SilverFallsAndrew

6" of snow on the ground Christmas day up here too.

Yeah that was pre-SSW.

Yeah, but there hasn't been an arctic outbreak anywhere...

Well we can always hope. Don't think it was the wettest rainy season here, but it was the wettest December on record. Mid-November through about 1/5 were not bad. After than it was pretty dull.

Probably doesn't mean much for this winter we appear stuck in a Nino type pattern. Whether it officially qualifies or not is really semantics at this point. I hope we have the mother of all Nino's next winter if we are going to have one. Go big or go home.

Except that is not even close to being true. EUG was only +2.3 for December. Both December 2014 and 2015 were significantly warmer at EUG.

I wouldn't call what we've seen so far unprecedented.

I expect the whole valley is going to end up torching by the end of the afternoon, with the possible exception of PDX. CVO and SLE just jumped to 51 and 48 respectively in the past hour and Eugene is up to 60 now with sunny skies and south winds 25g31. These are the kind of days we are going to need if we are to match January 2018.

Sometimes it is good to remember dud winters are fairly common around here.

I distinctly remember going out barefoot and in boxers to break the ice on my livestock water trough on a night in January 2013 when it was in the mid-teens. Not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I survived.

Yeah, its really hard to try and claim the 12z was some kind of "step in the right direction." Going to be a dry month down here. I'm only at 1.15" of rain on the month now which is already -1.57" below average. That departure is only going to grow over the next week.

I would much rather watch local broadcasts as opposed to the brain rot of the national cable networks.

I don't think the 12z would qualify as good by anyone's definition here. And I would take strong GOA blocking and an arctic blast, over W flow and 1500' snow levels any day. But this winter I will be rooting for the 10% chance of some nice cold onshore flow as opposed to the 0.01% chance of an arctic blast.

Just going to throw this question out here since the ENSO thread is pretty dormant. It's pretty clear to me this winter will qualify as a weak Nino. However, on some of the Facebook groups I am in this is being questioned and some people are adamant this winter will not be an official Nino and that it is warm neutral. I find these assertions to be incorrect, am I off base here?

Then why act like you didn't know.

Yeah I think everyone knows why...

I have to go out and feed the chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, rabbits, and sheep every morning. I often do so in shorts, sandals, and usually a bathrobe. Often this time of year it is in the 20s, if there is snow and I have misplaced my sandals I have done it barefoot. In the summer I usually go barefoot except at work.

Yes, but the conditions which allowed the Eagle Creek Fire to be so explosive were not present during September 2018.

Songbirds that do not migrate typically move to lower elevations during the winter. My Dad's property is overwhelmed in winter with various wrens, towhees, jays, robins, sparrows, meadowlarks, etc... As well as flickers and other various birds. Some birds like flickers, true jays (Not scrub jays which are common year round in the valley, but are not typically seen at the higher elevations.), towhees, and juncos are commonly seen in the higher elevations during the warm season, but will move lower during the winter to pursue more abundant food sources and warmer temperatures. What you are experiencing is probably the result of the mild winter. Birds that would typically be further down in the lowlands have had no reason to move down there.

Not many birds around my property lately and I bought quite a few feeders with my Christmas money. Mainly just juncos which are typically about the only birds we have around this time of year.

Yes the dry May and June hurt. But the wildfire season in the PNW was not as bad last year as 2017. Because it was essentially over by September whereas in 2017 some of our biggest fires (Eagle Creek) were in September. I went to a presentation the Oregon AMS did about a decade ago where one of the speakers was a fire weather expert. He said it is uncommon to have a bad fire season after a wet June. However a wet May followed by a dry warm June is the worst combo, because the wet May really fuels vegetation growth, which dies sooner than usual due to the dry warm June. A wet June not only keeps the vegetation green later into the season, but keeps overall fuel loads wetter later into the season, essentially shortening the fire season.

My goodness the 12z GFS was terrible. We could give January 2018 a run for its money unless we see some inversions set up.

If the FV3 had been verifying we'd be running at near normal temps this winter.

I considered moving to Spokane around 2010/2011. We ended up settling back in Oregon because my ex-wife who was from Oklahoma had been to Oregon many times and Spokane only once and was just more comfortable moving back here. Housing around that time was very affordable everywhere, but even cheaper in Spokane than it was down here. I still check housing prices out there now and then and it still seems relatively affordable compared to here. So a lot of people from the Seattle area I would imagine are drawn there by the lower cost of living. We looked mostly at property with acreage. There were some nice properties south of town and north towards Mt. Spokane that were dirt cheap back then. 10+ acres with a decent house for under 200K at that time. In town there were nice homes that were fairly affordable in that South Hill area. I am sure they have gone up 50-60% since that time, but would still probably be a bargain compared to Seattle or PDX.

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