PNW January 2023 Observations and Discussion

[Deweydog]

Drove (sober) through some of the the craziest fog last night. It was like hitting a wall a couple times. Analog????

[TT-SEA]

12Z ECMWF is more reasonable with the Wednesday wind event compared to the crazy 12Z run yesterday (on bottom for comparison).  

[TT-SEA]

Here is Oregon map...

 

[snow_wizard]

5 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

12Z ECMWF is more reasonable with the Wednesday wind event compared to the crazy 12Z run yesterday (on bottom for comparison).  

You beat me to it.  Very glad to see this.  Still enough wind to be fun for people who like it without being destructive.

[snow_wizard]

Decent 0z and 12z GFS runs today.  Both show things getting chilly around mid month.

[snow_wizard]

For the people who are hung up on the SSW...

We really don't need it to flip the pattern.  The current and forecasted AO is already minus.  The first thing an SSW often does is flip the AO from plus to minus.  That having been said an SSW could be enough to shake up the pattern in this case, but the models are showing that at mid month regardless.  I've learned many times to never put your eggs in one basket in this game.

[snow_wizard]

The ECMWF shows temps dropping into the mid 30s by early evening tonight.  At least that's a bit chilly.

[Deweydog]

First weenie of 2023!

Happy New Year and god bless us everyone! 

[AlTahoe]

2 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Do you have a snowblower?  

yep a Honda and a craftsman. still took me 2 hours. there was a layer of water on the bottom of all that

[ShawniganLake]

What happened to Phil and Rob.  They’ve been absent for a long time. 

[TT-SEA]

Just now, AlTahoe said:

yep a Honda and a craftsman. still took me 2 hours. there was a layer of water on the bottom of all that

Last Friday (12/23) we had 2 inches of sleet which was followed by freezing rain.    It took me 2 hours last Saturday morning to get that off the driveway with the snowblower so my son could leave for work.   And I could only walk where I had cleared because it was insanely slippery and basically impossible to walk on without falling.   Trying to drive a car over that would have been impossible... it would have slid right off the driveway and through the hedges and over our rock wall on the lower part of the driveway.  

[Anti Marine Layer]

8 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Last Friday (12/23) we had 2 inches of sleet which was followed by freezing rain.    It took me 2 hours last Saturday morning to get that off the driveway with the snowblower so my son could leave for work.   And I could only walk where I had cleared because it was insanely slippery and basically impossible to walk on without falling.   Trying to drive a car over that would have been impossible... it would have slid right off the driveway and through the hedges and over our rock wall on the lower part of the driveway.  

That's why we all need to become good ice skaters.

[TT-SEA]

Just now, Mr Marine Layer said:

That's why we all need to become good ice skaters.

If my son didn't have to go to work on Christmas Eve then I would have just let it melt.   It would have taken a chisel to do it manually without the snowblower... a shovel would not break the surface.    Now we don't even have snowbanks left.   

[Anti Marine Layer]

13 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Last Friday (12/23) we had 2 inches of sleet which was followed by freezing rain.    It took me 2 hours last Saturday morning to get that off the driveway with the snowblower so my son could leave for work.   And I could only walk where I had cleared because it was insanely slippery and basically impossible to walk on without falling.   Trying to drive a car over that would have been impossible... it would have slid right off the driveway and through the hedges and over our rock wall on the lower part of the driveway.  

How did your son make the drive to work?

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

How did your son make the drive to work?

Our main road was actually clear by that morning... they had treated it.   All he had to do was get out of the driveway and the rest of the drive was fine.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Phil has been pretty absent for a while. Rob always drifts in and out. He has his FB groups and mentioned last week during big events he likes to focus on curating those. 

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Phil has been pretty absent for a while. Rob always drifts in and out. He has his FB groups and mentioned last week during big events he likes to focus on curating those. 

I get a sense that Phil finally realized he didn't want to waste his life trolling a PNW forum!   But I do miss his content... he posted lots of great stuff.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

37 and sunny. Not a bad New Years Day. Last year we had about 20” of snow on the ground and a 33/19 day. 

[RentonHill]

4 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

I get a sense that Phil finally realized he didn't want to waste his life trolling a PNW forum!   But I do miss his content... he posted lots of great stuff.

Some real good will hunting vibes

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Looks like EUG and SLE ended 2022 with small positive temp departures, but both -1.2F off of 2021. PDX had a similar

small positive departure and was -1.4F cooler than 2021. 

[Phil]

East-Asia/Siberia High descent on the LR EPS. Signal growing stronger too.

Winter’s gonna come roaring back 2nd half of Jan, following our multiweek thaw.

[Blizzard777]

3 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I feel like the hotel I stayed at when I was in Prescott was right on the other side of that highway. 

I’m staying at a friends house near Watson Lake which is really fun to kayak and hike (old pic from summer).   Currently cold rain but snow beginning to mix in.  Should be all snow soon 

[The Cats Meow]

I'll be interested to see if winter really does come roaring back.

Seems like we get into patterns and they last for a couple of months.  The pattern now is an active Pacific with 50 degrees and rain.

Would surprise the heck out of me if we went back to the freezer before mid-February and by then winter is pretty much over.  Lumpy rain and snow pack building in the mountains.

 

[TT-SEA]

18 minutes ago, Phil said:

East-Asia/Siberia High descent on the LR EPS. Signal growing stronger too.

Winter’s gonna come roaring back 2nd half of Jan, following our multiweek thaw.

Were your ears burning?  

[TT-SEA]

Seen this a few times today on the North Bend facebook page... fitting.

 

[KeyPeninsula_Wx]

Looks like December officially finished -1.7 degrees here with 6.29” of rain. The last week of the month really killed the cold avg. but overall it was a very solid month. 

[KeyPeninsula_Wx]

Was a little snowier than I thought it would be up in greenwater this morning. Went up there to do some target shooting…but the 70 road was still kinda iffy a few miles up the road so I decided to turn back. 

[Doinko]

First month to average in the 30s at PDX since Feb 2019.

[snow_wizard]

SEA came in with a 38.8 monthly average for December.  18th coldest since 1945.

[snow_wizard]

11 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Seen this a few times today on the North Bend facebook page... fitting.

 

It might be back to trying to kill us again fairly soon.

It finally managed to clear out here today.  I was already getting irritated with the gloom.

[Anti Marine Layer]

37 minutes ago, Phil said:

East-Asia/Siberia High descent on the LR EPS. Signal growing stronger too.

Winter’s gonna come roaring back 2nd half of Jan, following our multiweek thaw.

Will the SSW have taken place by then?

[snow_wizard]

7 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

Looks like December officially finished -1.7 degrees here with 6.29” of rain. The last week of the month really killed the cold avg. but overall it was a very solid month. 

Still managed a pretty nippy 36.9 here.  Yesterday sure ticked me off though.  About the warmest possible outcome with what we had to work with.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Will the SSW have taken place by then?

People are so hung up on the SSW.  I guess I kind of understand due to some events in recent years, but I'm afraid people are looking at it as being a magic bullet that we can't do well without.

[Anti Marine Layer]

28 minutes ago, Hour364Please said:

I'll be interested to see if winter really does come roaring back.

Seems like we get into patterns and they last for a couple of months.  The pattern now is an active Pacific with 50 degrees and rain.

Would surprise the heck out of me if we went back to the freezer before mid-February and by then winter is pretty much over.  Lumpy rain and snow pack building in the mountains.

 

Won't be back until the subtropical jet stream and zonal flow leaves the West Coast.

[snow_wizard]

43 minutes ago, Phil said:

East-Asia/Siberia High descent on the LR EPS. Signal growing stronger too.

Winter’s gonna come roaring back 2nd half of Jan, following our multiweek thaw.

Scoring in the last half of January would be a huge prize for us.  Hasn't happened yet this century, in spite of that time frame yielding some of our most extreme cold events in the past.  It almost always snows when it gets cold in that period as well.

[snow_wizard]

3 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Won't be back until the subtropical jet stream and zonal flow leaves the West Coast.

Which is being shown by all models later in week 2.

[snow_wizard]

32 minutes ago, Hour364Please said:

I'll be interested to see if winter really does come roaring back.

Seems like we get into patterns and they last for a couple of months.  The pattern now is an active Pacific with 50 degrees and rain.

Would surprise the heck out of me if we went back to the freezer before mid-February and by then winter is pretty much over.  Lumpy rain and snow pack building in the mountains.

 

Betting you're wrong.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

CFS looks solid for the end of the month into February. 

[snow_wizard]

1 hour ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Phil has been pretty absent for a while. Rob always drifts in and out. He has his FB groups and mentioned last week during big events he likes to focus on curating those. 

Yeah....he will show up when the goodies are getting closer again.

[snow_wizard]

4 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

CFS looks solid for the end of the month into February. 

We're getting a lot of models jumping on board now.  This is still in the running for being a great winter on the whole.