PNW December 2022 - Part II

[Deweydog]

Advection starting to ramp up nicely in the basin. Down to 16 in TC with a stiff north wind.

[Doinko]

3 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Pretty mild, tepid day in the Denver area. Ignore those weird readings to the north, they're probably errors..  

I'm in Denver right now, can't wait for that Arctic front. Should be amazing to experience

[Kayla]

10 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

It's currently 50 in Denver. In 5 hours or so, should be sub-zero.

Denver takes the cake with the most wild swings in the country. 

[Meatyorologist]

4 minutes ago, Doinko said:

I'm in Denver right now, can't wait for that Arctic front. Should be amazing to experience

Take pics and video! That should be a once-per-generation type cold front. Instant temp change, blowing dust, sharp stratus deck boundary.

[RayRay]

A completely frozen over Tesla on I-5

[Front Ranger]

7 minutes ago, Doinko said:

I'm in Denver right now, can't wait for that Arctic front. Should be amazing to experience

Hoping it manages to get here before dark so I can get some decent video, it should be close.

[TT-SEA]

Winter perfection today...

[RentonHill]

24 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

February 1936 was absolutely nutty. Two months removed from peak insolation but still by far the coldest month ever recorded across the northern plains. Days and weeks on end of sub -20F weather, some readings below -60F. Just a mean kind of winter.

Not even half a year later a similarly anomalous July crushed the very same places with unfathomable heat. A strange, unforgiving year for the plains... Could you imagine being a farmer trying to survive at the time? After an already unforgiving 1920s?

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. Depressing as hell but hard to put down.

[Cascadia_Wx]

ESE WINDS HAVE REACHED PDX.

[NWbyNW]

24F degrees here at sea-level.  Beautiful day today.

 

[Terreboner]

25.3 here now and getting brisk outside.  My wife didn't believe me when I told her it would probably be 15 degrees when she got off work, as it was 45 when she arrived this morning, lol.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Gfs is looking like even more ice for puget sound

Also holding onto freezing temps even longer. well into 4pm friday.

Edited December 21, 2022 by MR.SNOWMIZER

[Christensen87]

18z still looks pretty bad for the south sound, this is going to be just like 2012 ugh...Where are the advisories/watches? 

[Cascadia_Wx]

Hood River is down to 23 while DLS hangs on at 27.

[NWbyNW]

CURRENT COLD TEMPS AROUND THE REGION!  

(Coldest Temp In USA is Currently Chicken, Alaska at -50)

Williams Lake -24

Princeton -15

Lytton -13

Metaline Falls -2

Grand Coulee -1

Kamloops -10

Palouse 1

Republic 1

Colville 3

Colfax 3

Glacier 3

Oroville 3

Sandpoint 5

Moscow 5

Winthrop 5

Pullman 7

Agassiz 8

Spokane 8

Wenatchee 8

Maple Falls 12

Abbotsford 14

Lynden 14

Concrete 16

Bellingham 17

Kennewick 17

Vancouver 17

Baker City 19

Port Angeles 21

Hood River 23

John Day 25

[Front Ranger]

16 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Take pics and video! That should be a once-per-generation type cold front. Instant temp change, blowing dust, sharp stratus deck boundary.

I've seen some crazy fronts here, but the most comparable one to today is probably Dec 2008. That saw temps drop from the mid 50s to near 0, but it took over 8 hours. This one will be quicker.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

I've seen some crazy fronts here, but the most comparable one to today is probably Dec 2008. That saw temps drop from the mid 50s to near 0, but it took over 8 hours. This one will be quicker.

The 2008 front was wild. Bartlesville, OK had a high of 72 one day and 18 the next. 

[HuskyMaestro]

35 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

February 1936 was absolutely nutty. Two months removed from peak insolation but still by far the coldest month ever recorded across the northern plains. Days and weeks on end of sub -20F weather, some readings below -60F. Just a mean kind of winter.

Not even half a year later a similarly anomalous July crushed the very same places with unfathomable heat. A strange, unforgiving year for the plains... Could you imagine being a farmer trying to survive at the time? After an already unforgiving 1920s?

The extremes that year were just insane. It’s been years since I’ve read John Steinbeck’s works but I remember Grapes of Wrath using biblical literary devices to try to make sense of the extreme seasons of the Dust Bowl. Like how it was “vengeance” from nature because the farmers abused and drained the rich soil until it became nothing. A truly cruel era where even the rains returning in 1939 wasn’t enough, and it had to take a world war to drive up the economy there again. 

[Perturbed Member]

18z HRRR starts things out with snow at 1PM that amounts to just a dusting and then we change over to sleet at 5-6 PM

 

I find it interesting that the HRRR shows an area of deeper cold air on the eastern edge of the coast range. Cold air damming maybe from the east winds banking up there.

 

This is just through Friday 10 AM

[SilverFallsAndrew]

PDX down to 38, 33 at TTD. At this rate TTD will be colder than The Dalles by late afternoon.

[MossMan]

7 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Gfs is looking like even more ice for puget sound

Also holding onto freezing temps even longer. well into 4pm friday.

I sure hope people are prepared for extended power outages. 

[FroYoBro]

It is below 40 degrees at pdx. 
 

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!!!

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

 

 

[awright-31]

18Z GFS holding to about 1/3" ice accumulation for most of the South Sound/ SW Interior. It still thinks the warm layer will be shallow enough for most of the early precip to fall as sleet before eventually tuning to ZR. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Just now, MossMan said:

I sure hope people are prepared for extended power outages. 

My gut tells me it will be more snow than freezing rain. 

But if it plays out like shown people have no idea the hellstorm that is coming.

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

 

 

[Doinko]

2 minutes ago, Perturbed Member said:

18z HRRR starts things out with snow at 1PM that amounts to just a dusting and then we change over to sleet at 5-6 PM

 

I find it interesting that the HRRR shows an area of deeper cold air on the eastern edge of the coast range. Cold air damming maybe from the east winds banking up there.

 

This is just through Friday 10 AM

Wow, half an inch by Friday morning and we'll probably stay frozen until at least Saturday afternoon.

[Perturbed Member]

KTTD down to 33F DP 21

[T-Town]

My kid in Fort Collins is going to delay her flight from Thursday night to Friday night. It’s a roll of the dice but keeps her off the road when it’s below zero in Denver. Hopefully the ice storm is over and Seatac is running by late Friday.  

[Kolk1604]

High of 32 today (briefly before 1 and then dropped again)

30 degrees right now 

[HuskyMaestro]

7 minutes ago, MossMan said:

I sure hope people are prepared for extended power outages. 

Charging up the power banks, getting the flashlights ready, hoping to make a quick grocery run before it starts, moving the frozen meats to our bigger freezer in the garage. Hopefully the Costco’s aren’t crowded yet lol

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Really is a sparkling bright winter day out there. Some compaction but still about a foot of snow on the ground. Icicles are starting to grow on some of the older, less-insulated homes on my block.

20°F.

[WeatherGeek2022]

Well that is just very anticlimactic for the ice scenario still being modeled... No sharing for us southerners for snow from the north sound.

[Gummy]

1 minute ago, WeatherGeek2022 said:

Well that is just very anticlimactic for the ice scenario still being modeled... No sharing for us southerners for snow from the north sound.

Nope, fortunately we still have January and February to hopefully score.

[MossMan]

6 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Really is a sparkling bright winter day out there. Some compaction but still about a foot of snow on the ground. Icicles are starting to grow on some of the older, less-insulated homes on my block.

20°F.

I only have them on my heated shed so far. 

[Perturbed Member]

FWIW, SPC Mesoanaylsis has PDX 850 mb temps between -6c and -7c as of 2 PM

The 12z ECMWF had the 850mb temps around -4.3c by now. 

Seems possible that the cold air advection aloft has been a bit better than expected. 

[MossMan]

Had that nice little overrunner 9yrs ago today! 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

I don't feel like 1/3-1/2" of ice will cause the amount of power outages some people on here seem to think it will... Could be wrong!

[Cloud]

It will be extremely cold next couple days and the hi-res models are notorious for scouring out the cold too quickly imo. The 18z is holding onto the cold a little bit longer on Friday eve.. Of course, the 12z Euro had different ideas w/ the 40s by 10pm Friday. Given the recent event, we have 1 model that has a cold bias and the other with a warm one. I think this is a situation where we have the ice lingers into Saturday morning. 

[Ziess]

I'm having a hard time believing this hole in Clackamas county gets no ZR, thoughts?