PNW January 2023 Observations and Discussion

[snow_wizard]

7 minutes ago, Christensen87 said:

Ugh, CFS is back to trash through mid February. This is infuriating.   

You have to use a composite of several runs with that model.

[snow_wizard]

7 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

It's been crazy, yesterday it was 56 in Port orchard but in the low 40's 20 minutes later at home. There has been a persistent cool pool of air over here.

I had been doing pretty well at holding onto reasonable temps until yesterday.

[TacomaWx]

5 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

The gloom was horrific up here.  I would love something like April 1951 which had 15 to 20 freezing mins in this area.

Lol the word “horrific” gets used a lot to describe that spring. Was definitely on the gloomy side…but I didn’t think horrific is fitting

[snow_wizard]

The GFS kind of hints at a ridge setting up right over us later in the month.  It might be a two step process.  Pacific gets shut down with a Western Ridge, and then a retrogression.

[MossMan]

Tim was onboard early on in January 2019! Justin was not onboard, and Jesse hated me as usual…At least some things never change.

[snow_wizard]

No doubt the 10mb vortex has begun to get pushed off the pole and elongated.  Models still like a big SSW this month.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

11 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

The gloom was horrific up here.  I would love something like April 1951 which had 15 to 20 freezing mins in this area.

February and March 2020 were dry (down here at least) and pretty chilly. April and May last year saved us from an even worse fire season. 

[TacomaWx]

1 minute ago, MossMan said:

Tim was onboard early on in January 2019! Justin was not onboard, and Jesse hated me as usual…At least some things never change.

Haha I bet tim pulled this up and reminded everyone later  

[SilverFallsAndrew]

14 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

The gloom was horrific up here.  I would love something like April 1951 which had 15 to 20 freezing mins in this area.

We had 18” of snow last April. I’m not going to ever say a bad word about April 2022. 

[snow_wizard]

3 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

February and March 2020 were dry (down here at least) and pretty chilly. April and May last year saved us from an even worse fire season. 

You have a point there.  If last spring had been dry in combo with that summer it would have been horrible.

[TacomaWx]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

We had 18” of snow last April. I’m not going to ever say a bad word about April 2022. 

I loved April 2022. We had snow here and I know Jim had some too with that. We pulled off a crazy 42/32 temp spread with a trace of snow on 4/14. That’s f*cking nuts for mid April. 

[snow_wizard]

3 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

We had 18” of snow last April. I’m not going to ever say a bad word about April 2022. 

That wasn't the case for most of us.  It was just a miserable nasty period up here.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

I loved April 2022. We had snow here and I know Jim had some too with that. We pulled off a crazy 42/32 temp spread with a trace of snow on 4/14. That’s f*cking nuts for mid April. 

At least the month was solidly cold.  Going through that with mild temps would have been doubly bad.  I had a trace on a few days.

[Doinko]

6 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

We had 18” of snow last April. I’m not going to ever say a bad word about April 2022. 

2" of snow here in one of the driest places in the Portland Metro Area.

[snow_wizard]

I had totally forgotten it reached 76 here on April 7 last year.  We had some messed up sheit last year.

[TT-SEA]

4 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

That wasn't the case for most of us.  It was just a miserable nasty period up here.

It was truly miserable.   Wet and cold.   The trees had started leafing out during that very short warm spell early in the month and then were totally stunted and didn't change much for weeks and never did fully leaf out properly around here.  

[snow_wizard]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

It was truly miserable.   Wet and cold.   The trees had started leafing out during that very short warm spell early in the month and then were totally stunted and didn't change much for weeks and never did fully leaf out properly around here.  

And then the ridiculous crash happened after the endless summer.  Last year was a one of a kind in a lot of ways.

[TT-SEA]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

And then the ridiculous crash happened after the endless summer.  Last year was a one of a kind in a lot of ways.

Basically no spring and no fall.    Far from ideal and I hope it was just a fluke.    

[snow_wizard]

Ellensburg 31/19 today.  Totally remarkable how cold the Nov - present period has been east of the Cascades.  Much colder in relation to normal than over here.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

Ellensburg 31/19 today.  Totally remarkable how cold the Nov - present period has been east of the Cascades.  Much colder in relation to normal than over here.

I was just checking stations up near my cabin. Warmer than normal but still adding snow pack. Was 29 today there today.

[Phishy Wx]

On 1/5/2023 at 1:37 PM, Deweydog said:

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

well let's bring back the model riding

[Doinko]

22 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

That wasn't the case for most of us.  It was just a miserable nasty period up here.

We had a lot of sun breaks that month followed by hail showers. I really like that pattern. This area averages less than 36-38" of rain a year so a pattern that might give us a lot sun breaks could be way cloudier in other places

[Deweydog]

Hockinson December 2022.

[snow_wizard]

The GFS and GEFS both have a major trough consolidating over the NW Pacific late in the run.  The Western Ridge signal appears it will be short lived (a temporary artifact of the big shift over the Pacific).  We'll see if this idea holds and gets more support. 

[snow_wizard]

21 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I was just checking stations up near my cabin. Warmer than normal but still adding snow pack. Was 29 today there today.

I would imagine that is a bit above normal at that elevation.

[Omegaraptor]

1 hour ago, snow_wizard said:

And then the ridiculous crash happened after the endless summer.  Last year was a one of a kind in a lot of ways.

The 11/06/22 event in the southern Willamette Valley was some pretty special stuff even though it was a localized CAD event. Anywhere in the western lowlands pulling off snow that early is worthy of celebration. The precip type was snow in Corvallis for a good 6-8 hours too.

It especially stands out in contrast to the four months of Central Valley weather preceding it.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

48F and cloudy. Quite warm.

[The Blob]

46 here in Troutdale.

[Slushy Inch]

The perfect way to cap a crappy JAN, a torch.

[RentonHill]

14 minutes ago, 12345WeatherNerd said:

The perfect way to cap a crappy JAN, a torch.

My friend, I think that is a good sign

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

22 minutes ago, 12345WeatherNerd said:

The perfect way to cap a crappy JAN, a torch.

Actually not that much of a torch.  Certainly not the kind of pattern that is cold, though retrogression is possible, and the weeklies show that.

Anyway, 2m temp anomalies.  Obviously not cold, but not a major torch either.

[Slushy Inch]

11 minutes ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

Actually not that much of a torch.  Certainly not the kind of pattern that is cold, though retrogression is possible, and the weeklies show that.

Anyway, 2m temp anomalies.  Obviously not cold, but not a major torch either.

Yeah, fake cool. 

[snow_wizard]

22 minutes ago, RentonHillTC said:

My friend, I think that is a good sign

Yup.  Just a temporary transition phenomenon.  

[snow_wizard]

The ECMWF actually shows Monday and Tuesday nights being pretty chilly.  Pretty tenuous at this point, but it could happen.

[Phil]

6 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Have you gotten any snow at all this season yet?

Trace with the arctic front in late December otherwise nothing.

I’ll admit it was a “fun” trace, though. Winds were 50-60mph and visibility was like 150ft. But it only lasted a couple of minutes (the winds kept going though and got even stronger, house was really rocking and rolling).

Since then it’s been a snoozefest. Old school January thaw.

[snow_wizard]

33 minutes ago, Phil said:

Trace with the arctic front in late December otherwise nothing.

I’ll admit it was a “fun” trace, though. Winds were 50-60mph and visibility was like 150ft. But it only lasted a couple of minutes (the winds kept going though and got even stronger, house was really rocking and rolling).

Since then it’s been a snoozefest. Old school January thaw.

Truly remarkable that Arctic airmass was enough of a beast to bring strong Arctic winds everywhere from here to where you live.  The coldest east wind I've ever seen here when it dropped to 17 at one point.

[snow_wizard]

The way I see it we have a favorable MJO and a good shot at a major SSW this month.  The models should start to catch onto something good fairly soon.

[Phil]

3 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

Truly remarkable that Arctic airmass was enough of a beast to bring strong Arctic winds everywhere from here to where you live.  The coldest east wind I've ever seen here when it dropped to 17 at one point.

It was a very impressive airmass, actually the most impressive I’ve ever experienced so early in the season. Broke the 850mb temperature record for December at IAD as well at -26°C (IIRC).

Of course thanks to downsloping winds, overnight temps were somewhat elevated for such cold aloft, only dropping to 6°F. Those appalachian mountains screw up this climate in so many ways, both in summer and winter.

[TT-SEA]

The NWS office in Minneapolis posted a drone pic of their radar yesterday and mentioned a 50:1 snow ratio... pretty awesome winter scene there.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

7 hours ago, Phil said:

Trace with the arctic front in late December otherwise nothing.

I’ll admit it was a “fun” trace, though. Winds were 50-60mph and visibility was like 150ft. But it only lasted a couple of minutes (the winds kept going though and got even stronger, house was really rocking and rolling).

Since then it’s been a snoozefest. Old school January thaw.

That’s what I suspected, based on reports of NYC and Boston (to your north, and snowier on average) getting almost nothing so far. I doubt you’ll go the whole winter without getting significantly more.