Meatyorologist

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.

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.)

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.

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

Inversiony November. Snappy January. SLUSHY February and March! Not bad considering back in October the attendees working at northeast Seattle's winter cash-out fob tried their best to inform me that the Pacific was NOT going to cooperate!

Near the ground, yes. But on a macro scale, the storm systems powering our cold fronts are the size of continents and some of the largest heat transfer machines on Earth.

If I had to wager a guess as to what the issue stems from, I'd argue that the models have recently been toyed with as to allow for higher snowfall accumulations through moist-saturated near-sfc columns. This error seems to show up almost exclusively in the immediate vicinity of the coast, exactly where you'd find enhanced lift via the sudden onset of terrain, and the most saturated lower troposphere, right from Pacific onshore winds in a lightly unstable environment. Wouldn't doubt it would be a useful tweak given recent marginal snowfall busts in the Northeast, but since the greater Northwest sits in a gradual transition between a subarctic and subtropical maritime climate zone, where snow can fringe on the hair of dewpoints and Chris' 925mb temp maps and how badly you pray at night, subtle tweaks can wreak havoc on our beloved #snowmaps, as pretty as the colors may be nowadays....

Really hard not to get excited looking at weather models tonight. Lots of small mesoscale oportunities with very high jackpot potential. This next trough will be in rarified territory due to its cold nature alongside its negative tilt, allowing for moisture as well. Fun times ahead.

Can't bring you anywhere!

NAM is biased to overdo evaporative cooling... Likely stems from the same internal flaw which causes an underestimation of stratoform precip. Hopefully it's right though and I eat crow!

Took a drive up to South Everett! About 2-3" here.

That is a webcam for the ages, Skykomish.

That is a beautiful convergence zone...

KSEA coming in with a 5pm low of 35F.

Snow back at home! Grauple transitioned to plain snowflakes.

Yeesh! That blows. What happened?

I'm so, so sorry, Tim. If only I could take all this pain from you...

Rain/snow mix here, 38F

Oh that block support is strong, alright. It's just a bit too far to the west to incorporate any Canadian air. Off-the-chart positive height anomalies over the North Pacific; record breaking actually. Inarguably during our recent cold snaps the truly big story has lied with the heatwave on the other side.

This is pretty raw for the Pacific Ocean, at a latitude matching California, with outflow coming from the Aleutians instead of the continent.

The 3km NAM is the driest mesoscale model by far. It doesn't believe in stratoform precipitation at all, which makes it useless during the winter and pretty bad for stalled convection/latent heat machines such as PSCZ's.

Looking west, this wall of doom is showing up as nothing from KATX, not even on the higher bands. If it's gonna storm it's about to do so without warning.

Snow in King county will probably have to wait until after 10pm when 925's drop below freezing. 51F and partly sunny here. Big frontal passage just to the NNW.