PNW December 2022 - Part II

[Hawksfan2008]

20 minutes ago, CliffMassYelledAtMe said:

This is the part I don't know if I trust. Not sure about ice accumulations but in my experience it takes longer to get rid of the last bit of low-level cold, especially for the East Puget Sound Lowlands and foothills. What are winds like at that time? If anything but S, I am a little incredulous. Any eastern winds bleeding in will extend and any straight western will dam the air. It's gotta be south to warm up so quickly.

This is my concern. The wind doesn’t shift to southerly in North Bend until 6pm. With snowstorms it stays snow until the wind changed. Imagine it’s similar in this setup. 

[SnowySeeker50]

A dusting overnight made everything look nice this morning. Currently 25f and the sun is trying to peak out.

[joelgombiner]

The strait of JDF is blowing smoke rings into the Pacific this morning. 

[MossMan]

11 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Hey @MossMan, can you talk to the weather gods for us and get this freezing rain not to happen? It seems like u know somebody with all the snow u get

I just had a conference call with them…They were going to move some stuff around and give us all a foot of snow instead and keep temps below freezing for the next week until I asked them (politely) for a Jan 1950 redux as well. They got every angry and called me too demanding so now we are all getting 3” of freezing rain instead. 
Sorry about that. 
 

Oh and they are going to give us a raging Nino for the next 3 years as well. 

Edited December 21, 2022 by MossMan

[Tyler Mode]

Crown Point just picked up an east wind.

[Skagit Weather]

Wow! It's still impressively cold out in the San Juans! Only 6F still at 1,400' on Orcas Island with a windchill near -10F.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

The fact the Seattle weather service has no winter storm watch is absolutely ridiculous.

There is going to be either a bunch of snow or freezing rain, that isn't even in question any more.

Edited December 21, 2022 by MR.SNOWMIZER

[TT-SEA]

25 is the perfect temp with snow on the ground.   Totally comfortable outside but snow stays with no melting.

[ShawniganLake]

20 minutes ago, VancouverIslandSouth said:

It's cold and crisp this morning, still steadily cooling and now down to 16.5F. Looks like it's clearing to our north

Colder down there than here. Send that clearing up this way later.  Still cloudy 20F

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

In the past when the puget sound has had a offshore flow the event is mostly snow and both euro and gfs is showing low level offshore flow and freezing rain. Not saying it wont happen but i would not be surprised to see more snow north of tacoma that what is shown.

[MossMan]

5 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

The fact the Seattle weather service has no winter storm watch is absolutely ridiculous.

There is going to be either a bunch of snow or freezing rain, that isn't even in question any more.

Probably waiting on one more round of model runs before pulling any triggers. 

[Blizzard777]

57 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

ECMWF shows Portland well above freezing by early Saturday morning... not sure I believe that.

I know each setup is different but from my experience while growing up there the news was always reporting the warmup and no issue….12 hours later still 29* , power out, branches snapping the cold air hung on….the mighty gorge doing its thing.  

[Snownerd3000]

Looks like we're going into a VERY active period coming up. At least the 12z GFS isn't showing us torching into the new year.  Close to a Nina pattern but not quite as much of a nnw trajectory for storms.

[Doinko]

1 minute ago, Blizzard777 said:

I know each setup is different but from my experience while growing up there the news was always reporting the warmup and no issue….12 hours later still 29* , power out, branches snapping the cold air hung on….the mighty gorge doing its thing.  

That's what Mark Nelsen says too

 

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.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Also was thinking since i have lived at my location i have never had freezing rain even when it was forecasted. It always has been snow or sleet.  I think we might be looking at a mix of snow and sleet for most of the event.

[ShawniganLake]

29 minutes ago, Perturbed Member said:

12z Euro

I guess this dusting of snow is as good as its gonna get from the euro. The ZR even on the euro is now looking pretty high impact and this is even with what I believe is the euro warming us up too aggressively. If PDX does indeed manage to stay frozen into Saturday, these ice amounts may actually be significantly higher than even this since there is plenty more precip coming through that day that isn't included on the below maps.

Thankfully more snow than ice here

[MossMan]

3 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Also was thinking since i have lived at my location i have never had freezing rain even when it was forecasted. It always has been snow or sleet.  I think we might be looking at a mix of snow and sleet for most of the event.

I’m hoping we hang onto snow here longer than forecasted. Looks like between a half inch up to 3” for me depending on which model you look at. 

Edited December 21, 2022 by MossMan

[Snownerd3000]

Any bets on when we see our GOA ridge return?  GEFS has a ridge retrograding into GOA late January.  Latest weeklies look similar but wouldn't you know, just in time for Superbowl Sunday...

[TT-SEA]

[Blizzard777]

27 minutes ago, joelgombiner said:

The strait of JDF is blowing smoke rings into the Pacific this morning. 

That’s so crazy cool…..that last event up that way was that good!!! Even nature

[BLI snowman]

39 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Could be wrong in my thinking but I would hope the cold air being a little faster/more aggressive than modeled could bode well for a deeper cold layer over the metro area by tomorrow night. Maybe buy us some more time with snow or sleet instead of ice 

I definitely think we'll get plenty of sleet either way. If you believe most of the models right now, that'll be the dominant precip type during this, but then that also doesn't account for the late Friday and Saturday precip that's probably erroneously being shown as rain and may in fact be ZR.

[Blizzard777]

8 minutes ago, Doinko said:

That's what Mark Nelsen says too

 

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.

Lol, I’ve experienced those strong south wind with immediate warm ups too! 
Ice Storm did it’s thing knocking out power to all. We all waited 5-7 days for our power only to have the strong southerlies break through with one of the storms and knock all the power out again!  Felt so bad for PGE….must of been quite the face palm moment for those heroes 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 hour ago, MossMan said:

And is inside my tractor tires for added weight! Beet Juice is very multi purpose! 

Beet juice, Beet juice, Beet Juice!

Uh-oh...

[Terreboner]

East winds are heading in and I do believe that cold air is going to be very dense.

[MossMan]

9 minutes ago, Snownerd3000 said:

Any bets on when we see our GOA ridge return?  GEFS has a ridge retrograding into GOA late January.  Latest weeklies look similar but wouldn't you know, just in time for Superbowl Sunday...

We are going to get nailed again this winter, sometime between January 15th and the end of February, but my guess is the second half of January. 

[Skagit Weather]

14 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Also was thinking since i have lived at my location i have never had freezing rain even when it was forecasted. It always has been snow or sleet.  I think we might be looking at a mix of snow and sleet for most of the event.

My thoughts up here too. Not that the models have shown much freezing rain up north, but I haven't seen more than a trace of freezing rain in the last two decades here and I doubt that ends this week. More likely the cold will scour out quite quickly and after a brief period of snow it will quickly transition to rain.

[Seattle]

1 hour ago, Meatyorologist said:

KSEA had a 23/14 spread 12/22/1983. Both the high and low are records. Both are in jeapordy tomorrow.

Kind of perfect timing for it... Outflow relaxes and skies clear this evening, temps plummet overnight. Tomorrow E-W pressure gradients tighten and high and middle level clouds filter in overhead, keeping the cold isulated. Only issue would be a midnight high on either end, or more overnight cloudcover than expected. Both of which I subtly expect at this point knowing how KSEA manages to overperform on temps.

A bit of a bummer SEA seems to have been at 30 on the inter-hour obs after midnight, so no sub-30 high today. 23/14 is going to be tough to beat. It seems like we can never really clear out nicely these days, but maybe the needle will be thread this time. 

1 hour ago, Randyc321 said:

Well, that and the sex scandals.

That was a different mayor! 

[Perturbed Member]

46 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Could be wrong in my thinking but I would hope the cold air being a little faster/more aggressive than modeled could bode well for a deeper cold layer over the metro area by tomorrow night. Maybe buy us some more time with snow or sleet instead of ice 

Yeah the cold air seems to be moving in pretty quickly. Timmy's post earlier comparing 850mb temps from last night's run to its initializing data also showed that the cold air at that level is moving in a good bit faster than modeled. Being just 1-2c cooler up there for a few hours longer is all it would take to maybe get a surprise 1-2 or so inches before the inevitable sleet/zr change.

I'm probably grasping at straws and wishcasting a bit but IMO a little accumulating snow still can't be ruled out. I think we are going to see a lot of sleet regardless.

[Deweydog]

10 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

I definitely think we'll get plenty of sleet either way. If you believe most of the models right now, that'll be the dominant precip type during this, but then that also doesn't account for the late Friday and Saturday precip that's probably erroneously being shown as rain and may in fact be ZR.

Sleet is a pretty tough profile to maintain away from the immediate gorge. Most soundings have a broad warm layer down to about 950mb by tomorrow evening over PDX. The exceptionally cold surface temps will help though. I’ve been somewhat envisioning the front end of the February 1996 transition event today for some reason…

[Kayla]

46 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

Partly Sunny and 9 with very fine light snow.

 

what does it take to get the ever elusive Snowbow?  anyone ever seen one?

Just about everyday in Sweden. Easy to do with very low sun angles and fog everyday.

[Terreboner]

Real nice of the weather channel to put a name to the storm that just left us.  They just had to wait for it to enter the plains.

They are calling it WINTER STORM:

 

[Tyler Mode]

3 minutes ago, Kayla said:

Just about everyday in Sweden. Easy to do with very low sun angles and fog everyday.

A halo...a snow bow is seen opposite the sun like a rainbow.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

7 minutes ago, MossMan said:

We are going to get nailed again this winter, sometime between January 15th and the end of February, but my guess is the second half of January. 

If January, will be a Lower Mainland/Whatcom special. We don't get regionwide cold snaps in January anymore. Want one of those, must wait until February.

[FroYoBro]

Starting to get a few tiny farts from the east. Dew point immediately reacted by going down to 26. 

[Snownerd3000]

19 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

What could have been if the atmosphere is just cooperated looking

[Sandy rocks]

This storm will be damaging but not as much as 1996.  That year had been mild and the trees were not prepared for the cold. It was extremely damaging Gresham lost power for three days. Only time it was ever that severe. More power lines are now under ground.

[Canadian guy]

12 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Sleet is a pretty tough profile to maintain away from the immediate gorge. Most soundings have a broad warm layer down to about 950mb by tomorrow evening over PDX. The exceptionally cold surface temps will help though. I’ve been somewhat envisioning the front end of the February 1996 transition event today for some reason…

Are you still feeling pretty good about January? Looks pretty wet and active for the next couple of weeks…return to ridging into Alaska after?

[Deweydog]

KVUO with a easterly breeze and a decent DP drop!

[xfkirsten]

6 minutes ago, Terreboner said:

Real nice of the weather channel to put a name to the storm that just left us.  They just had to wait for it to enter the plains.

They are calling it WINTER STORM:

 

It's convenient that the ice storm on the way already has a couple of holidays to name it after! As is tradition.

[Requiem]

Easterly breeze here now