[Missing] March 2022 PNW Wx Discussion

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Eps is rock solid 

[TT-SEA]

12 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Eps is rock solid 

That dip in the 850mb temps next week is becoming more pronounced.    Might be some low snow levels around Wednesday.

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, Deweydog said:

Exactly. It was kinda like late last June during the heatwave. Yeah, it was 116 degrees outside, but that occurred at like 4:30 p.m. when people expect to be hot anyway.

Yeah, all-time record heat is very similar to a January with 10" of precip instead of 6".

[TT-SEA]

Just now, Front Ranger said:

Yeah, all-time record heat is very similar to a January with 10" of precip instead of 6".

Summer is normally the warm and dry part of the year... so I guess it doesn't matter if its really hot and really dry according to your logic.  

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

Interesting.     So statistics don't matter and feelings are really the most important thing?   I will remember that in the COVID discussion.      People "expect" fall/winter to be wet so it doesn't matter if its much drier than average or much wetter than average because rain is rain.  I mean... I get it.  I would personally much rather have Nov-March be the statistically wetter than normal portion of the year.    But the increase in rainfall is still interesting.    

Average annual rainfall appears to be increasing up here.   And summers are generally becoming warmer.    Those things seem to be true and in line with predictions of a warming climate locally.   

But we have also had some very wet springs in the last 10-15 years.   And even some wet summers like 2019.

It was a Tim take on a Tim take. I used the same sort of logic you like to use, only against you. 

[Front Ranger]

1 minute ago, TT-SEA said:

Summer is normally the warm and dry part of the year... so I guess it doesn't matter if its really hot and really dry according to your logic.  

That would be a more apt comparison than double d's all-time heatwave.

[MossMan]

23 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

That dip in the 850mb temps next week is becoming more pronounced.    Might be some low snow levels around Wednesday.

Plow stays on then! 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Three years ago today. 

[MossMan]

[Deweydog]

Sun break!

[FroYoBro]

Hail up in the SW hills. 

[Phishy Wx]

which anal logs have WW3 in them?

[Deweydog]

3 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

which anal logs have WW3 in them?

War Games was released during the spring of 1983. A real world -EPO nuclear winter exercise followed that December.

[Joshua Lake Oswego]

18z GFS operational is much wetter. Ensembles are much drier. Crap. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

8 minutes ago, Joshua Lake Oswego said:

18z GFS operational is much wetter. Ensembles are much drier. Crap. 

Go figure. Which is kolder?

[Deweydog]

14 minutes ago, Joshua Lake Oswego said:

18z GFS operational is much wetter. Ensembles are much drier. Crap. 

[MossMan]

13 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

[Meatyorologist]

10 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Interesting.    Your analysis does seem to make sense...  but the Fern Ridge station does not show the same trend.    Maybe that station has issues.    What does it look like if you use Salem or Roseburg?

This is Salem. Similar to Eugene, but not quite as neurotic. Not nearly as precip heavy from 1970-1996. Shows a smoother drying trend since 1996.

Roseburg has inconsistent data, so I excluded a chart for it. I could splice datapoints from the two different stations to "complete" the 1945-2022 timeframe, but that would defeat the purpose of testing station accuracy.

[TT-SEA]

6 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

This is Salem. Similar to Eugene, but not quite as neurotic. Not nearly as precip heavy from 1970-1996. Shows a smoother drying trend since 1996.

Roseburg has inconsistent data, so I excluded a chart for it. I could splice datapoints from the two different stations to "complete" the 1945-2022 timeframe, but that would defeat the purpose of testing station accuracy.

How about Medford?

[TacomaWaWx]

51/41 0.07”. 0.50” so far this month. 1 week ago it snowed…but it’s starting to feel like spring. Cherry blossoms on some of the trees and the days are definitely longer. 

[Meatyorologist]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

How about Medford?

Spoiler alert: Medford is drier than Seattle. Always.

Medford annual precip has remained steady for years, with inconsistent inter-decadal peaks and troughs of ~10% deviation. They are in the midst of a dry period right now; whether that's part of a more long term trend or not is largely irrelevant to the departure graph above.

KSEA has better 'trendlines' in precip, over multiple decades, illustrating a drying trend from the beginning of its POR to the 80s, then an increase in precipitation since. Also, because Seattle's total precip is larger than Medford's, small deviations in % of KSEA precip express themselves nearly twice as much as they would with similar deviations in Medford's precip; since the departure graph is based on express water volume displacement, not proportions. Any 'trends' in Medford's annual precip are muted out by Seattle's. Essentially, it's a Seattle annual precip trend graph by proxy, albeit muted and warped.

tldr; Doesn't say much of anything. The two cities are too hydrologically distinct (and geographically isolated) for a useful comparison, let alone correlation.

[Meatyorologist]

In 1952, KSEA and KMFR almost meet in annual precip, entirely through how dry of a year it was in Seattle. Just 23.78", around half of what we normally recieve. Medford, in fact, actually had a somewhat normal water year in 1952, making the proximity in values that much more impressive.

[TT-SEA]

8 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Spoiler alert: Medford is drier than Seattle. Always.

Medford annual precip has remained steady for years, with inconsistent inter-decadal peaks and troughs of ~10% deviation. They are in the midst of a dry period right now; whether that's part of a more long term trend or not is largely irrelevant to the departure graph above.

KSEA has better 'trendlines' in precip, over multiple decades, illustrating a drying trend from the beginning of its POR to the 80s, then an increase in precipitation since. Also, because Seattle's total precip is larger than Medford's, small deviations in % of KSEA precip express themselves nearly twice as much as they would with similar deviations in Medford's precip; since the departure graph is based on express water volume displacement, not proportions. Any 'trends' in Medford's annual precip are muted out by Seattle's. Essentially, it's a Seattle annual precip trend graph by proxy, albeit muted and warped.

tldr; Doesn't say much of anything. The two cities are too hydrologically distinct (and geographically isolated) for a useful comparison, let alone correlation.

Thanks for the update.  

I realize they are very different in terms of climate... but one would think that a drying trend in Eugene due to the storm track lifting farther north as we speculated this morning would also be apparent in Medford.

[AlTahoe]

Road into South lake tahoe will be closed for a bit. Cold inside slider followed by 60F weather popped some big rocks out at Echo summit today 

[Meatyorologist]

22 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Thanks for the update.  

I realize they are very different in terms of climate... but one would think that a drying trend in Eugene due to the storm track lifting farther north as we speculated this morning would also be apparent in Medford.

I thought that too… Though I might guess that Medford being so much further south means they have access to different weather systems (such as harshly cut off lows or errant AR’s) that KEUG northward wouldn’t have access to anyways.

After all, even during the driest years, where the storm track is nonexistant or shunted into Canada, there’s still always some baseline amount of midlatitude (non monsoon related) precip that falls in the SW.

Maybe after a certain distance south, the mechanisms that bring the PNW precip become redundant, and it’s mainly other processes, like cutoff lows, that bring consistent precip, which aren’t going away with significant frequency.

Though despite all this, the Rogue Valley isn’t exactly the desert SW. They have pine forests and are firmly in the PNW region, arguably a somewhat transitional zone, but not by a crazy amount.

[Skagit Weather]

38 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

In 1952, KSEA and KMFR almost meet in annual precip, entirely through how dry of a year it was in Seattle. Just 23.78", around half of what we normally recieve. Medford, in fact, actually had a somewhat normal water year in 1952, making the proximity in values that much more impressive.

1952 was remarkably dry at SEA, wow! Only about 1" of rain in November, imagine that! Although comparably Medford's 2013 is still more impressive. Medford's 30 year average is 18.43" so the 8.99" in 2013 is about 48% of average. That would translate into SEA having less than 19" in a year which would certainly cause many meltdowns on the forum (and maybe "burn-downs" everywhere else).

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, Meatyorologist said:

I thought that too… Though I might guess that Medford being so much further south means they have access to different weather systems (such as harshly cut off lows or errant AR’s) that KEUG northward wouldn’t have access to anyways.

After all, even during the driest years, where the storm track is nonexistant or shunted into Canada, there’s still always some baseline amount of midlatitude (non monsoon related) precip that falls in the SW.

Maybe after a certain distance south, the mechanisms that bring the PNW precip become redundant, and it’s mainly other processes, like cutoff lows, that bring consistent precip, which aren’t going away with significant frequency.

Though despite all this, the Rogue Valley isn’t exactly the desert SW. They have pine forests and are firmly in the PNW region, arguably a somewhat transitional zone, but not by a crazy amount.

Great analysis.

I tend to think of real PNW storms usually bringing heavy rain down to northern CA.    There are many instances when a strong front comes through both Seattle and San Francisco.    

What about Crescent City... is there a noticeable decline in annual precip there?

[Front Ranger]

35 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

1952 was remarkably dry at SEA, wow! Only about 1" of rain in November, imagine that! Although comparably Medford's 2013 is still more impressive. Medford's 30 year average is 18.43" so the 8.99" in 2013 is about 48% of average. That would translate into SEA having less than 19" in a year which would certainly cause many meltdowns on the forum (and maybe "burn-downs" everywhere else).

Jan 1953 made up for that, wettest on record with almost 13" of rain at SEA.

The most impressive 12 month dry stretch in history is March 1976 to February 1977. Not a single month with more than 3" at SEA, and wouldn't you know it, a wetter than normal summer.

[TT-SEA]

Just let the dog out and there is a chorus of frogs in the background... first time I have heard it so clearly this year.    It feels like March out there... but that is a distinct sound of summer nights.

[TT-SEA]

GFS is now the really wet model.    Classic PNW storm train...

[Jbolin]

1 hour ago, AlTahoe said:

Road into South lake tahoe will be closed for a bit. Cold inside slider followed by 60F weather popped some big rocks out at Echo summit today 

The guy in the orange jacket is as big as that Boulder.

 

What job could he possibly do other than observe and report? 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Absolutely pouring buckets right now. Temp down to 36.3.

[Phil]

Bye bye vortex.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

44/36 today. 0.33" of rain. A little rain tomorrow and then another dry stretch for at least several days. 

[Meatyorologist]

2 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Great analysis.

I tend to think of real PNW storms usually bringing heavy rain down to northern CA.    There are many instances when a strong front comes through both Seattle and San Francisco.    

What about Crescent City... is there a noticeable decline in annual precip there?

Data up and down the coast there is terrible. Most years have many missing dates, and some stations only have records from a very specific set of years. One station near Crescent City has inconsistent records from the early 50's... then resumes back on schedule in August of 2000!

[TigerWoodsLibido]

41F with some light rain.

[The Blob]

Quiet night

[smerfylicious]

Well at least the ENSO is holding steady at -1?

Starting to think we're in for a neutral ENSO this summer, might not get to El Nino like some have feared.

[Meatyorologist]

12 minutes ago, smerfylicious said:

Well at least the ENSO is holding steady at -1?

Starting to think we're in for a neutral ENSO this summer, might not get to El Nino like some have feared.

I have a feeling July will be reasonably cool. August will be typically warm. Just a gut feeling.

[smerfylicious]

5 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

I have a feeling July will be reasonably cool. August will be typically warm. Just a gut feeling.

Would be nice. Just rooting for a below average June/July. August can do what it does.