PNW January 2023 Observations and Discussion

[Cloud]

4 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Starting to look like an all time warm January is well within our grasp.

Up here, at SEA we flipped from a -3.2 in Dec... (the last few days really ruined it) to now a +3 for Jan. up to date. We torching!

[SilverFallsAndrew]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Interesting... we had lots of drizzle and 40s last spring and you said that was normal spring weather.  

Not in the way you meant it earlier. 12" of wet 33 degree snow is springlike here too. 

[TT-SEA]

Just now, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Not in the way you meant it earlier. 12" of wet 33 degree snow is springlike here too. 

Yep.

 

[Skagit Weather]

6 minutes ago, Cloud said:

Up here, at SEA we flipped from a -3.2 in Dec... (the last few days really ruined it) to now a +3 for Jan. up to date. We torching!

Yeah, BLI will have an average high for the month of 50.5F after today which is the average high for the first couple days of March. That's +5.3F for the high and Bellingham might end up having ten 50F+ days in a row by Saturday.

It's not the warmest start to the year recorded (it only barely breaks into the top 10, 1994 was the warmest), but it certainly hasn't felt winter-like. Here I still haven't seen any frost yet (coldest temp was 34F).

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

They sure are hardy!   I suspect ours are poking up now as well... will have to go check.

When I lived in the Rockies, I saw emerging bulbs survive some incredibly cold temperatures.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

46 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

I will end up above average for the season IMBY even if so much as another flake fails to fall.

[Deweydog]

Did a midwinter round of pressure washing today. There is no analog for this.

[SouthHillFrosty]

RIP to Phil 

 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 minute ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

RIP to Phil 

 

OMG

[SouthHillFrosty]

Special Weather Statement!

[MossMan]

12 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

RIP to Phil 

 

Yay! Oh I mean sorry Phil  

[SouthHillFrosty]

Portlandish special 

[Cascadia_Wx]

5 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Portlandish special 

Longview is the new Portland.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

31 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

OMG

Torching in the mid-Atlantic region is almost as good as an arctic blast in this region.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

The mid-range isn't a total disaster. We have that at least. 

[Phil]

40 minutes ago, MossMan said:

Yay! Oh I mean sorry Phil  

Haha, all good. I’ll get the last laugh when we transition into a multiyear El Niño base state.  

[Phil]

12 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Torching in the mid-Atlantic region is almost as good as an arctic blast in this region.

Sadistic bastard. lol

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Our last multi-year Nino was 2018-2020. We could have certainly done a lot worse during that period. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

13 minutes ago, Phil said:

Sadistic bastard. lol

As you just said:

Quote

Haha, all good. I’ll get the last laugh when we transition into a multiyear El Niño base state.  

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

13 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Our last multi-year Nino was 2018-2020. We could have certainly done a lot worse during that period. 

February 2019 was on the snowy side on Bainbridge Island.

[Phil]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Our last multi-year Nino was 2018-2020. We could have certainly done a lot worse during that period. 

Yeah, 18-20 was the tail end of the IPWP extension that initiated in 2013 (and ended in 2020). Analogous to 06 & 07 during the previous cycle. They’re interesting times.

Which BTW is why it was obvious to me that the early 2020s would be dominated by La Niña, as 2008-12 was (though each cycle is a bit different, spatiotemporally speaking).

Given where the solar cycle is, we’re currently somewhere analogous to the 2010/11 or 2011/12 portion of the last IPWP retraction.

The ongoing move to solar maximum is happening much faster than the previous cycle (probably with a higher maximum too), so it’ll likely be a quicker flip into a bonafide El Niño, instead of the slow build into the El Niño regime we saw from 2012/13 to 2015/16.

Both the 1976 and 2013 IPWP responses were muted and failed to culminate in bonafide El Niños because their respective solar cycles were weaker w/ respect to the prior cycle. However, both did trigger large scale inter/intra-decadal climate shifts, and the change in weather patterns was very evident.

Will be interesting to see how the next IPWP extension plays out. We’re only a year or two away now.

[BLI snowman]

This January will go down as worse than 2006.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

February 2019 was on the snowy side on Bainbridge Island.

We had 52.2" here that month. Solid snow pack from February 3rd thought the end of March. We had a few days with heavy rain in mid-February, but it just packed the existing snow down to about 10" and formed a nice base for what fell over the next few weeks. We had a five week period where we would see accumulating snow on average about 5 days during the week. During the middle of February we were right on the dividing line between rain and snow, with a lot of the snow falling during the daytime with temps slightly above freezing. On the 17th we had 6" of snow on 1.75" of precip. If temps had been just a little colder we would have easily hit 65-70" on the month. 

[snow_wizard]

This pattern SUCKS!  Can't even manage a low below 40 right now.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

This pattern SUCKS!  Can't even manage a low below 40 right now.

Need to go down to the South Valley banana belt for a low of 29 this morning. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

8 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

This pattern SUCKS!  Can't even manage a low below 40 right now.

Wait until a CLEAR night where the temperature stays above 40°F.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

9 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Need to go down to the South Valley banana belt for a low of 29 this morning. 

Low of 43°F IMBY. South-north gradient!

[snow_wizard]

18 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Need to go down to the South Valley banana belt for a low of 29 this morning. 

Not worth it.

[T-Town]

Boring weather but a nice sunset. 

[Doinko]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Not worth it.

Well they're the only ones with a 19/-10 day this century in W WA or OR.

[snow_wizard]

12 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Wait until a CLEAR night where the temperature stays above 40°F.

Tonight may do that.  It's the blasted wind here.  When I saw the models a week to 10 days ago I knew this was going to be a terrible pattern to be able to pull off decoupling on the few occasions it manages to clear out.  I just can't figure out why and how January manages to keep doing this to us.

[snow_wizard]

Just now, Doinko said:

Well they're the only ones with a 19/-10 day this century in W WA or OR.

Yeah....but the price has been way too high since then.

[Front Ranger]

This is absolutely wild, especially for a Nina winter. And storms in CA look to continue for at least another week.

[snow_wizard]

36 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

This January will go down as worse than 2006.

I think the last half could come in average or slightly below.  Big whoop even at that.

[snow_wizard]

Models are pretty uninspiring, but we do have a major MJO wave developing so that is likely to shake things up soon.

Just give me anything other than this current pattern.

[AlTahoe]

Time to cheer you guys up. Deepest snow pack I have had this early into a season. picked up another 14" today since 8am. another 4 feet forecast by the end of next week. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 minutes ago, AlTahoe said:

Time to cheer you guys up. Deepest snow pack I have had this early into a season. picked up another 14" today since 8am. another 4 feet forecast by the end of next week. 

Nice! You really need a good snow year down your way!

[MossMan]

Awesome sunset as I am leaving work. The pic does not do it justice. 

[SnowWillarrive]

Just now, MossMan said:

Awesome sunset as I am leaving work. The pic does not do it justice. 

reminds me of California 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

6 minutes ago, SnowWillarrive said:

reminds me of California 

So do these temps!