icyasf

15 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

I’m definitely no expert, but the main snow setups I can think of for the western lowlands are overrunning events, anafronts, a low coming inland to our south, very cold onshore flow, and rarely an arctic front when there is still moisture present during a windshift to colder continental air.

Overrunning events are when warmer, wetter air overrides cold air that is already present at the surface. An anafront is more when a polar maritime cold front stalls, allowing colder air to “pile up” behind it, which with heavy enough precip rates can drag the snow level to the surface. A low coming onshore to the south of a given location in a generally chilly airmass can have a similar effect, heavy precip in a deformation zone (air is moving in divergent directions in the mid and upper levels, which creates lift), and flat gradients can drag the snow level to the surface. No mixing SSW wind with a low to your south, and it this set up can also be associated with drawing colder air at the surface in. Which is often also how we would score snow with an arctic front. A BC slider is kind of a hybrid. Just enough cold air digging offshore to create a low pressure area that slides down the coast, drawing moisture over a cold airmass in place but keeping surface pressure gradients offshore due to its westerly path of travel.

Thank you! What setup was December 2021?

Does anybody have a good link or quick explanation of the different setups for snow in the lowlands? I am very amateur and have very little knowledge on these type of things and would love to learn. For example I kind of know what a BC slider but even that is something I am not to sure on. Thanks

rain/snow mix!!

I personally don’t think I could live in a climate where snow is very common. Don’t get me wrong I love snow and cold but something about getting snow in the western lowlands just feels more exciting because it’s harder to get. :)

Getting windy in Corvallis, and the power briefly just went out.

4 minutes ago, luterra said:

I would estimate 0.35" on horizontal surfaces on the southwest side of town.  Was fun to dig out the studded shoe grippers I got for the Grand Canyon a few years back and go for a walk around the neighborhood.

Trees all look surprisingly OK.  Something about the way this fell, or maybe the small size of the drizzly drops, made it only accumulate on the top of twigs rather than encasing them in a circle of ice.  They seem to collect a lot less weight that way.

I was initially worried about the trees going into this but was happy to see very minimal if any damage done on the trees near me