PNW December 2022 - Part II

[KingstonWX]

16 minutes ago, yellowstone said:

I’ve been in a temp range of 0.7 degrees since 12:25 and a 0.2 degree range since 3:50. If the weather channel hourly forecast is to be believed, I’ll stay within a range of a degree or so until 6am tomorrow at which point the temp will start a slow decline for the next 24 hours. 

Been stuck between 28.9 and 31.5 here since yesterday evening.

[KingstonWX]

Getting juicier.

[Cloud]

Mt. Vernon, Sedro Wooley is getting the W right now. Looks quite intense up there. 

[Perturbed Member]

12 minutes ago, Doinko said:

Yeah it's really been disappointing the past few winters. At least I can look back on the 13" of surprise snow that fell in 8 hrs in January 2017.

I think you said you were west of HIO, how did you do with the February 2014 and January 2017 storms?

For sure, we're due for a proper snowstorm that drops widespread snow without marginal temps for the whole metro. 

I probably did similar to you for 2/2014 and 1/2017. I was in the Rock Creek area back then so probably super close to your place.  Both were amazing events of course. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

9 minutes ago, FroYoBro said:

Seems like that last band of showers was the cold front or at least some kind of boundary. Dropped from 47 to 44 in the last 30 minutes. 

I think so, PDX is down to 43. Still sitting at 44 here, which is the warmest we've been this month. 

[The Blob]

1 hour ago, North_County said:

My wife grew up in Southern California, and to this day she swears she always went swimming on her birthday (December 27th).

I believe it. One year (2002 or 2003) we had temps in the high 80s for Christmas. 

This graph is for my hometown of Riverside Ca.

[Dave]

7 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I also heard Eugene had a lot of ice with the February 2014 event. 

We did. About .75" on top of about 10 inches of snow, which it squished down a couple of inches to my dismay. We've had at least two other reasonably big ones in the last 10 years. Come to think of it, there might be a suckasss s/n gradient with those because of the not uncommon scenario of Eugene getting ice while the rest of the valley is snow. We can't fuckking win.

[T-Town]

9 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

Accumulated much? About 0.2” on elevated surfaces and grass here. 

Doesn’t really look measurable but grass and roofs are turning white. 

[ShawniganLake]

1 hour ago, snow_wizard said:

I'm thinking the NWS should issue a winter weather advisory for the Central Puget Sound area tonight.  I'm also puzzled about how they have no mention of possible strong east winds in the EPSL forecast beginning Wednesday night.

I’m like 40 pages behind.  Did you end up getting any snow in Covington when the cold air moved in today

[KingstonWX]

4 minutes ago, The Blob said:

I believe it. One year (2002 or 2003) we had temps in the high 80s for Christmas. 

This graph is for my hometown of Riverside Ca.

I'm not a big fan of California, but have considered buying property on Maui. The only reason I can't bring myself to pull the trigger is I can't help but feel like this kind of weather is just plain boring. I mean, I know Maui gets some awesome storms and rains, and it sometimes snows on the higher peaks, but I just can't imagine never riding models for a week while I wait for my crapshoot of snow. I know it's comfortable, and there's plenty to do in the sun, but I know I'd last about 3 months before fiending for snow like a meth head who just ran out of stash after a week long bender. 

[Poulsbo Snowman]

The answer to that is about 16 pages ago.

[TacomaWx]

2 minutes ago, T-Town said:

Doesn’t really look measurable but grass and roofs are turning white. 

I’m just glad it actually snowed even if it doesn’t amount to much. Was so happy when I got home I didn’t look at the radar or anything when I left work and expected there would be nothing sticking when I got home. I wouldn’t be surprised if we just get 1/2” or so by tomorrow morning. I don’t really think we’re gonna get anything too crazy overnight. 

[Perturbed Member]

Good note from Mark about models being too fast to scour out the cold with these setups:

"

Usually I’m the one downplaying snow chances with my “warm bias”.

But this is a setup I’ve seen time and time again, even the highest resolution models scouring out the thin cold layer too quickly. Sure, it’s better than 20+ years ago, but still issues. Check out this gem from a blog post in December 2016. It’s almost like Mark from 6 years ago is leaving me a message... “After countless events like this, I should have realized (again) that unless models forecast a significant southerly wind push up the valley, or a decent westerly wind in the Gorge, temps won’t warm up quickly at all” Blog post is here: https://fox12weather.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/cold-air-stuck-in-gorge-ice-snow-continue-tonight/

During that event, which wasn’t even as cold as this one is forecast to be, it only warmed up 2-3 degrees in a 24 hour period. So...we’re going very conservative with the warming Friday through Saturday, and thinking the Gorge stays frozen. Even the ECMWF model has 9 millibars easterly pressure gradient through the Gorge Saturday morning, and still 5 in the afternoon. The cold air will still be blasting into the east metro area on Saturday. Only on Sunday does it briefly go flat, but then returns to 5-6 millibars easterly Monday and Tuesday. I see a long duration ice storm out there with I-84 potentially closed for several days over the Christmas weekend.

"

[lowlandsnow]

Will the precip farther north come south? Or is the central and south sounds only chance for snow from convergence zones?

[VancouverIslandSouth]

Still getting some light snow showers here, I went out to measure tonight and it was pretty consistently 14~15" over the untreated pavement. Must have been in the 15~16" range accounting for a bit of compaction. Still getting a few light/moderate snow showers and back down to 25.5F. This has felt pretty top tier for here, not only is it one of our larger 24 hour snowfalls, but having it followed by a few days with Arctic air is incredibly rare here. Even in Feb 2019 we only got our big snow right at the end of it.

 

A few more shots from the walk today:

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Down to 1 at Spokane, they are going to FINALLY get the sub-zero. 

[Ice_is_Everywhere]

2 minutes ago, Perturbed Member said:

Good note from Mark about models being too fast to scour out the cold with these setups:

"

Usually I’m the one downplaying snow chances with my “warm bias”.

But this is a setup I’ve seen time and time again, even the highest resolution models scouring out the thin cold layer too quickly. Sure, it’s better than 20+ years ago, but still issues. Check out this gem from a blog post in December 2016. It’s almost like Mark from 6 years ago is leaving me a message... “After countless events like this, I should have realized (again) that unless models forecast a significant southerly wind push up the valley, or a decent westerly wind in the Gorge, temps won’t warm up quickly at all” Blog post is here: https://fox12weather.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/cold-air-stuck-in-gorge-ice-snow-continue-tonight/

During that event, which wasn’t even as cold as this one is forecast to be, it only warmed up 2-3 degrees in a 24 hour period. So...we’re going very conservative with the warming Friday through Saturday, and thinking the Gorge stays frozen. Even the ECMWF model has 9 millibars easterly pressure gradient through the Gorge Saturday morning, and still 5 in the afternoon. The cold air will still be blasting into the east metro area on Saturday. Only on Sunday does it briefly go flat, but then returns to 5-6 millibars easterly Monday and Tuesday. I see a long duration ice storm out there with I-84 potentially closed for several days over the Christmas weekend.

"

D*mn, that sounds really bad.

[T-Town]

3 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

I’m just glad it actually snowed even if it doesn’t amount to much. Was so happy when I got home I didn’t look at the radar or anything when I left work and expected there would be nothing sticking when I got home. I wouldn’t be surprised if we just get 1/2” or so by tomorrow morning. I don’t really think we’re gonna get anything too crazy overnight. 

For sure!  I expected nothing once the main precip passed so this is all a bonus. 

[Fircrest]

10 minutes ago, T-Town said:

Doesn’t really look measurable but grass and roofs are turning white.

Accumulation on the minivan here.

[Dave]

4 minutes ago, KingstonWX said:

I'm not a big fan of California, but have considered buying property on Maui. The only reason I can't bring myself to pull the trigger is I can't help but feel like this kind of weather is just plain boring. I mean, I know Maui gets some awesome storms and rains, and it sometimes snows on the higher peaks, but I just can't imagine never riding models for a week while I wait for my crapshoot of snow. I know it's comfortable, and there's plenty to do in the sun, but I know I'd last about 3 months before fiending for snow like a meth head who just ran out of stash after a week long bender. 

What about the reputation of the locals' treatment of mainlanders that come over and buy property? That would scare the crap outta me.

[T-Town]

1 minute ago, Fircrest said:

Accumulation on the minivan here.

Nice!

[MikeInEverett]

11 hours ago, jakerepp said:

Oh wait...you said you work at Safeway? You work at that Safeway? I was there 2 or 3 times a week before I moved to Arizona. I lived right at the bottom of 238th.

Yep. Just got moved to this store a couple weeks ago! Was at the Silver Firs store near Mill Creek for the previous 7 years before that. See a lot of interesting people here since it’s a highway 99 store.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

6 minutes ago, Perturbed Member said:

Good note from Mark about models being too fast to scour out the cold with these setups:

"

Usually I’m the one downplaying snow chances with my “warm bias”.

But this is a setup I’ve seen time and time again, even the highest resolution models scouring out the thin cold layer too quickly. Sure, it’s better than 20+ years ago, but still issues. Check out this gem from a blog post in December 2016. It’s almost like Mark from 6 years ago is leaving me a message... “After countless events like this, I should have realized (again) that unless models forecast a significant southerly wind push up the valley, or a decent westerly wind in the Gorge, temps won’t warm up quickly at all” Blog post is here: https://fox12weather.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/cold-air-stuck-in-gorge-ice-snow-continue-tonight/

During that event, which wasn’t even as cold as this one is forecast to be, it only warmed up 2-3 degrees in a 24 hour period. So...we’re going very conservative with the warming Friday through Saturday, and thinking the Gorge stays frozen. Even the ECMWF model has 9 millibars easterly pressure gradient through the Gorge Saturday morning, and still 5 in the afternoon. The cold air will still be blasting into the east metro area on Saturday. Only on Sunday does it briefly go flat, but then returns to 5-6 millibars easterly Monday and Tuesday. I see a long duration ice storm out there with I-84 potentially closed for several days over the Christmas weekend.

"

I like how Mark gave Jesse a shout out. 

[Christensen87]

Looks like 00z increased freezing rain totals, and that east wind, wow. 

[Front Ranger]

5 minutes ago, Ice_is_Everywhere said:

D*mn, that sounds really bad.

Name checks out.

[BurienSnowGlobe]

[Dave]

Feb 2014, but pics weren't taken at ice maximum. 

[Front Ranger]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I like how Mark gave Jesse a shout out. 

He left out "raging" warm bias. But yeah, clear nod to the weenies. 

[Cloud]

Just went out to check on the streets and sidewalk here. Underneath the snow is a solid sheet of ice from the rain this morning before the switch to snow. 

[thickhog]

3 minutes ago, Christensen87 said:

Looks like 00z increased freezing rain totals, and that east wind, wow. 

Please no

[VancouverIslandSouth]

Some of these snow showers are getting heavier, probably a good sign for those further south. This is how it currently looks in Victoria:

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Anyone got a GFS ZR map?

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Hopefully the 00z continues the trend of less of a mid-range torch. 

[Cloud]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Anyone got a GFS ZR map?

 

[DRG]

Sent this email to the owners of my company and dept heads earlier today about...now I have to be at an all hands mtg at 7am tomorrow.  Any expletives to add?!?

[Cloud]

We get the region-wide event we’ve been asking for. An ice storm. 

[BurienSnowGlobe]

My Vernon seems to be in a good spot right now, more coming from the west

 

 

[Front Ranger]

1 minute ago, VancouverIslandSouth said:

Some of these snow showers are getting heavier, probably a good sign for those further south. This is how it currently looks in Victoria:

How'd you do last December?

[WeatherGeek2022]

1 minute ago, Cloud said:

We get the region-wide event we’ve been asking for. An ice storm. 

god plz no ice...

 

 

either pure snow or pure rain. none of the frozen crap.

[Chewbacca Defense]

3 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Is this a weather station?

Raspberry Pi with a 7" touchscreen