wxmet

1 hour ago, Phil said:

Speaking of slushmageddon, looks like we received 7-8” of wet cement and 40-45mph gusts back home today. On nest cam I can see a large pine limb just missed my car.  

Not a single flake here. Too much dry air. Looking onwards to the Friday system.

3 minutes ago, gusky said:

I personally find the precip depic to be very unreliable... it'll often have very sudden transitions to showing snow. I don't really get why.

Right. When looking at precipitation depiction radar imagery you should also check the surface observations. That being said, it looks like some of the higher elevation around 500' feet are seeing the transition under heavy rates.

4 minutes ago, gusky said:

Agreed, DPs are not really low enough to sufficiently cool down the air in heavy precip. You're thinking no accumulation at all for Seattle metro? I was thinking an inch or so is still possible later.

Maybe a window of opportunity during the late night hours when the models attempt to cool the boundary layer. The GFS is isothermal around freezing but I think this is part of it's cold bias. The ECMWF is very marginal with temps in the mid to upper 30s thus showing mixed precipitation unfolding. Rain/snow mix with the possibility of light accumulations but I don't anticipate anything significant. Will have to monitor the radar.

Hard to track things in the West with so much unfolding in the East. But I'm glad to see reports of thundersnow on the Kitsap Peninsula where temperatures are in the low to mid 30s. Definitely too warm in the Seattle metro and rates probably won't be enough to overcome the warm air advection. Those above 500' in the metro may see a period of snow or rain/snow mix before changing over to rain.

RGEM is not a questionable model. It's the high resolution version of the CMC. Here's an excerpt from weathermodels.com on the RGEM:

How is the RGEM’s forecast data best used? The RGEM is a regional model, so its strength is depicting smaller scale features that the global models may miss. The model is especially good at figuring out the overall structure of storms, and often does pretty well with heavy snow bands. Of course, no model is perfect, but generally this one is pretty good.

Love how the GFS finishes of things with a layer of ice in some areas. Gotta protect our snow cover

RGEM 00z through Saturday morning

Just now, hawkstwelve said:

I mean, this is just...

31 inches at my house. I'll need to get a shovel tomorrow and maybe even a generator 

Even more snow coming in on Monday lol

The GFS run broke the forum 

Over 2 feet in both PDX and KSEA with the Kuchera. Let's lock this in.

@iFred Someone is probably trying to crash the forum again. MySQL errors.

Approaching 2 feet in PDX and 1 foot at KSEA by Saturday morning

00Z RGEM much more moisture further north than the GFS

Late Friday-Saturday storm looks much more potent

QPF amounts are much lighter compared to 18z.

Upper level low appears weaker so a southern shift is expected.

Gladly sacrifice the Thursday storm for the weekend one in the Icon.

1 minute ago, hawkstwelve said:

I can feel it slipping away already.

Still manages to be decent for the central and south Sound.

5 minutes ago, nwsnow said:

NAM says this is sleet but that looks pretty much like a snow sounding to me. Barely a warm nose on this run. 

The depth of the melting layer is 100mb. I think sleet is a pretty good bet based on this sounding.

QPF looks fairly low though. Perhaps the storm won’t be as dynamic as previously thought.

NAM looks like a good run for PDX.

NAM 00z bringing back the idea of a c-zone forming tomorrow night and moving down the Sound.