Meatyorologist

I'm hoping everyone here gets the chance to enjoy this very mild upcoming early Spring week. If the warm weather and pertinent sunshine doesn't awaken the whole biosphere, I don't know what will. The middle and lower elevations of the PNW will get a solid head start on the leafout season with this heatwave, perhaps a couple weeks ahead of schedule near sea level and escalating to over a month in some of the foothills. Unsurprisingly on brand for a dying El Niño in a warming climate. I'm gonna be a moderate Mitchell here and claim that highs won't get too far out there. Low 70s in Seattle, upper 70s in the Willamette. Nothing ridiculous like the mid 80s.

Afterwards, there seems to be an intriguing push towards a midwinter-esque high latitude retrograde of the ridge. It's certainly possible given the immense magnitude of the initial ridge which will park overhead this week; heights nearly four sigma decameters above the mid march average. And with there being some cold on our side of the pole trapped in the vicinity of northeast Alaska, there may be gas yet left from our 2023-24 season in a very, very high end, out there blocking scenario. Reading some of the great 1800's talk we've been having over these last few days, we do know there's still a dying breath's potential to squeeze out a Salem Slushie Special on some Spring Sunday sometime soon, surely. Sayonara!

But hold your thawing horses. Tomorrow and into Tuesday we have more transitive troughing to contend with, maybe bringing some lightning via some of the well timed bands of showers. There'll be more of a westerly component to this next incoming trough, so the Seattle area will probably deal with more Olympic shadowing, and will have to benefit from clear sky daytime heating and other thermal perturbations in the PSCZ to swoop in a squall line. We're in mid March now... could happen. Just the other day we had hail showers under a surprisingly clear sky!

47 minutes ago, T-Town said:

The benefit of an HOA is that your neighbors have signed an agreement that says they can be penalized if they park ten cars in front of your house. Whether you see value in an HOA probably depends on how much you value that “service.”

Most of the arguments I've read supporting HOA's are like this... Very extreme examples. This rarely ever happens and if so it's even more rare that a reasonable compromise can't be met with the neighbor, after a polite honest conversation. I bet a lot of "examples" are people simply not trying hard enough to make peace.

41 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

They protect property values when administered correctly. 

This is probably the only sound example that I can see supporting HOA's... Though the "when administered correctly" is pulling a lot of weight here. Technically this wouldn't even be an issue if Americans weren't so concerned with silly things such as the continuity of their neighborhood or having to walk half a block to their front door.

31 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Yup. We were able to pick our own color but it had to go to the board for approval. I definitely have a serious love/hate thing for HOA’s. Some are pretty ridiculous.

As far as cost, it was subbed by the builder so I have no clue. Last time I painted a house was summer 2009, which I did myself and it cost me about a thousand bucks when all was said and done. It was a ridiculous amount of work and if I charged myself labor it would have probably cost me about 10k.

I have some very strong opinions on HOA's... I'm curious as to what good you see in them?

42 minutes ago, westcoastexpat said:

Definitely starting to look like potentially 7+ days of mid to upper 60s are on the table

Ehhhh I was fine with the 2-4 days of 70ish weather. Extending it to a week would be a little much this early, beyond the extent of our usual Spring warm spell.

Hey @Phil... How's that ENSO transition looking? Any thoughts, any updates? Looking clean or messy thus far?

1 hour ago, Sunriver Snow Zone said:

KILL ALL YELLOWJACKETS!! Last summer was the worst summer I've ever seen in terms of yellow jackets, there were so many of them. August-early October you'd get swarmed by a billion yellow jackets on every hike, I got stung SIX TIMES in that period, it was TERRIBLE.

 

Yellow jackets must go EXTINCT!!!

There's been a lot of fun talk today about one March ridge endangering our region. But I think removing a key pollenating species would actually wipe out a good chunk of the remaining biosphere in the city, not to mention irreversibly alter the ecosystem in the wild.

But they are a nuisance, no matter how you slice it.

34 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Nice! Portland did 76 with that one.

From way back then March-April 1885 has always fascinated me as well. Probably the ridgiest stretch we've seen recorded here in the early spring. And also after a very cold winter. Between March 12 and April 10, Portland only had 0.01" of rain with an average maximum of 67 and what looked like blazing sunshine most of the time. That ridgy stretch lasted until early May and culminated in a 94 degree day on May 5, which gives it pretty good heat cred even by today's standards!

The winter of 1879-80 was an equally ridgy period for the southeast US. Then you have its inverse in 1861-62 out here. The more and more I read about it, the more and more it seems that the 19th century was a time period of midlatitude extremes overall. Or perhaps I am simply acknowledging the extremes you'd expect to see out of an entire century of weather across a whole continent.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it atmospheric river events and intense warm rain processes that are really bad for snowpack? I don't think 3-5 days of 35-50F sun will annihilate anything in the mountains. Even if KSEA itself smooches the seventies.

9 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Has anyone checked on the local Maryland or Stampede Pass obits for Phil!?

He's probably too busy retrofitting the air circulation system in his house to include smoke filters, that way he's prepped for three weeks from now when Maryland is breathing in every last trunk of the Santiam old growth.

1 hour ago, RentonHill said:

 

You should've seen me when KSEA bumped up to 27F in the middle of the night on 12/28/21, avoiding a 23/17 day. 4F warmer than every surrounding station. I still think it was plane exhaust. Plane unfair if you ask me 

KSEA pulled off a respectable 28F this morning. Clouds and some weak precip have held temps around 42F this afternoon so depending on how well this overcast sticks around for the next two hours we could be looking at a double digit negative departure today. Pretty slick and sly for the backend of a days-long maritime trough.

27 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

You must be a transplant.  Natives only want darkness and rain.  I never met someone from here who looks forward to spring and sun.   Impossible.  

Who cares what Snowmizer thinks. This is wasted breath to anyone but him. Leave it to the DM's.

I could really use a 70F day on my scheduled weekend. My SAD has been out of control lately (too much time spent kept up in my room drinking twenty monsters and livestreaming the 12z Euro with Snyder). So long as it snows while it's sunny and warm #blessings #bestofbothworlds #lifegoals

1 hour ago, snow_wizard said:

-3 at Camp Muir on Mount Rainier.  Cold air mass!

*heir mass

14 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Wow... GFS and GEM both look great at 10 day.   Nice improvements.

I don't really care about the Tim versus Jesse WAR, it's above my pay grade (zero). But the bare roadcams and warm nose 925mb temp maps and long range EPS ridging just to troll certain members and piss on others having fun in their nonsticking snow, intentionally or not, is lame as hell.

And yes I can tell the difference between you trolling and you genuinely appreciating impending warmth. You do plenty of the latter and I don't mind that, hell I agree half the time. But the tagged post is an obvious example of the former.

1 minute ago, TT-SEA said:

Definitely coming together as a band solid precip.   ECMWF shows it holding together all the way up to Seattle over next couple of hours. 

Unless it stalls and keeps strength I doubt anyone in Seattle below the high points of KSEA and the watertower are gonna get anything measurable. Maybe we SCORE a mix though!

Radar looks pretty good south of the Sound. Maybe we'll squeeze out a W during the last opportunity.

32 minutes ago, GHweatherChris said:

We have a trace of snow!

God bless

R/S on maple leaf.

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I've been thinking about all the talk about how terrible certain people's locations are for snow/cold, etc... 

At the end of the day, nowhere west of the Cascades and south of Seattle is going to be that great for winter weather below 500-1000'. It seems like you can do pretty well in the Hood Canal area below 500, and places out toward North Bend or Bellevue below 1000' seem to do really well, at least judging from posters on here. South of Portland you really have to be above 1000' to get much snow. Places between 500-1000' can do really well with events like December 2021, but for a lot of these cold onshore flow type of events you really have to get up above 1000' to score much when the valley is seeing cold rain. 

Part of the reason I moved up here was because I wanted to live somewhere with more snow, but I also wanted to be near the state park, and in a more remote area. You give up a lot living this far out though. The weather can be a pain in the a** in a way it rarely is down on the valley floor. I would guess 90% of the snow that falls here accumulates with temps at 30 or higher. It's almost always complete slop. Mossman definitely gets more high quality snow than we do here. 

Anyway, in short I like the climate where I live, there are some things I would change about it, but it's probably as good as I can do if I'm going to be living in W. Oregon. The folks who complain a lot probably don't have it comparatively as bad as they think they do... If you are experiencing genuine unhappiness because it doesn't snow enough, you probably have much bigger problems. 

There's a nugget of truth in there, but the reality is that the good majority of us are weather lifer's whether we like it that way or not, and our temperate climate is pretty unforgiving for even the most patient of diehard cloud fanboys. It's hard *not* to be disappointed unless you live in one of the rare, specialized microclimates that try their hardest to be a little more "fair" to us nerds.

That all being said, you need more than one reason to live.

13 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

It’ll trend…?

That wasn't a downvote. It simply means...

Not a single weather model has the current low under handle. Some are too strong, some too weak. Most are behind in timing by a few hours. Nowcast kind of night ahead (though I don't think there is any alternative during marginal setups.)

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

First map is now... then 1 a.m.  and then 10 a.m.    

Subzero 925's are gonna track almost directly with where it's precipitating, especially with all of the sinking/warming in the low levels over the Sound. A general precip map ought to be just as useful.

46 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Turned into beautiful afternoon.    Car temp said 43 when I parked.

Hiking Mt. Si on a day like today would be a weather nerd's playbox. I kind of regret not showing up today with a cup of coffee and my Kestrel 5500FW

Chunky rain