PNW January 2023 Observations and Discussion

[RentonHill]

Euro monthly says....February!....NW flow for everyone. 

[TT-SEA]

OT... but the affidavit released on the Idaho murder suspect is fascinating.   He is no criminal mastermind.   Thankfully we have DNA technology and cell phone data.   So much was made of poor investigative work before the arrest but they got him.  Hopefully he doesn't get the death penalty because rotting in isolation in a cement cage for the rest of his life would be better.   

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

6 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

OT... but the affidavit released on the Idaho murder suspect is fascinating.   He is no criminal mastermind.   Thankfully we have DNA technology and cell phone data.   So much was made of poor investigative work before the arrest but they got him.  Hopefully he doesn't get the death penalty because rotting in isolation in a cement cage for the rest of his life would be better.   

I agree 100% 

[hawkstwelve]

Ended up with about 16 inches from the storm. With our existing 5-8 inches on the ground, it adds up to... A whole lotta snow. Makes our little neighborhood seem like it should be in the mountains. Our golden is absolutely loving her first experience with the snow. She can't get enough!

[TT-SEA]

6 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

Ended up with about 16 inches from the storm. With our existing 5-8 inches on the ground, it adds up to... A whole lotta snow. Makes our little neighborhood seem like it should be in the mountains. Our golden is absolutely loving her first experience with the snow. She can't get enough!

Truly awesome pics!    Looks gorgeous.  

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

6 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Truly awesome pics!    Looks gorgeous.  

Nothing like real powder. Amazing how much traction it has compared to slush. That looks like the kind of snow we get at my property. Love it!

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Nothing like real powder. Amazing how much traction it has compared to slush. That looks like the kind of snow we get at my property. Love it!

But I have seen even that type of snow turn into bad traction on the roads after a few days of sun and wind with temps below freezing and constant traffic.  It becomes a shiny smooth surface.   

[RentonHill]

Weeklies! yay!

 

[RentonHill]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

But I have seen even that type of snow turn into bad traction on the roads after a few days of sun and wind with temps below freezing and constant traffic.  It becomes a shiny smooth surface.   

thats basically how our driveway in twisp turns into after a few weeks of winter. Then when we get any additional snow on top of it its slicker than heck. And if your happen to veer off the hard compact "ruts" from the first trips up the soft sides are just like quicksand and suck you sideways lolz

[TigerWoodsLibido]

We have reached the 60F-burger!!

[ShawniganLake]

6 minutes ago, RentonHillTC said:

Weeklies! yay!

Another January is toast. Perhaps a little window for some continental air in the first week of February 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Really outstanding weeklies. 

[MossMan]

Conflicting reports! 

[RentonHill]

29 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Really outstanding weeklies. 

10hpa Temps, Weekly mean. Jan 20-30:

Jan 31-Feb 06

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, MossMan said:

Conflicting reports! 

The fact is January was never going to deliver. 

[joelgombiner]

 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Maybe the only thing that could mess up our February would be an SSW.

[TacomaWx]

17 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

The fact is January was never going to deliver. 

There could still be something in the final week. Not ready to fully count it out yet. 

[ShawniganLake]

24 minutes ago, RentonHillTC said:

Stratosphere forecast I assume.  What are the dates for it

[RentonHill]

Just now, ShawniganLake said:

Stratosphere forecast I assume.  What are the dates for it

oh ya whoops. didnt realize they didnt have em watermarked somewhere since its straight from ECMWF site. First is 23-30 Jan, second is the week after that. 

[ShawniganLake]

8 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Maybe the only thing that could mess up our February would be an SSW.

Inverse of Feb 2019?  SSW saved our winter during a Nino. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

3 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

Inverse of Feb 2019?  SSW saved our winter during a Nino. 

I’m kidding. 

[Deweydog]

Any significant shift in the models will not take place until the house has a speaker.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Any significant shift in the models will not take place until the house has a speaker.

2025?!

[joelgombiner]

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150797/weather-whiplash

Interesting read on the December cold snap and the behavior of the polar vortex. Doesn't quite connect the dots for the reader about how the structure of the polar vortex is related to temperatures at the surface, but still kind of interesting. Forum favorite Judah Cohen is quoted.

EDIT: Another article explains that we don't really understand how the polar vortex is related to temperatures at the surface. Sometimes arctic air spills south without a polar vortex disruption, and sometime polar vortex disruptions happen without arctic air spilling south... https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/understanding-arctic-polar-vortex 

[joelgombiner]

12 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Any significant shift in the models will not take place until the house has a speaker.

Almost feels like it's contrived as a way for various House GOP members to build their national profiles. 

[....]

Hit 61.9* just before 11am today.  The wind has picked up here in Yelm this afternoon as well, getting a few 20mph gusts....

[Seattle]

4 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I still contend 2020-21 counts as a dud, even for W. WA. 

I know this has already been belabored, but the only thing I even remember from that winter is the 3-day period that produced the best snowstorm of my life. And there's no way you can count that winter close to a dud, even if it was a turd pretty much before and after. 11" of dry powder that fell with temps between 20-23 followed by another 2-3" of wet snow the following day... It was magical, even if quite short in duration. 

Meanwhile the torch is ON. 55 after hitting 56 here in N. Seattle. Yesterday it hit 53. 

[SouthHillFrosty]

5 minutes ago, Seattle said:

I know this has already been belabored, but the only thing I even remember from that winter is the 3-day period that produced the best snowstorm of my life. And there's no way you can count that winter close to a dud, even if it was a turd pretty much before and after. 11" of dry powder that fell with temps between 20-23 followed by another 2-3" of wet snow the following day... It was magical, even if quite short in duration. 

Meanwhile the torch is ON. 55 after hitting 56 here in N. Seattle. Yesterday it hit 53. 

It was a dud for 75% of the forum. Anything south of Seattle go skunked. The Artic air got hung up around Everett I think. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

A bunch of 60 degree readings around Tacoma. 

[TacomaWx]

8 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

It was a dud for 75% of the forum. Anything south of Seattle go skunked. The Artic air got hung up around Everett I think. 

I think you’re mixing up January 2020 and February 2021. February 2021 is what he/she is talking about…which was the huge shortlived snowstorm. 

[ShawniganLake]

15 minutes ago, Seattle said:

I know this has already been belabored, but the only thing I even remember from that winter is the 3-day period that produced the best snowstorm of my life. And there's no way you can count that winter close to a dud, even if it was a turd pretty much before and after. 11" of dry powder that fell with temps between 20-23 followed by another 2-3" of wet snow the following day... It was magical, even if quite short in duration. 

Meanwhile the torch is ON. 55 after hitting 56 here in N. Seattle. Yesterday it hit 53. 

I would say it was a good winter up here. 33” of snow. With a big snowfall before Christmas we ended up with a white Christmas. Then The February event brought 4 consecutive days below freezing with a max snow depth around 17-18”. 

[TacomaWx]

1 minute ago, ShawniganLake said:

I would say it was a good winter up here. 33” of snow. With a big snowfall before Christmas we ended up with a white Christmas. Then The February event brought 4 consecutive days below freezing with a max snow depth around 17-18”. 

You got hit hard by that snow in late December IIRC. Was a crazy event here too…was 58 degrees in the morning the crashed down to 34 and we had a trace of accumulation. That was the only excitement that winter outside of the big February event. 

[Doinko]

1 minute ago, TacomaWx said:

You got hit hard by that snow in late December IIRC. Was a crazy event here too…was 58 degrees in the morning the crashed down to 34 and we had a trace of accumulation. That was the only excitement that winter outside of the big February event. 

Did you get any in late January? We had a decent dusting and it started to stick but then it stopped snowing. Few miles west of here had a few inches.

[TacomaWx]

Just now, Doinko said:

Did you get any in late January? We had a decent dusting and it started to stick but then it stopped snowing. Few miles west of here had a few inches.

Don’t think we even had a snowflake here with that one. Kinda similar to the event down there in early November where cold air damming on the coast range caused some accumulations with nothing really anywhere else. Although the accumulations were definitely more in January 2021 than November 2022. 

[SouthHillFrosty]

13 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

I think you’re mixing up January 2020 and February 2021. February 2021 is what he/she is talking about…which was the huge shortlived snowstorm. 

Ah shit my b lol. I thought I read 2020. Yea that was pretty good. 

Edited January 5 by SouthHillFrosty

[Doinko]

3 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

Don’t think we even had a snowflake here with that one. Kinda similar to the event down there in early November where cold air damming on the coast range caused some accumulations with nothing really anywhere else. Although the accumulations were definitely more in January 2021 than November 2022. 

I think my expectations and how close I was to a huge snowstorm kind of makes me see the February 2021 unfairly. It was a pretty great event, 4.5" is a good amount and the layers of sleet/ice/snow was really interesting. Aside from the first wave of snow I don't think we stayed a singular precip type for long.  I think we had 2 or 3 days below freezing as well and got down to the low 20s. Very windy too.

[Doinko]

Still windy, has been since yesterday morning.That wind last night has to be some of the strongest east wind I've seen.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

35 minutes ago, Seattle said:

I know this has already been belabored, but the only thing I even remember from that winter is the 3-day period that produced the best snowstorm of my life. And there's no way you can count that winter close to a dud, even if it was a turd pretty much before and after. 11" of dry powder that fell with temps between 20-23 followed by another 2-3" of wet snow the following day... It was magical, even if quite short in duration. 

Meanwhile the torch is ON. 55 after hitting 56 here in N. Seattle. Yesterday it hit 53. 

We had a positive temp departure in Feb 2021 and had nothing of interest happen. It was a dud for this part of the PNW.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

We had a positive temp departure in Feb 2021 and had nothing of interest happen. It was a dud for this part of the PNW.

I remember going down to Eugene during the event to hike Mt. Pisgah on a 50 degree afternoon. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

It's January so let's bring back TWL original catch phrase. BSF. Boring southerly flow!

[TigerWoodsLibido]

4 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I still contend 2020-21 counts as a dud, even for W. WA. 

It definitely was for this part of the PNW. Not sure about areas to the north. Nothing interesting happened here. That was the year that our coldest temp was 23F on Oct 26.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, TigerWoodsLibido said:

It definitely was for this part of the PNW. Not sure about areas to the north. Nothing interesting happened here. That was the year that our coldest temp was 23F on Oct 26.

We had several strong wind events, our power was out a lot. But wind doesn't make me hard. 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

4 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I remember going down to Eugene during the event to hike Mt. Pisgah on a 50 degree afternoon. 

I logged on after several days at one point and had no idea that it was below freezing just like 20 miles to the north and was like 50F+ here. Weird shitt.

[Seattle]

4 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

We had a positive temp departure in Feb 2021 and had nothing of interest happen. It was a dud for this part of this PNW.

I'm sure it was a dud for good portions of the PNW. I was referring specifically to Andrew's comment about that being the case for W. Washington. 

You know the weather sucks when we're rehashing past snows and rating winters. TBH, I do think we should be splitting this analysis in two or three. True regionwide events that had equal or semi-equal impact are far and few between. December 2008 was not exceptional in Eugene and southern OR. 2016-2017 missed the Puget Sound. Feb 2019 was pretty good I guess in geographic coverage, but there were places that didn't get that cold.

[Doinko]

6 minutes ago, Seattle said:

I'm sure it was a dud for good portions of the PNW. I was referring specifically to Andrew's comment about that being the case for W. Washington. 

You know the weather sucks when we're rehashing past snows and rating winters. TBH, I do think we should be splitting this analysis in two or three. True regionwide events that had equal or semi-equal impact are far and few between. December 2008 was not exceptional in Eugene and southern OR. 2016-2017 missed the Puget Sound. Feb 2019 was pretty good I guess in geographic coverage, but there were places that didn't get that cold.

Feb 2019 donut holed Portland which was kind of annoying. I got lucky on the 25th with 2.5" of snow but the majority of the Metro area barely had anything with that event.

[Doinko]

Wow Hillsboro reached 59 here while PDX is only at 49 at the moment. 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Back down to 51F. What the hell? Haha.

[NWbyNW]

The damage and flooding from this California storm has been immense.  Very sad seeing what wind and crazy rain numbers have done.  

I will continue to be in the California weather thread, but I still check on you guys.  Miss ya.   

[NWbyNW]

2 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Back down to 51F. What the hell? Haha.

What was the high you had today?