January 2016 in the PNW

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Pics or it didn't happen on the snoqualmie rain.

 

27 degrees currently at Gov't camp. 

[Deweydog]

Pics or it didn't happen on the snoqualmie rain.

Yeah, that seemed kinda shushpishoush.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

PDX is about to get nailed with a pretty vigorous shower.

[Weather101]

Insane statement. I'm sure you would have said the same in 1962 when it torched for the first 2/3 of Feb. You would have been very wrong.

But I did not say it in "1962" I said it in "2016". So that makes no sense.

[Dave]

From the NWS Seattle:  Seattle's Green Lake on Jan 30th, 1916.

 

[Jesse]

From the NWS Seattle: Seattle's Green Lake on Jan 30th, 1916.

Surprised the high sun angle didn't flash melt the ice.

[Dave]

Surprised the high sun angle didn't flash melt the ice.

I did not check, but it is seems highly likely that there was a failed pendulum cycle during that winter.  Not to mention there may have been some sort of solar minimum.  Lots of moss too that year.

[Jesse]

I did not check, but it is seems highly likely that there was a failed pendulum cycle during that winter.  Not too mention there may have been some sort of solar minimum.  Lots of moss too that year.

 

Mossy summers make for icy winters.

[ShawniganLake]

Surprised the high sun angle didn't flash melt the ice.

It did. Those people didn't make it.

[westcoastexpat]

The other day I was reading that the ECMWF will be undergoing some huge upgrades over the next couple of years that should make that model much better than it is now.  The GFS could be left in the dust.  That having been said the GFS still outperforms the ECMWF in some situations and in general from time to time.  The ECMWF is supposedly going to upgrade their parallel model to high res in March.  I'm not sure if that will become their main operational model or not, but I have been impressed with its performance a number of times.

 

That brings up the question of whether or not I want the models to become that accurate.  It would take some of the fun out of things knowing exactly what will happen IMO.  Some winters the model false alarms are the only fun part of the winter.  I figure we are probably at least 50 years from any model being able to accurately forecast Western lowland snowfall though.

 

The GFS, today, is the superior model. Just from my experience since the big GFS upgrade... there have been tweaks done to the Euro a couple of summers ago and it really hurt it and never seemed to recover.

[westcoastexpat]

We actually have a better chance than if there was nothing but zonal flow showing up in the models.  The ECMWF control model has had many runs showing a major Feb cold wave.  Chances are against it, but it's not out of the question.

 

Although the chance is always "there", I think it is a highly improbable outcome.

[westcoastexpat]

For what it's worth, next winter will almost certainly trump this winter. Raging La Nina... always opens the door for the goods. Whether it happens or not is another story, but with El Nino... the arctic air has zero interest in descending to lower latitudes.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

For what it's worth, next winter will almost certainly trump this winter. Raging La Nina... always opens the door for the goods. Whether it happens or not is another story, but with El Nino... the arctic air has zero interest in descending to lower latitudes.

Trump

[Phil]

The GFS, today, is the superior model. Just from my experience since the big GFS upgrade... there have been tweaks done to the Euro a couple of summers ago and it really hurt it and never seemed to recover.

The ECMWF performs much better in the tropics, stratosphere, and high latitudes in general.

[TT-SEA]

18Z GFS shows that Minneapolis and Chicago might be up next for a blizzard in just over a week.

 

 

This is impressive.   The 18Z GFS was the first run to show a big snowstorm in this time frame which was almost 10 days ago and its working out just like it showed back then.   Dumb luck or maybe the 18Z run does not tease the Midwest?   

 

Here is the latest map for tomorrow.   

 

http://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/data/gfs/12/gfs_namer_033_precip_p03.gif

[Jesse]

It be February now.

[TT-SEA]

We were just following up on some posts and topics from January,

[westcoastexpat]

This is impressive. The 18Z GFS was the first run to show a big snowstorm in this time frame which was almost 10 days ago and its working out just like it showed back then. Dumb luck or maybe the 18Z run does not tease the Midwest?

 

Here is the latest map for tomorrow.

 

GFS has been incredible with forecasting that system.

[ShawniganLake]

The GFS, today, is the superior model. Just from my experience since the big GFS upgrade... there have been tweaks done to the Euro a couple of summers ago and it really hurt it and never seemed to recover.

I would disagree.  The GFS still trails behind the ECMWF in N. hemisphere anomaly correlations.  At least at the 5 day interval.  And for the Pac NW at least, I would doubt you will find many people that would put much stock into the GFS unless the Euro is showing something similar.  It still seems like we see periods where the GFS just totally drops the ball and gets owned by the Euro.  For the last 30 days, the Canadian is actually ahead of the GFS. 

 

http://models.weatherbell.com/verf/ecmwf_gfs_nh_f120.png

 

http://models.weatherbell.com/verf/cmc_nh_f120.png