helps that spot in offshore flow but with these kind of setups its more about how those low elevation areas are protected from the S/SW winds by the higher elevation parts of the coast range that extend east in areas south of there. Of course there is the usual effect of colder air near mountain peaks sinking and collecting in the valleys directly below. Places like Vernonia and even Staley's punch well above their weight due to that microclimate.

Great shots. I was there earlier too. Pretty nice spot. I do like going there to catch some nice winter weather. Kind of fun to walk around some of the trails in the snow. If you keep driving up that road I think the main road tops out around 1200 or 1300 ft. Obviously the surrounding terrain has quite a bit higher elevation but I don't think you can drive to it.

Yeah was just looking at those. Radar continues to look great. Too bad this band didn't come in overnight for us.

3rd day in a row of waking up to a light coating of snow. Still snowing here and the radar has been juicy but it is just a hair too warm to stick well. Probably doing well if you're above 500ft here. Of course the Coast Range microclimate is delivering even at the lowest elevations:

It shows basically zero snow in the OR Coast Range. It is currently vomiting snow there and piling up really quick, I was just there a moment ago. The ICON snow maps really are absurd in the opposite direction of the GFS.

Spent most of the day in the Coast Range between 1000-1500 ft. I never quite get used to how drastically different the microclimates in our region can be. Completely different world today once you get to even about 700 ft there. Absolute winter wonderland with on and off snow all day and awesome orographic enhancement of these showers. I've grown pretty tired of the ultra marginal climate down at the lowest elevations and now days I just drive up a bit in elevation to find more interesting weather. Next time I move I'm really going to try to get up to at least 500 ft if not 1000 ft+. The Coast Range or SW WA Cascade foothills still at the top of my list I think.

Got just enough snow to turn most things white. Precip rates brought the temp down to about 32.8F.

How are your temps? Looks like another round is about to hit.

That last shower was pretty fun here. Absolute bonkers snowfall rate. I drove up to 600 ft when I saw the radar and camped up on the side of the road like a creep and it was pretty much whiteout conditions with huge numbers of massive cotton balls falling. Was sticking to the roads down to 400 ft. Just slushy accumulations down at 26. Barely too warm at the lowest elevations under that shower. A similar shower overnight or early AM would do the trick for the lowest elevations. Radar is looking promising.

I don't really care for the HRRR outside 12-24 hours but FWIW:

Changed over to snow pretty low in the eastern Coast Range.

Might be time to drive west into the Coast Range.

My current location did get some light accumulation with that but back then I lived further east in WA county and it was just cold rain. I ended up driving west into the coast range and it was a winter wonderland there. As you said, it was ridiculously frustrating how close that rain/snow line was to us and we were just barely on the wrong side of it.