February 2017 Observations and Model Discussion for the Pacific Northwest

[Front Ranger]

The only true one I can think of is 1955. That one had a true blast with a nice Arctic front snowstorm. 1870 actually had one later in March, but that's going way back. Then of course there was an amazing event in 1865 also.

 

I'd say March 1989 counted: https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KSEA/1989/3/1/DailyHistory.html

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Pretty impressive that PDX scored a high of 53 with such a cool airmass overhead. Two degrees warmer than our average high for the date.

Down to 32 now, having a party tonight, umadbro is here, Erik Holm, Yev is on way.... pm me and I'll give you my address.

[dairyd]

That really is impressive. Just about all of the cold we had more less seeped in, but in many cases was left sitting here for long periods of time. Probably about the coldest winter we could have with 850s barely ever getting to -10 or lower.

 

I think a major part of it was the rapid cool pool that developed in the NPAC from this fall and then coziied onto the PNW shore from the first of Dec.   Anything not in a SSW flow was cold-core anomoly.

 

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/clim/sst.anom.anim.year.html

[Jesse]

Down to 32 now, having a party tonight, umadbro is here, Erik Holm, Yev is on way.... pm me and I'll give you my address.

 

That's nice of you. I've got a few things going on tonight but I'd love to get up that way sometime!

[Karl Bonner]

The persistence of the cold without a regional arctic blast was pretty impressive.

 

If it wasn't multiple arctic blasts that we had, what was "it"?  Little "punches" of modified arctic air?

[SilverFallsAndrew]

That's nice of you. I've got a few things going on tonight but I'd love to get up that way sometime!

You should

[Jesse]

If it wasn't multiple arctic blasts that we had, what was "it"? Little "punches" of modified arctic air?

That and then basically no major warm intrusions made it notable.

 

How did the January numbers shake out at DLS?

[Karl Bonner]

I've been looking back at the history of late-season cold spells.  Must say, the one that really sticks out in my head is March 1951.  Up in Seattle it was downright brutal for the location and season - about 9 or 10 days straight with highs in the 30s, lows in the 20s and multiple snowstorms. 

 

For the Columbia River Gorge, late Feb / early March 1960 is the gold standard for the "modern" era of weather history.  There was actually snow on the ground in The Dalles, on my negative-22nd birthday! 

[Karl Bonner]

That and then basically no major warm intrusions made it notable.

 

How did the January numbers shake out at DLS?

 

I think the snow cover was also key in terms of "pushing down" temps a few extra degrees at the surface, relative to the airmass above.  Had more of the snow stayed in central and southern Oregon, there's no way we'd have ended up as cold in the Gorge (unless we got more arctic air from the north instead!)

 

The final January temp at DLS was 25.2 degrees F, which is more than 11 degrees below 30-year climo.  I believe it was the 7th coldest January in nearly 70 years of airport records, and the coldest January since 1979. 

[snow_wizard]

I'd say March 1989 counted: https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KSEA/1989/3/1/DailyHistory.html

 

That one didn't have the quite the dramatic Arctic front that 1955 had, but it did get cold after the big snow.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

I had a conference with some people from The Dalles the other day and they said it is the longest period of continuous snow cover at TDS on record. Have you heard that Karl?

[Karl Bonner]

That one didn't have the quite the dramatic Arctic front that 1955 had, but it did get cold after the big snow.

 

March 1955 was an impressive quick hit of arctic air, with a couple extremely cold nights.  Temps of 11 degrees F at Seatac Airport?  That's COLD! 

 

But that cold snap only lasted 2 or 3 days.  The 1951 event in W. WA / NW OR went on for more than a week, as did 1960 in the Gorge.  There was also an impressive stretch of cold in late February /early March 1993 with solid snow cover for the Columbia Basin / Gorge, but I don't think it amounted to much west of the Cascade crest.

[Karl Bonner]

I had a conference with some people from The Dalles the other day and they said it is the longest period of continuous snow cover at TDS on record. Have you heard that Karl?

 

Did they try to claim that the snow cover continued through late December uninterrupted?  Because I clearly remember most of it melting away for a few days between Christmas and New Years.  Not the big dirty snowpiles of course, and a few shaded hillsides south of town still had patches of snow.

 

Still...we've had it on the ground for 42 days straight now, and about 60 days total.  That's a pretty rare feat to pull off.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Did they try to claim that the snow cover continued through late December uninterrupted? Because I clearly remember most of it melting away for a few days between Christmas and New Years. Not the big dirty snowpiles of course, and a few shaded hillsides south of town still had patches of snow.

 

Still...we've had it on the ground for 42 days straight now, and about 60 days total. That's a pretty rare feat to pull off.

Yes they did. My brother says that too

[snow_wizard]

Looks like we may be going for another freezing night. Already down to 36 here.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Looks like we may be going for another freezing night. Already down to 36 here.

Down to 30 here

[snow_wizard]

I love the progression on the 0z GFS. Showing extreme promise!

 

How funny would it be to have the coldest weather of an already cold winter be in late Feb or early March? A very high percentage of late season cold waves are accompanied by snow also.

[Phil]

So, it hit 100F on Oklahoma today. Yikes.

 

The fact mini heat-domes are already trying to establish in the south-central states has me nervous about the upcoming summer. Bleh..

[Jesse]

Did they try to claim that the snow cover continued through late December uninterrupted? Because I clearly remember most of it melting away for a few days between Christmas and New Years. Not the big dirty snowpiles of course, and a few shaded hillsides south of town still had patches of snow.

 

Still...we've had it on the ground for 42 days straight now, and about 60 days total. That's a pretty rare feat to pull off.

Even if "most" of it melts away that is still uninterrupted snow cover. It is only interrupted if all of the snow on the ground does.

[Jesse]

I think the snow cover was also key in terms of "pushing down" temps a few extra degrees at the surface, relative to the airmass above. Had more of the snow stayed in central and southern Oregon, there's no way we'd have ended up as cold in the Gorge (unless we got more arctic air from the north instead!)

 

The final January temp at DLS was 25.2 degrees F, which is more than 11 degrees below 30-year climo. I believe it was the 7th coldest January in nearly 70 years of airport records, and the coldest January since 1979.

Is snow cover a caveat for the other top ten cold Januaries? I mean if none of them had had any snow on the ground theoretically they might have been a lot warmer too.

[HighlandExperience]

I love the progression on the 0z GFS. Showing extreme promise!

 

How funny would it be to have the coldest weather of an already cold winter be in late Feb or early March? A very high percentage of late season cold waves are accompanied by snow also.

Would be sweet if we could get one more decent snow. Would really make this winter memorable. Especially for Seattle since our last event didn't last as long.

[wx_statman]

Looks like that was the case. They recorded a low for today of 36 in the 2am hour.

 

http://w2.weather.gov/climate/getclimate.php?date=&wfo=pqr&sid=PDX&pil=CLI

 

So the record is already in the bag!

 

Yes indeed. A new benchmark for PDX.

 

Now, to update my post from yesterday. Here is the list of calendar years that did not see a 38+ minimum @ PDX until February, ranked by latest "first occurrence":

 

1) 2017 - ?? (February 14th or 15th most likely)

2) 1950 - February 11th

3) 1985 - February 10th

4) 1949 - February 9th

5) 1979 - February 5th

[snow_wizard]

Yes indeed. A new benchmark for PDX.

 

Now, to update my post from yesterday. Here is the list of calendar years that did not see a 38+ minimum @ PDX until February, ranked by latest "first occurrence":

 

1) 2017 - ?? (February 14th or 15th most likely)

2) 1950 - February 11th

3) 1985 - February 10th

4) 1949 - February 9th

5) 1979 - February 5th

Incredible company there. I can't believe they pulled that off.

[Jesse]

Yes indeed. A new benchmark for PDX.

 

Now, to update my post from yesterday. Here is the list of calendar years that did not see a 38+ minimum @ PDX until February, ranked by latest "first occurrence":

1) 2017 - ?? (February 14th or 15th most likely)

2) 1950 - February 11th

3) 1985 - February 10th

4) 1949 - February 9th

5) 1979 - February 5th

Pretty crazy. Now just to make it not even close they will probably drop to 35-36 before midnight.

[snow_wizard]

As it stands now the GFS operational, ECMWF ensemble, and ECMWF ensemble control model all like the idea of a fairly cool trough by day 8 or 9 and a slowly amplifying GOA / Aleutian ridge during week two. Very good chance we aren't done yet! I actually like the fact this winter was so cold with no major Arctic blasts. That means we are still due for a big blast in the next one or two years.

[snow_wizard]

At midnight I will be up to 50 days with freezing low temperatures for the season. Not bad considering I only had one going into December.

[wx_statman]

Pretty crazy. Now just to make it not even close they will probably drop to 35-36 before midnight.

 

Sitting at 35 degrees. Its coming easy this winter. 

[Jesse]

Sitting at 35 degrees. Its coming easy this winter.

Yeah, and now another freeze this morning.

[MossMan]

31 for a low here.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Down to 28 here this morning

[Kayla]

Yeah, and now another freeze this morning.

 

Signal of change? Pretty remarkable to see some of these records broken considering the UHI effect. I think a lot of us thought that PDX was not capable in seeing mid 20th century records broken. Even here in Bozeman, January was the 6th coldest on record which is d**n cold!

 

Will be interesting to see if this is a shift in our climate as a whole this summer or if we'll once again see records broken on that end as well. Are extremes the new norm?

[Jesse]

Signal of change? Pretty remarkable to see some of these records broken considering the UHI effect. I think a lot of us thought that PDX was not capable in seeing mid 20th century records broken. Even here in Bozeman, January was the 6th coldest on record which is D**n cold!

 

Will be interesting to see if this is a shift in our climate as a whole this summer or if we'll once again see records broken on that end as well. Are extremes the new norm?

A summer with a lot of cold records would be nice. Maybe we will keep following the 1993 analog.

[Jesse]

The 06z was pretty good. Ensemble improvement too.

[stuffradio]

A summer with a lot of cold records would be nice. Maybe we will keep following the 1993 analog.

ENSO is being forecasted to be going into NINO territory by summer, unless some Nino summer's have had cold records? I don't know. I wasn't expecting February to be as cold as it has been so far though. We'll see if we can go on a 3 month below normal streak, which would be pretty abnormal of late.

[Jesse]

ENSO is being forecasted to be going into NINO territory by summer, unless some Nino summer's have had cold records? I don't know. I wasn't expecting February to be as cold as it has been so far though. We'll see if we can go on a 3 month below normal streak, which would be pretty abnormal of late.

 

Somewhere around neutral is looking like a pretty good bet.

[TT-SEA]

A summer with a lot of cold records would be nice. Maybe we will keep following the 1993 analog.

 

February of 1993 was record breaking dry... this February is about the complete opposite of that year.   We also do not have the volcanic influence that we had back then.  

[Kayla]

A summer with a lot of cold records would be nice. Maybe we will keep following the 1993 analog.

 

I was implying records to continue to be broken on the hot end in the summer. Climate extremes seems to be the new theme.

[Jesse]

I was implying records to continue to be broken on the hot end in the summer. Climate extremes seems to be the new theme.

I wouldn't be a big fan of that.

[MossMan]

A summer with a lot of cold records would be nice. Maybe we will keep following the 1993 analog.

I just have a gut feeling this is going to be a "Jesse Summer".

[TT-SEA]

I just have a gut feeling this is going to be a "Jesse Summer".

 

I was leaning heavily that way when I thought we would be in the middle of a multi-year Nina right now. 

 

Neutral summers in a low solar period have a pretty good track record... maybe a Randy/Tim summer.