PNW December 2022, winter might be coming; but mostly canceled.

[Hawksfan2008]

Weather forecasting is obviously a data driven skill but there is certainly an art to it as well. I think one of the most important skills is to leverage experience/history without letting it be too strong of a bias. Major arctic events have happened and will happen again. Why not us!? 

[Requiem]

25 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Better ensemble improvement. Still have a bit of work to do 

How do these look for PDX?

[Front Ranger]

27 minutes ago, Snownerd3000 said:

lol if we hit January

I like our odds!

[Snownerd3000]

1 minute ago, Meatyorologist said:

Joe almost seems annoyed every time there's an Arctic airmass.

For all the "its 10 days out, not going to verify" talk, this cuts boths ways.  Just because its modeled, today, to warm up 10 days out doesn't mean it will

[Doinko]

53 minutes ago, Requiem said:

I do think this looks a bit more widespread than December 2021-- and more conducive at this point to some sort of overrunning event geared more towards us. 

A nice overrunning event with strong east winds would be great.

[Front Ranger]

23 minutes ago, Gradient Keeper said:

My location not much just incredibly cold. A few snow showers, but nothing accumulated. I believe there was thundersnow around Troutdale. The highlight was back to back mornings of 12 degrees and high temps around 30 with clear skies and no east wind. No backdoor cold air support. Such an unusual true northerly blast that one was.

Top tier for when it occurred.

If it had occurred a month later, we would be able to point to it as the most recent region-wide top tier Arctic outbreak...almost certainly would have had highs in the mid 20s in the Willamette Valley, with around 20 for the Puget Sound.

That was the crazy thing about 2010-11. It had 2 incredible, top tier Arctic events for when they occurred, but still ended up being fairly underwhelming for most areas south of Olympia.

[Terreboner]

Even if the arctic front stalls in Washington, an undercutting low can flood the entire Willamette Valley with Gorge provided arctic air.  When I lived over there I preferred those scenarios more than the true arctic front coming through as intense convergence occured more explosively.

Seems like recently (25 years or so), these arctic fronts come through and only provide flurries in Oregon.  I'd rather have 30 degrees and heavy snow than 15 degrees and sunshine.  That's just me.

[Deweydog]

57 minutes ago, Requiem said:

I do think this looks a bit more widespread than December 2021-- and more conducive at this point to some sort of overrunning event geared more towards us. 

FWIW, last December’s event looked pretty widespread in the 5-7 day range. Things just tweaked and adjusted from there to a more compact, north/south oriented gig.

[Terreboner]

All that being said, what a strange 12" snowstorm we had here.  Temperature fluctuated between 32 and 34 degrees all day.  A true Cascade concrete storm, not the norm over here in the high desert.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Looks like the icon is about to drop the hammer.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

I just can't get over the strength of the high pressure being shown. 

[Poulsbo Snowman]

1 hour ago, Cloud said:

12z EPS spaghetti for the next 7 days.. you can count the -5 to 0C members with one hand! Very cold signal. 

I needed more than one hand.  

[Phil]

That might be the coldest EPS run I’ve ever seen for the west-central CONUS at that range. 99th percentile stuff.

[Nov1985]

12 minutes ago, Requiem said:

How do these look for PDX?

It's easy to forget about the uninhabited frontiers of the west . (Personally I find the 24-hr snow version much easier to digest) 

[Phil]

22 minutes ago, Snownerd3000 said:

Weeklies just came in and looks like it wants to warm us up around new years before dunking us in the freezer once more second half of january

Of course January will be the single warm month this winter in the West, sandwiched between cold and more cold. Seems to happen every year.

[Guest administrator]

16 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Joe almost seems annoyed every time there's an Arctic airmass.

He hates cold and snow and hates hearing from the weenies that follow it. Shouldn't detract from his education or skill, but he is about as close to an anti-Bastardi in nearly every possible sense. East Coast Snow Weenie, meet West Coast Snow Meanie.

[BLI snowman]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

Of course January will be the single warm month this winter in the West, sandwiched between cold and more cold. Seems to happen every year.

In all seriousness, a major cold snap in this timeframe does historically make a very cold January quite unlikely. Doesn't mean it couldn't remain somewhat chilly or occasionally snowy, but none of the big December 15-25 focused arctic air masses in the last century had another big event in January (2008, 1998, 1990, 1983, 1964, 1924). 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

18z GFS MIGHT be interesting.

[RentonHill]

3 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

In all seriousness, a major cold snap in this timeframe does historically make a very cold January quite unlikely. Doesn't mean it couldn't remain somewhat chilly or occasionally snowy, but none of the big December 15-25 focused arctic air masses in the last century had another big event in January (2008, 1998, 1990, 1983, 1964, 1924). 

Any of those Tonga eruption years???

[Meatyorologist]

2 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

In all seriousness, a major cold snap in this timeframe does historically make a very cold January quite unlikely. Doesn't mean it couldn't remain somewhat chilly or occasionally snowy, but none of the big December 15-25 focused arctic air masses in the last century had another big event in January (2008, 1998, 1990, 1983, 1964, 1924). 

There are no rulez. There's gonna be a big fat block that props itself up this weekend and it'll stick through March.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

18 minutes ago, Terreboner said:

All that being said, what a strange 12" snowstorm we had here.  Temperature fluctuated between 32 and 34 degrees all day.  A true Cascade concrete storm, not the norm over here in the high desert.

Awesome event for you!!

[Kolk1604]

35 minutes ago, JW8 said:

Famous last words...

Which is exactly why that piece of crap was unfollowed 

 

[Deweydog]

3 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

There are no rulez. There's gonna be a big fat block that props itself up this weekend and it'll stick through March.

[Meatyorologist]

1 minute ago, Kolk1604 said:

Which is exactly why that piece of crap was unfollowed 

 

Joe is a great guy and probably an even better father... Wouldn't call him that personally

[WeatherGeek2022]

10 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

In all seriousness, a major cold snap in this timeframe does historically make a very cold January quite unlikely. Doesn't mean it couldn't remain somewhat chilly or occasionally snowy, but none of the big December 15-25 focused arctic air masses in the last century had another big event in January (2008, 1998, 1990, 1983, 1964, 1924). 

Forever cursed in January

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

4 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Is that Jim's brain the other day?

[Snownerd3000]

 

[Deweydog]

[BLI snowman]

7 minutes ago, RentonHillTC said:

Any of those Tonga eruption years???

Nope!!! But we probably have El Chichón to partially thank for the fun 1983-85 stretch. Back to back to back winters with pretty sexy and long lasting regional cold anomalies for at least a month, which hasn't been achieved since. 

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

50 minutes ago, JW8 said:

Famous last words...

I tweeted back that yesterday's EPS showed below normal 2m temps for Western WA, maybe an inversion?  But definitely trended warmer today.   Was trying to point out that it was far from certain.   I got a like to my tweet, from, of all people, Judah.  Not sure if that's good or bad.

[Cloud]

Seems like cold air is spill south a lot faster on this run heading into day 5 on the 18z. 

[Doinko]

GFS looks slightly farther east with the trough. Probably worse for snow but I prefer it more

[Cloud]

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, Doinko said:

GFS looks slightly farther east with the trough. Probably worse for snow but I prefer it more

18Z GFS is much drier for Saturday... but its the 18Z run so it will likely go back to farther west on the 00Z run.

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

4 minutes ago, Cloud said:

Seems like cold air is spill south a lot faster on this run heading into day 5 on the 18z. 

15 degrees colder for Bellingham on this run than 12z for hour 135

[Doinko]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

18Z GFS is much drier for Saturday... but its the 18Z run so it will likely go back to farther west on the 00Z run.

Probably but I'm hoping it doesn't. The Arctic air coming into the Columbia Basin is probably better for Portland than hoping a north/south blast works out

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

18Z GFS is much drier for Saturday... but its the 18Z run so it will likely go back to farther west on the 00Z run.

Really don't even dig but the basic idea is still the same. Details.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Hmmmmm

[Cloud]

5 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

18Z GFS is much drier for Saturday... but its the 18Z run so it will likely go back to farther west on the 00Z run.

We're just looking at fine details at this point.. which will change over and over again next few days. But it seems like the overall consensus is that the arctic front will drop over us. 

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Really don't even dig but the basic idea is still the same. Details.

Yeah... its much colder for the weekend than the 12Z GFS but also not in agreement with the ECMWF/EPS on digging so the GFS is probably still playing catch up.