PNW December 2022 - Part II

[ShawniganLake]

BC storm and records summary 

Weather summary
for British Columbia
issued by Environment Canada
at 5:02 p.m. PST Tuesday 20 December 2022.

Discussion.

A winter storm blanketed much of southern B.C. in snow. 

The following is a summary of weather event information received by 
Environment & Climate Change Canada as of 3 P.M. PST, 20th December 
2022. 

1. Summary of Southwest Interior & Kootenays snowfall in cm: 

Rossland: 30 
Yahk: 15-20 
UBC Kelowna: 16 
West Kelowna: 16 
Grand Forks Area: 15 
Penticton: 11 
Pennask Summit: 10 
Grasmere: 7-10 
Summerland: 8 
Osoyoos: 5 

2. Summary of Vancouver Island & Southern Gulf Islands snowfall in 
cm: 

Malahat: 37 
Victoria Airport (YYJ): 36 
Downtown Victoria Area: 35 
Victoria View Royal: 35 
Shawnigan Lake: 35 
Cowichan Bay: 35 
Saturna Island: 33 
Nanaimo Airport: 30 
North Cowichan: 30 
Duncan Area: 30 
Saanichton Area: 29 
University of Victoria: 27 
Qualicum Beach Airport: 12 
Port Alberni: 12 
Comox Airport: 12 
Cochrane: 11 
Kennedy Lake: 10 
North Courtenay: 8 

3. Summary of Lower Mainland & Sunshine Coast snowfall in cm: 

Tsawwassen Area: 35 
South Surrey: 35 
White Rock: 34 
Downtown Vancouver: 30 
Vancouver Area: 30-32 
Abbotsford Area: 20-30 
Surrey Cloverdale: 26-30 
Fort Langley: 28 
Pitt Meadows Airport: 28 
Vancouver Airport (YVR): 27 
Richmond: 26 
North Vancouver: 25 
Chemainus: 24 
Port Moody: 24 
Coquitlam Area: 24 
Westwood Plateau: 24 
Abbotsford Airport (YXX): 19 
West Vancouver: 16 
Sechelt: 14 

4. Preliminary daily minimum temperature records for December 20, 
2022: 

Abbotsford Area (Abbotsford A) 
Preliminary new record of -12.1 
Old record of -12.0 set in 2008 
Records in this area have been kept since 1944 

Bella Coola Area (Bella Coola Airport) 
Preliminary new record of -20.1 
Old record of -15.2 set in 1990 
Records in this area have been kept since 1895 

Burns Lake Area (Burns Lake Decker Lake) 
Preliminary new record of -40.8 
Old record of -37.2 set in 2008 
Records in this area have been kept since 1949 

Dease Lake Area (Dease Lake (AUT)) 
Preliminary new record of -43.1 
Old record of -41.1 set in 1980 
Records in this area have been kept since 1944 

Fort Nelson Area (Fort Nelson) 
Preliminary new record of -42.4 
Old record of -40.8 set in 1980 
Records in this area have been kept since 1937 

Fort St. John Area (Fort St John Airport) 
Preliminary new record of -41.0 
Old record of -39.4 set in 1933 
Records in this area have been kept since 1910 

Hope Area (Hope Airport) 
Preliminary new record of -15.6 
Old record of -15.5 set in 2008 
Records in this area have been kept since 1936 

Prince George Area (Prince George Airport Auto) 
Preliminary new record of -41.1 
Old record of -40.0 set in 1924 
Records in this area have been kept since 1912 

Prince Rupert Area (Prince Rupert) 
Preliminary new record of -16.3 
Old record of -15.6 set in 1964 
Records in this area have been kept since 1908 

Puntzi Mountain Area (Puntzi Mountain (AUT)) 
Preliminary new record of -46.9 
Old record of -43.0 set in 2008 
Records in this area have been kept since 1959 

Sandspit Area (Sandspit Airport Auto) 
Preliminary new record of -8.5 
Old record of -5.6 set in 1964 
Records in this area have been kept since 1945 

Smithers Area (Smithers Airport Auto) 
Preliminary new record of -32.9 
Old record of -32.2 set in 2008 
Records in this area have been kept since 1938 

Tatlayoko Lake Area (Tatlayoko Lake RCS) 
Preliminary new record of -35.9 
Old record of -34.3 set in 2008 
Records in this area have been kept since 1930 

Whistler Area (Whistler - Nesters) 
Preliminary new record of -19.1 
Old record of -18.8 set in 1990 
Records in this area have been kept since 1950 

Williams Lake Area (Williams Lake A) 
Preliminary new record of -37.1 
Old record of -36.3 set in 1990 
Records in this area have been kept since 1960 

[ShawniganLake]

24F with a steady but very light snow falling since about sunset.  Only about 1/4” accumulation.  My season total is at 28.5” which is pretty close to average for a year. 

[TacomaWx]

Woke up and looked outside…haven’t measured but looks like we’re over 1/2” now and snowing. Better than I expected and the radar is looking favorable. 

[HuskyMaestro]

4 hours ago, Dave said:

After hanging out on this forum for several years, I honestly think that PNW meteorologists have the toughest job of any in the entire country during winter. Western Washington has so many weird microclimates that the current models could not possibly pick up on them with their current resolution, not to mention non the nonexistent radar data in many locations. So many valleys get cold air dammed, have chilly east bleed, exposure to the warm sound, shelter from southern winds, convergence zones etc. The list is too big to go on. You could not do that job well without many years experience winning, failing, learning and getting better, what to trust in the models, what to ignore. It's mind boggling. 

If you are a met in the midwest, imagine having all the best radar coverage in the country by far. Very little terrain to deal with. The best models we have to forecast tornadoes. Radars that pick them up before they even form, etc. That would be easier to forecast, although you'd have to deal with more tragedy.

I can't think of any other equivalent in the US that gets it as difficult as us for snow, but I wanna say the Po Valley in Northern Italy where they have the giant Alps to the north and the Apennines range to the south that runs down the country like a spine, where it gets milder and warmer from Milan to Venice. How Milan can get blasted by snow but Venice gets cold rain while Rome to the south is protected by mountains. 

Japan too, trying to get snow in Tokyo through Osaka sounds like a pain in the a** because they have to rely on low pressure systems to pass by the Hachijo-jima Islands at a certain angle to draw in colder air through the mountains from the Sea of Japan while the moisture has to cool in the sky for any snow to fall. Not to mention the Japanese Alps are far better at blocking bitter freezing air from Siberia than our own Cascades, so the west coast of the country and Sapporo get blasted by snow every year while Tokyo usually stays much warmer. I would hate trying to forecast any of that. 

[Perturbed Member]

06z GFS is pretty wet. All of this falls at below freezing temps in PDX.  Only 0.25 in of this is ZR on the GFS, the rest must be sleet. 

[Requiem]

35 minutes ago, Perturbed Member said:

06z GFS is pretty wet. All of this falls at below freezing temps in PDX.  Only 0.25 in of this is ZR on the GFS, the rest must be sleet. 

I'm confident this thing is gonna continue waffling around-- let's see where it goes.

[Blizzard777]

4 hours ago, VancouverIslandSouth said:

Picked up about another inch this evening. Some of the roads are starting to get some legitimate snow banks. Also, noticing more cars nearly completely covered

Love night time shots of clean snow!!! You got nuked!!! 

[Iceresistance]

The same Arctic Front that blew past Y'all is coming towards me as well. This time, it's a Blue Norther

[snow maniac]

3 inches of snow is my total for this winter so far. Not doing so well…

[Blizzard777]

The snow my area received ended pretty quickly delivering a dusting yesterday afternoon while the evening light snow showers at least turned everything white ! Been snowing on and off. Will measure once it’s light out but not a whole lot 

currently 28* 

[snow maniac]

Getting ready for my impending doom of ice.

generators all gassed up, chainsaws ready.

figures my location get shafted on all the snow but dead center for all the ice!. I hope I dont get hit as bad as its showing, Im surrounded by 80 foot firs.

[awright-31]

This is now the 3rd ECMWF run to increase ZR accumulations in the South/Central Sound overnight Thursday and into Friday. This run also sped things up a bit, showing ZR falling at OLM by 2300 on Thursday and warming us above freezing by 1000 on Friday morning. It is difficult to discredit the Euro, especially within 72 hours given recent performance.

 hope that unless this trend reserves the NWS begins issuing WSWs this afternoon. 0.4" of ice accumulation is getting close to crippling. If the 06Z Euro verified as shown below, this would cause severe tree damage and widespread power outages - and 48 hours before Christmas, none the less. This is becoming a serious situation.

[MikeInEverett]

The area between Seattle and Tacoma seems to be doing pretty good tonight. Interested to see what accumulations are like down there. 24F here.

[Blizzard777]

8 minutes ago, awright-31 said:

This is now the 3rd ECMWF run to increase ZR accumulations in the South/Central Sound overnight Thursday and into Friday. This run also sped things up a bit, showing ZR falling at OLM by 2300 on Thursday and warming us above freezing by 1000 on Friday morning. It is difficult to discredit the Euro, especially within 72 hours given recent performance.

 hope that unless this trend reserves the NWS begins issuing WSWs this afternoon. 0.4" of ice accumulation is getting close to crippling. If the 06Z Euro verified as shown below, this would cause severe tree damage and widespread power outages - and 48 hours before Christmas, none the less. This is becoming a serious situation.

Not liking this at all !!! The one storm we don’t want to play out probably will.  Since we’re the target now I hope in two days this things shift away from our area  

[Tyler Mode]

My 71st freeze of the year, breaking a record for the most freezes in a year.

[Everleigh]

My overnight snowfall. Man, with numbers like these, I think the greater population of Yelm is going to have a tough time getting around today!

29.1° currently. Its still trying to give me a snowflake an hour right now, but radar is naked. 

[umadbro]

Temps starting to plummet on the east side of the gorge.

[Requiem]

33 minutes ago, awright-31 said:

This is now the 3rd ECMWF run to increase ZR accumulations in the South/Central Sound overnight Thursday and into Friday. This run also sped things up a bit, showing ZR falling at OLM by 2300 on Thursday and warming us above freezing by 1000 on Friday morning. It is difficult to discredit the Euro, especially within 72 hours given recent performance.

 hope that unless this trend reserves the NWS begins issuing WSWs this afternoon. 0.4" of ice accumulation is getting close to crippling. If the 06Z Euro verified as shown below, this would cause severe tree damage and widespread power outages - and 48 hours before Christmas, none the less. This is becoming a serious situation.

Seems oddly light for PDX considering this run was wetter-- more sleet?

[The Blob]

Down to 35 here. Slowly cooling off. 

[awright-31]

5 minutes ago, Requiem said:

Seems oddly light for PDX considering this run was wetter-- more sleet?

Wetter north but similar for PDX.

[Frontal Snowsquall]

12z HRRR precipitation and freezing rain totals through Friday 4am.

[T-Town]

Looks like we got about a half inch last night. 30 degrees and still snowing lightly. 

[RentonHill]

-19 in Twisp. 0 at our place. 25 here in Renton. That’s a cold one

[TacomaWx]

Wound up with a 43/30 temp spread yesterday with 0.3” of snow. 29 currently here and we picked up another 0.5” overnight to hit 0.8” Still snowing too! Did a lot better than I thought we would 12 hours of light snow slowly added up. 

[TacomaWx]

Very fluffy powdery snow out there. Going back out to work in Covington this morning should be interesting to see how much more they got than here. 

[Front Ranger]

Looks like SEA has done decent overnight. 

[Prairiedog]

7 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I remember Jeff Gianolana and Mike Donahue doing their news cast from the snowy streets of Portland during the January 2004 blast. 

How about the goofballs standing on the overpass at Sylvan waiting for the first flake.  It commanded the news.  It always cracked me up.  It was like a fog that came upon their brains and they all lost it.  Every year all the news outlets would send some unlucky newbie up there to report THE FIRST FLAKE.

[TacomaWx]

9 minutes ago, T-Town said:

Looks like we got about a half inch last night. 30 degrees and still snowing lightly. 

Looks like we will have enough to keep snowcover on the ground the next 2 days. Definitely ended up avoiding a worst case scenario here after missing out on the big storm yesterday but looks like almost nothing just a bit south of Tacoma. 

[Ellsworb]

1/4" of popcorn over very frozen surface water made for a slick walk to put the trash out this am.  26/23 on the east shore of Lake Tapps.

[umadbro]

Wind advisory and wind chill advisory up

[Ray]

Good morning.  27 degrees and just a light dusting of snow.  We got skunked on this go around for sure.  With any luck we will get skunked on the freezing rain part too.  Time will tell....

[Prairiedog]

7 hours ago, Requiem said:

Hmm, which model should I believe-- EURO still shows an ice event for PDX but not too bad-- other models seem a bit more bullish. And Mark, who's usually the most reasonable one out there is really calling for a messy ice storm. Guess we'll just have to wait and see. 

The differences will make a big difference, too.  1/3" of ice vs 1/2" will be huge.  It will also vary from location to location.  I'm pretty nervous being our neighborhood all live under a lot of trees along Clear Creek.  We got hit hard in '21 and no power for two weeks.  We all depend on a big spring fed well system for our water.  That system had already been compromised from the fires just a few months earlier.  That went down.  We ended up carrying a lot of buckets of water to the house to heat  on the wood stove for cooking, and makeshift showers.  Many of us had to cut our way out of our driveways as so many limbs and trees were down.  Power lines down everywhere. 

Doing a lot of prep stuff now in preparation for whatever happens.  Charging batteries, candles, propane tanks filled (portable propane heaters to go with our wood stove), etc.  Going to move my sled( fishing boat) to another location in case anything more serious might happen.  My last chicken pen got annihilated so I build a re-enforced new one.  Hopefully my girls will be safe.  Just a lot to get ready for.  Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. 

[TacomaWx]

5 minutes ago, Ray said:

Good morning.  27 degrees and just a light dusting of snow.  We got skunked on this go around for sure.  With any luck we will get skunked on the freezing rain part too.  Time will tell....

I figured further east you guys would’ve done better. We got fairly close to an inch here but not quite. 

[Meatyorologist]

25/22 here. Coldest temperature of the season thus far, beating out 26F early this month. Probably not going to warm up much past this today, then we'll shatter that figure later tonight into tomorrow morning. On the watch for the coldest temperature I've ever recorded/lived through, and potentially the first single digits since Dec 1990. A new 2" of snow blanketing everything ought to help with that effort tremendously.

[ShawniganLake]

Hope is down to 1F with a windchill of -20. Fraser outflow is strengthening this morning. 
 

21F with light snow.  About 1/2” overnight 

[Prairiedog]

I was fortunate enough when after the '21 ice storm my friend that owns HiWay Tire in Canby lost a huge number of oak trees in his canyon.  I managed to drag out what turned into 12 cord of fire wood.  It was a huge feat for my then 71 year old bones as I did 75% of it by myself.  I burn about 3-5 cord a year depending on the winter.  Refuse to use my heat pump unless necessary but with no power it would be a moot point anyway sd i'm not hard wired in to my geni.  This might be a 5 cord winter.  Got both geni's running yesterday to make sure everything is ready as we WILL lose power.  Not even a question.  I just need to get my dvd's ready. My home theater system can still rock when PGE goes down.   I always start with Band of Brothers.  It's my severe weather, no power go to. 

[SnowySeeker50]

Looks like I got just enough of these light showers overnight to make the roads white. Currently 25f.

[Meatyorologist]

4 hours ago, HuskyMaestro said:

I can't think of any other equivalent in the US that gets it as difficult as us for snow, but I wanna say the Po Valley in Northern Italy where they have the giant Alps to the north and the Apennines range to the south that runs down the country like a spine, where it gets milder and warmer from Milan to Venice. How Milan can get blasted by snow but Venice gets cold rain while Rome to the south is protected by mountains. 

Japan too, trying to get snow in Tokyo through Osaka sounds like a pain in the a** because they have to rely on low pressure systems to pass by the Hachijo-jima Islands at a certain angle to draw in colder air through the mountains from the Sea of Japan while the moisture has to cool in the sky for any snow to fall. Not to mention the Japanese Alps are far better at blocking bitter freezing air from Siberia than our own Cascades, so the west coast of the country and Sapporo get blasted by snow every year while Tokyo usually stays much warmer. I would hate trying to forecast any of that. 

That is some really neat info actually

[Meatyorologist]

In other special news.. The new 2" of snow yesterday has brought my forum total to the 50" benchmark!

[Phishy Wx]

clouds kept MBY above 0 last night, currently 6

 

I think KGEG may have gotten down to -4 before clouds moved in a moderated them to 9.

 

Clear skies tonight should get us frigid.  but winds pick up too so maybe not as frigid as anticipated