May Winter Continue 2022 PNW

[Meatyorologist]

40 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Not often. I saw snow fall during the cold trough around May 20,2013, didn’t stick though. People  who have lived up here all their lives say it has definitely happened before, in terms of sticking in May. 

It makes physical sense. As winter ends and Spring begins, the land warms much more quickly than the ocean, so cold oceanic airmasses retain their bite well into the season, favoring the foothills into May; while continental Arctic airmasses disappear entirely after early to mid April, let alone retain their effectiveness after mid March.

By this point in the year it would be nearly impossible for my locale to see snow in any form, yet at your elevation it only takes a somewhat notable airmass and some okay timing.

No matter what though, snow or not, this precipitation and unseasonably cool weather is a godsend for the fire season prospects this warm season; particularly so since OR has joined in on the fun.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

43F and beautiful out there under the stars.

[Meatyorologist]

And the 06z completely removes the ridge altogether.

[Meatyorologist]

Can't wait to pay for all this troughing come July!

I'm sure mother nature has some very fitting punishment in store for us 

[Cascadia_Wx]

Clear and 41 this morning

Looks like the Euro and EPS are onboard with delaying any sort of ridge as well

[AlTahoe]

Euro keeps upping the snowfall totals for Tahoe which is nice. Going to be 71F today and snowing by Sunday. 

[Phil]

2 hours ago, Meatyorologist said:

Can't wait to pay for all this troughing come July!

I'm sure mother nature has some very fitting punishment in store for us 

If there’s going to be a hot month I think it’ll be August.

Just a guess.

[Meatyorologist]

1 hour ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Clear and 41 this morning

Looks like the Euro and EPS are onboard with delaying any sort of ridge as well

Good.

[Phil]

 

[Meatyorologist]

7 minutes ago, Phil said:

If there’s going to be a hot month I think it’ll be August.

Just a guess.

I feel like we'll go for a mix of 2011/2012. Though -ENSO influence could be stronger than either of those two. Time will tell.

Best case is coolest warm season since 2001, worst case is, well.... an above average warm season again. If that occurs during the seasonally strongest -ENSO atmos coupling in over two decades, potentially much longer, then I'm not sure what even can give us an actual normal summer anymore. It would be a fair and accurate assessment to say our summer climo would be forever altered, which would have (continuing) drastic ramifications on our biosphere. A sobering thought.

[Meatyorologist]

12 minutes ago, AlTahoe said:

Euro keeps upping the snowfall totals for Tahoe which is nice. Going to be 71F today and snowing by Sunday. 

Sounds like this has been a good case Spring scenario up there. Not best, but good. From your eye test, how does it look? Snowpack % numbers don't tell a full picture.

[Anti Marine Layer]

3 hours ago, Meatyorologist said:

And the 06z completely removes the ridge altogether.

Classic La Nina

[Meatyorologist]

Today will be a warm day, within a few degrees of average. Very nice. Thinning mid and high level clouds and sfc mixing will boost temperatures into the 60s to low 70s from the Willamette Valley up through the Puget Sound.

Actually felt some drizzle while taking the dog out an hour ago.

[Skagit Weather]

6 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Today will be a warm day, within a few degrees of average. Very nice. Thinning mid and high level clouds and sfc mixing will boost temperatures into the 60s to low 70s from the Willamette Valley up through the Puget Sound.

Actually felt some drizzle while taking the dog out an hour ago.

Raining up here currently although I guess it's light enough to be considered drizzle. Just 0.01" in the rain gauge so far.

[TT-SEA]

29 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

I feel like we'll go for a mix of 2011/2012. Though -ENSO influence could be stronger than either of those two. Time will tell.

Best case is coolest warm season since 2001, worst case is, well.... an above average warm season again. If that occurs during the seasonally strongest -ENSO atmos coupling in over two decades, potentially much longer, then I'm not sure what even can give us an actual normal summer anymore. It would be a fair and accurate assessment to say our summer climo would be forever altered, which would have (continuing) drastic ramifications on our biosphere. A sobering thought.

Nothing is forever.    

And I can't imagine having a warm summer this year.    You also pointed out a couple weeks ago that WA and BC should be fine for the rest of this century even with a warming climate.    

[Meatyorologist]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Nothing is forever.    

And I can't imagine having a warm summer this year.    You also pointed out a few weeks that WA and BC should be fine for the rest of this century even with a warming climate.    

I suppose not, nothing is.

And replace "fine" with "recognizable" and you'll have a more faithful representation of my thoughts.

[TT-SEA]

Quite sunny here this morning... should be a rare totally dry day which has been unusually uncommon since late March.

[ShawniganLake]

43F with drizzle. 0.05” since midnight 

[Phil]

15 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

I feel like we'll go for a mix of 2011/2012. Though -ENSO influence could be stronger than either of those two. Time will tell.

Best case is coolest warm season since 2001, worst case is, well.... an above average warm season again. If that occurs during the seasonally strongest -ENSO atmos coupling in over two decades, potentially much longer, then I'm not sure what even can give us an actual normal summer anymore. It would be a fair and accurate assessment to say our summer climo would be forever altered, which would have (continuing) drastic ramifications on our biosphere. A sobering thought.

The N/E displacement of the indo-pacific warm pool is ultimately what drove the warm western summers from 2013 onwards. It was just so dominant year after year.

And I actually don’t think climate change/AGW is necessarily responsible for it (though it may have enhanced the anomalies). There’s geologic evidence for much greater extensions just in the last millennium, which were associated with mega-drought cycles in the West each time. Those are extreme cases, though...most extensions don’t persist beyond a decade or so.

Good news is it appears the IPWP has broadened eastward/into the IO this year, though it could be what ultimately terminates the regime is the next strong/super niño and/or low frequency shift in the general global circulation(s) such as what happened in 1976.

[Phil]

And there’s always the alternative “cool summer pathway”..east based +ENSO/+SPMM and cool WPAC. Narrow Hadley Cell/small 4CH and zonal NPAC is often the result (1983, 1993, etc).

2019 was a weak example of that type of regime (didn’t even have +SPMM) and it still torpedoed the 4CH that summer.

[Meatyorologist]

2 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Quite sunny here this morning... should be a rare totally dry day which has been unusually uncommon since late March.

High clouds may cap high temperatures north of Olympia. I hope not actually... Would be nice to notch in a warm, sunny nice day before heading into another extended trough. Rooting for a nice 70°F, which is definitely feasible given the thermal profile, should high cloudiness concur.

[Meatyorologist]

3 minutes ago, Phil said:

The N/E displacement of the indo-pacific warm pool is ultimately what drove the warm western summers from 2013 onwards. It was just so dominant year after year.

And I actually don’t think climate change/AGW is necessarily responsible for it (though it may have enhanced the anomalies). There’s geologic evidence for much greater extensions just in the last millennium, which were associated with mega-drought cycles in the West each time. Those are extreme cases, though...most extensions don’t persist beyond a decade or so.

Good news is it appears the IPWP has broadened eastward/into the IO this year, though it could be what ultimately terminates the regime is the next strong/super niño and/or low frequency shift in the general global circulation(s) such as what happened in 1976.

It is definitely a mix of both. Our climate has inherently warmed in every season since the middle of the 20th century, not even necessarily compared to the hyper -PDO 50's and 60's, with the more moderate 30's being pretty chilly compared to now.

Though the summer season in particular (and to a much lesser extent Spring and Fall) have warmed this last decade at a rate well above background warming. I call it the "table", since it appears as a flat surface extended above all other years on a seasonal temp graph, as if one were to artificially push it up by hand. You can see the line hit a wall in 2013 and never drop back down.

[TacomaWaWx]

Low of 44 this morning and filtered sunshine. Heading back into Tacoma now. Kinda hazy out there. 

[AlTahoe]

53 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Sounds like this has been a good case Spring scenario up there. Not best, but good. From your eye test, how does it look? Snowpack % numbers don't tell a full picture.

In early April I was mt biking at 7200' on bone dry dirt and dry creeks. Now the creeks have water in them and the soil has moisture so it has turned what would have been a catastrophic early fire season into maybe a normal start to fire season. Above 8.5k the snowpack actually looks decent considering it didn't snow at all from Jan - April. Just goes to show how much snow we got in Dec. 

[AlTahoe]

33 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Nothing is forever.    

And I can't imagine having a warm summer this year.    You also pointed out a couple weeks ago that WA and BC should be fine for the rest of this century even with a warming climate.    

Somewhere in California has set a new all time monthly high temp record for like 16 straight months. I would think that we would have to flip back to the other side at some point. Hopefully it is this summer! 

[Phil]

15 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

It is definitely a mix of both. Our climate has inherently warmed in every season since the middle of the 20th century, not even necessarily compared to the hyper -PDO 50's and 60's, with the more moderate 30's being pretty chilly compared to now.

Though the summer season in particular (and to a much lesser extent Spring and Fall) have warmed this last decade at a rate well above background warming. I call it the "table", since it appears as a flat surface extended above all other years on a seasonal temp graph, as if one were to artificially push it up by hand. You can see the line hit a wall in 2013 and never drop back down.

Is there a substantial difference between the trend in high temps vs low temps? Would help to know how much of the trendline is contaminated by UHI if we’re going to make large scale inferences (the post-2012 warm regime is obviously real, I’m referring more to the long term trend).

Unfortunately the majority of city climate records are hopelessly corrupted by UHI. Out here, rural stations merely 30 miles west of DC can be 20+ degrees warmer than the city in the morning, where that wouldn’t be the case even 15-20 years ago.

[Meatyorologist]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

Is there a substantial difference between the trend in high temps vs low temps? Would help to know how much of the trendline is contaminated by UHI if we’re going to make large scale inferences (the post-2012 warm regime is obviously real, I’m referring more to the long term trend).

Unfortunately the majority of city climate records are hopelessly corrupted by UHI. Out here, rural stations merely 30 miles west of DC can be 20+ degrees warmer than the city in the morning, where that wouldn’t be the case even 15-20 years ago.

It is definitely saturated by urbanization, though long term trends are consistent with rural stations, maybe not in magnitude.

Keep in mind rising sea surface temperatures also warm low temperatures.

[Phil]

5 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

It is definitely saturated by urbanization, though long term trends are consistent with rural stations, maybe not in magnitude.

Keep in mind rising sea surface temperatures also warm low temperatures.

Yeah definitely a difference there.

You’re correct about having to account for water temperatures as well..makes attribution a lot more difficult. A fun project for someone with time on their hands.

[Omegaraptor]

2 hours ago, Meatyorologist said:

Good.

I’ve had a cold for over a week now… coughing and sniffling every night. Not gonna lie… endless winter is really starting to get kind of depressing at this point. Is a few consecutive average spring days too much to ask for now? Not even warmer than average, just average.

Maybe I’m just Vitamin D deficient. 

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, Omegaraptor said:

I’ve had a cold for over a week now… coughing and sniffling every night. Not gonna lie… endless winter is really starting to get kind of depressing at this point. Is a few consecutive average spring days too much to ask for now? Not even warmer than average, just average.

Maybe I’m just Vitamin D deficient. 

It happens... particularly in Nina years.    And its not going to change any time soon.    I keep expecting to see a 3-5 day sunny period showing up the models because that happens even in the coldest Nina years.      But no luck yet.    Thought we get lucky next week but that ship has sailed.      

[Omegaraptor]

23 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

It happens... particularly in Nina years.    And its not going to change any time soon.    I keep expecting to see a 3-5 day sunny period showing up the models because that happens even in the coldest Nina years.      But no luck yet.    Thought we get lucky next week but that ship has sailed.      

Current forecast

May 2011 - it was actually nicer by quite a bit!

[Meatyorologist]

19 minutes ago, Phil said:

Yeah definitely a difference there.

You’re correct about having to account for water temperatures as well..makes attribution a lot more difficult. A fun project for someone with time on their hands.

Maybe I’ll get around to it soon. Would be interested to see how it compares to Ocean Shores/Hoquiam, ect

[TT-SEA]

4 minutes ago, Omegaraptor said:

Current forecast

May 2011 - it was actually nicer by quite a bit!

Yeah... May of 1999 was much nicer as well.   

Even May of 1955 had 19 dry days in my area.       Today is the only totally dry day in sight right now.

[Phishy Wx]

15 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I've been pimping the 1955 analog for a while now...

would take winter 55-56, November 55 was very snowy in Spokane

[Phishy Wx]

13 hours ago, The Blob said:

Just cook some meat with taco seasoning.

Cinco de Mayo is not until tomorrow

[BLI snowman]

19 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Yeah... May of 1999 was much nicer as well.   

Even May of 1955 had 19 dry days in my area.       Today is the only totally dry day in sight right now.

Check out May 1996, it was pretty nice. 

[Anti Marine Layer]

34 minutes ago, Omegaraptor said:

Current forecast

May 2011 - it was actually nicer by quite a bit!

January

February

March

Aprember

Mayuary

...

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

31 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Yeah... May of 1999 was much nicer as well.   

Even May of 1955 had 19 dry days in my area.       Today is the only totally dry day in sight right now.

We got some late spring rains and early fall cool weather in 1999.

[RentonHill]

11 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Check out May 1996, it was pretty nice. 

I turned 7. Had an outdoor birthday party. Magician came. We lost our St Bernese shortly afterward. My life probably peaked in May 1996. 

[TT-SEA]

21 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Check out May 1996, it was pretty nice. 

Not so nice... but even that month had 13 totally dry days here.    And it was in the 70s and dry on Memorial Day.