Jesse

Feels like inversion season is winding down quickly now. Would never get a day like this in December or early January.

There is strong offshore flow right now thanks to the massive, inversion induced cold pool east of the cascades. PDX has been seeing east wind gusts close to 40mph. I think that has more to do with the clearing down the valley than the blisteringly strong late January sun.

Rush the seasons to a ridiculous extent if you'd like though. You won't find me talking about fall in late July. Maybe mid-August at the earliest. By then the change in daylight actually becomes noticeable to the casual observer. Just like the lengthening days will in mid-February.

Sunny skies and 44 degrees at 10am headed for the 50s. Seems a lot more like early spring than January.

Or just a ridgy period in late January...

It has been cold, windy and foggy in spots out here in the gorge the last several days. I have been pretty pleased with the fake cold associated with the ridge. Nice reminder that the inversion season is still in full swing in late January, despite some people trying to shorten it by a week on each end with every passing year.

Had highs only in the 30s yesterday and Monday. There is also a considerable amount of freezing fog on the higher hills. Makes it look like the trees have a fresh coating of snow. A nice reminder that it is definitely still winter!

Another springlike day in progress in the Central Willamette Valley.

Why the trolling?

 

6z GFS

 

Another GFS run, another favorable 500mb progression with strong retrogression noted. This run was much drier though. Timing moved up a bit on this run with the cold air arriving by day 9-10(Day 8-9 northern Washington). Not day 11-13. Anyhow it should be worth noting that the pattern itself is favorable much sooner by day 6-7 with the block offshore, it's rather a matter of when retrogression begins. If it's when the EURO suggested you could see the colder air arrive a bit sooner than day 9-10. When I look at the 500mb pattern I see the potential of it moving into the picture by day 7-8 is not out of question. At any rate we seem to have a trend now with the GFS towards a cold to very cold pattern.

 

Onto 12z runs later this morning and let's see if they mirror last night's 00z at all. I'm starting to get a tad encouraged.

 

Why? I thought winter was over like three weeks ago?

By the way, is there an ignore feature on this forum? 

Well, well, well. Another GFS run, another cold/snow tease beyond day 10. It's nice to look at, but that's about as far as you can take it. It's all just eye candy out in la-la land, like it's supposed to be. I mean, it's cool to see it on 3 consecutive GFS runs, but yeah....

All cold and snow events start out as hints in the long range.

It's always the long range it seems... the long range that never comes...

We haven't seen this much action in the long range for a while.

Last time we did I recall it getting pretty cold a few weeks later. Maybe this time we'll fare better in the snow department.

I like both cold and snow. Hope nobody here is mad at me for that.

The 18z ensembles look good.

Late-early to early-mid February.

Assuming you're being serious, I'm thinking our best shot will be in that time frame as well.

12z op/ensembles both seem pretty solid on a quick breakdown of the ridge and a chilly, wet pattern.

Not sure where all this talk of the ridge sticking around and split flow is coming from.

The models are trending towards a pattern similar to January, but at least the sun will come up tomorrow. Will that work?

No, because the first part of the sentence is an out and out falsehood.

who else is feeling less and less impressed by the upcoming "pattern change"?

I guess if you were "impressed" by anything the models were spitting out beyond 240 hours at some point that's your deal.

Unbridled pessimism and unbridled optimism are both intellectually dishonest. But unbridled pessimism is a heck of a lot more grating.

Too bad more people can't make middle ground posts here. I notice that's how most pro-mets post...

Me. 50% chance we have some weak troughing for about a week followed by 3 more weeks of ridging...

You are almost insufferable lately. Must be a foothills thing.

43/24 at SLE today.

Summer-like almost. No wonder everyone's grass is greening up.

February is going to be the coldest since record keeping began in W. Oregon and Washington.

 

Is that better? 

Yes.

Only comments of extreme pessimism or optimism are allowed here. The middle ground clearly offers nothing. Moderation be damned!

I agree with you in that I'm unconvinced the "shake up" will last more than a week or so.

Careful, you might lose your "advanced member" status with comments like this.

I have been pretty lucky here to come up with 6 freezing low temps in the last week.

I don't think Skagit weather's stats are very representative of any lowland location.

I have also seen six consecutive sub-freezing lows. Tomorrow morning should be #7.

Even PDX saw their fourth freeze in a row this morning.

Cool sunset this evening... band of high clouds cleared just in time as I was picking up milk.

 

QFC? Yuppie.

Pretty incredible amount of cold over both North America and Eurasia on day 10 of the Euro.

12z Euro and the GFS ensembles look pretty decent for us. Looks like they are directly at odds with the unofficial forecast created by Andrew's chickens and ducks this morning.

This is at 3000ft, Gun Lake BC, more south central than central BC interior.

 

http://www.southchilcotin.ca/gunlake/gunlakecam.jpg?Tue Jan 21 2014 08:45:25 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

 

And a quote from Jan.13th

 

"And then the warm wind came! At Gun lake it took out the hydro for 15hrs, it broke up the lake ice sheets, it blew the snow off the trees and it ate up half the snowpack! Temps reached plus 7c today."

 

That is the only Link that I can give you where you can actually see with your own eyes. Everything else would just be people's comments about open water, and I am just believing that they are being honest. Supposedly Charlotte Lake, which is much further north than Gun Lake, has open water as well. The open water lakes seem to be more in the Chilcotin region than Prince George and Cariboo region lakes. My family has a Cabin on a lake near 100 Mile House, and there is no doubt in my mind that the lake is frozen. It often doesn't thaw till late April, sometimes May.

Thanks for the info. My original question was to you after all.

Wow, the 12z totally jumped the shark.