PNW February 2023 Weather Discussion - Meteorological winter finale

[Mr Marine Layer]

It's time for another February, or Febuary if you call it so.

Will this winter be a flop or will February bring some low level snow and ice storms?

[SouthHillFrosty]

I am optimistic tbh. I think winter throws a bone down the stretch. 

[ShawniganLake]

Starting off February white. Snow is picking up in intensity a little. 

[snow_wizard]

All three ensemble means take the PNA below -2 by mid month.  Something is brewing!

[snow_wizard]

32.9 out there right now.  If it drops to 32 by morning that will be freezing min number 50 for me already.  Pretty impressive with Feb and Mar still to go.

[WeatherGeek2022]

all or nothing this month.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Anybody ever seen the movie 'Drive' or the TV show 'Stranger Things?'

Night shift time. What's everybody listening to? I've got on a bunch of songs that should be on pop radio but mostly aren't, so maybe that's why I must feel like they they sound so good.

Been a lot of help these last several days with a lot of difficulties.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Always nice when the forecast low busts cold. Supposed to be 34F but we are 31F and another beautiful, crispy night under the moon and stars. Grateful for so many cold nights. Feels like winter.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Pretty sure the worm tried to turn and got ate by a crow.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

And the overnight GFS is a big fat L

[Gradient Keeper]

Temp: 25.7(Lowest: 24.4), Dewpoint: 23.3 with mostly clear skies. Colder than expected this morning.

[TT-SEA]

Looks like we get no help from a SSW event and the break up of the PV... and not really sure that the MJO is going to play ball either.    I am not feeling as confident about something coming this month... but still plenty of time for things to change.   

[TT-SEA]

It looks like the models are trending drier too... would be nice to get lots of precip during the down time in February.

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Snow stopped at some point and the temperature started creeping upward. Never amounted to more than a slushy dusting despite it snowing for hours. Now 33.9˚F with melting.

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

It looks like the models are trending drier too... would be nice to get lots of precip during the down time in February.

 

You mean while you're out of town?

[TT-SEA]

11 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

You mean while you're out of town?

Just in general... a dry February is bad sign.  And while we are gone would be good too.   But that seems unlikely now.

[Doinko]

Looks like we're at around 26 degrees right now. Lot of frost

[Rubus Leucodermis]

 

[Phishy Wx]

still all in on the Pres Day Blizzard

[TT-SEA]

Another day with sunshine... this week has been brighter than I was expecting it to be last weekend. 

[Phil]

Not surprised, but I still wanna cry.

 

[TacomaWx]

6 minutes ago, Phil said:

Not surprised, but I still wanna cry.

 

Ok satan

[TacomaWx]

36 here after a low of 31. Freeze #23 this winter. 

[ShawniganLake]

Cloudy and 34 this morning. About 1/2” of snow overnight 

[TT-SEA]

8 minutes ago, Phil said:

Not surprised, but I still wanna cry.

 

On track for ENSO neutral.

[BLI snowman]

1 hour ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

 

Might be their one and only. Nothing else in sight and the pattern looks pretty unfavorable as a whole as we move deeper into February. Of course they can occasionally get pounded in March so they have a little more time to play with.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

6 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Might be their one and only. Nothing else in sight and the pattern looks pretty unfavorable as a whole as we move deeper into February. Of course they can occasionally get pounded in March so they have a little more time to play with.

Hard to overstate how lousy that would be. I believe NYC averages around 2 feet per season.

[SouthHillFrosty]

 

[TT-SEA]

GEFS is playing catch up and watering down the western troughing as it gets a little closer.

Comparison of 12Z run yesterday with new 12Z GEFS today on the bottom.    GEFS is about as worthless as its operational run once it gets beyond 7 or 8 days.

 

[TacomaWx]

I don’t get some people saying this is the most boring winter ever (western WA folks) Do you guys even remember 2012-2013 or 2015-2016? Even 2019-2020 was worse than this one…maybe a little better in PDX with the mid March event. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

5 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

 

That was yesterday morning.

[Skagit Weather]

The lack of snowfall, especially on the East Coast, inspired a discussion earlier this week about whether or not parts of the country have had a "good" winter. I was intrigued to see if I could visually represent how much snow had fallen, especially compared to average.

NOAA through the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC) has a product available for the last few years that estimates the amount of snow that falls each season.

National Map

Interactive (zoomable) Map

I'm not exactly sure everything that goes into the algorithm, but it sounds like it uses a combination of official station snowfall records, CoCoRahs observations, radar estimates, and an algorithm that accounts for terrain and historic precipitation. I imagine the estimates aren't perfect, but in my experience that actually do a pretty good job at snowfall estimations in Western WA. I believe the resolution of the data is around 3km, but it may be slightly higher than that.

I don't love the color bounds presented by the official data, so one of the first things I did was make the bins finer so that we could see snowfall differences between 6" and 12" and changed the color scheme slightly. Here's the map of the snowfall up to Jan 29th for the PNW:

You can see how much of Washington north of Everett has picked up above 8" of snow this winter while PDX to SEA has seen 1-4" and there's not much south of PDX.

NOHRSC has data for every winter from 2008-09 to 2022-23. Obviously that's not completely representative of historical climate norms, but 15 years should be relatively representative of the current climate state. I took the data from all 15 years and averaged it together to get both an average seasonal snowfall (how much snow usually falls during the water year (Oct 1-Sept 30) and how much snow falls usually during the season to date (Jan 29 was when I first got my data).

Here is the average season to date snowfall for the PNW (so 9/30-01/29):

And here is the average seasonal snowfall (total) for the PNW:

For the entire season the Seattle area averages 6-8", BLI averages 8-12", PDX averages 4-6". I also highlighted the max average value (both in this image and nationally) which to no-one's surprise is Mount Baker with 835" of annual snowfall (look for the star). There might be specific locations that receive greater snowfall, but they were not detected with this resolution of data.

And here's the national average seasonal snowfall:

[NWbyNW]

Entering our last hope for snow.  

[MossMan]

It’s still trying to come…

[Cold Snap]

14 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

I don’t get some people saying this is the most boring winter ever (western WA folks) Do you guys even remember 2012-2013 or 2015-2016? Even 2019-2020 was worse than this one…maybe a little better in PDX with the mid March event. 

2015-2016 was torture. Only recorded half an inch of snow that winter. The 2012-2013 winter sucked up until I recorded 1.5” on March 22nd from a convergence zone. 2019-2020 was good IMBY. This winter hasn’t been bad at all compared to 2012-2013 and 2015-2016. This is honestly a pretty top tier winter at least IMBY compared to those winters.

[Skagit Weather]

Part 2/3

That's the specific values of snowfall, but I wanted to see how this season compared. I took the season to date snowfall (for winter 2022-23) and divided it by the average season to date snowfall (average for 2008-2023 through January 29).

Here's the PNW:

You can see most of the Western Washington foothills are doing pretty well as well as the area north of SEA, while the spine of the Cascades and the lowlands south of Olympia are doing quite poorly.

You can compare this to the percentage of the average entire season snowfall that has fallen where we can see that a few places (such as up near the WA/BC border, the Okanogan Plateau, the Everett area, and the Kitsap peninsula have seen more snow this season than they would normally see for the entire winter, but every other place is significantly below average (especially for Oregon).

[TacomaWx]

3 minutes ago, MossMan said:

It’s still trying to come…

[Cascadia_Wx]

Made it down to a colder than expected 24 this morning. Nice start to February. 27 again at PDX.

Mostly sunny now with some frost still around, and 29 degrees.

[RentonHill]

When the worthless model shows something promising 

[Cold Snap]

9 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

The lack of snowfall, especially on the East Coast, inspired a discussion earlier this week about whether or not parts of the country have had a "good" winter. I was intrigued to see if I could visually represent how much snow had fallen, especially compared to average.

NOAA through the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC) has a product available for the last few years that estimates the amount of snow that falls each season.

National Map

Interactive (zoomable) Map

I'm not exactly sure everything that goes into the algorithm, but it sounds like it uses a combination of official station snowfall records, CoCoRahs observations, radar estimates, and an algorithm that accounts for terrain and historic precipitation. I imagine the estimates aren't perfect, but in my experience that actually do a pretty good job at snowfall estimations in Western WA. I believe the resolution of the data is around 3km, but it may be slightly higher than that.

I don't love the color bounds presented by the official data, so one of the first things I did was make the bins finer so that we could see snowfall differences between 6" and 12" and changed the color scheme slightly. Here's the map of the snowfall up to Jan 29th for the PNW:

You can see how much of Washington north of Everett has picked up above 8" of snow this winter while PDX to SEA has seen 1-4" and there's not much south of PDX.

NOHRSC has data for every winter from 2008-09 to 2022-23. Obviously that's not completely representative of historical climate norms, but 15 years should be relatively representative of the current climate state. I took the data from all 15 years and averaged it together to get both an average seasonal snowfall (how much snow usually falls during the water year (Oct 1-Sept 30) and how much snow falls usually during the season to date (Jan 29 was when I first got my data).

Here is the average season to date snowfall for the PNW (so 9/30-01/29):

And here is the average seasonal snowfall (total) for the PNW:

For the entire season the Seattle area averages 6-8", BLI averages 8-12", PDX averages 4-6". I also highlighted the max average value (both in this image and nationally) which to no-one's surprise is Mount Baker with 835" of annual snowfall (look for the star). There might be specific locations that receive greater snowfall, but they were not detected with this resolution of data.

And here's the national average seasonal snowfall:

Based on this map looks like I average 10-12”. But since that is going only off winters since 2008 that doesn’t shock me that much. I’ve pulled off 10”+ IMBY every winter since 2018-2019. As well as in 2016-2017, 2011-2012, 2010-2011 and 2008-2009.

[TacomaWx]

Just now, Cold Snap said:

Based on this map looks like I average 10-12”. But since that is going only off winters since 2008 that doesn’t shock me that much. I’ve pulled off 10”+ IMBY every winter since 2018-2019. As well as in 2016-2017, 2011-2012, 2010-2011 and 2008-2009.

Yeah those averages are probably a bit higher than long term climo based on some big snow events in recent years but still very cool maps to look at. They definitely illustrate the snow hole around Olympia so far this winter. 

[Skagit Weather]

Part 3/3

And finally here's the national picture. This is what percent of the snow that's fallen we'd expect to see by January 29 during any given year. Much of the western mountains (with the exception of the Cascades) are above average as is MN, NE, ND, and the area stretching from western TX to southwestern MO. That area doesn't see much snow to begin with so the 500% of average in TX is because a place that averages less than an inch a year got like 4" when it got cold in Dec.

And here's the percent of seasonal snowfall that has fallen so far. There's a lot more red on this map, but this map only verifies if it doesn't snow a flake for the rest of the season. There are a couple places (parts of the Sierra, Okanogan Plateau, eastern Utah, etc) that have seen more snow than they'd expect to see in an entire winter, but most areas still need more snow to get up to the winter average.

[ShawniganLake]

47 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

 

I like reading all the comments critiquing people’s driving.  
 

Yes, the bus was going too fast,  because it’s a steep hill and it’s icy AF so it couldn’t slow down.  

Why was the bus breaking in the corner?  Because there were cars all the way across the road and he had nowhere to go.  He was desperately trying to slow down and not kill anybody.  

Why can’t people on the west coast drive when there is only 1” of snow?  I can’t think of anything worse to drive in than 1” of wet snow with a layer of ice underneath. Snow itself has pretty good traction.  Driving through 6 or 8” of snow is pretty D**n easy compared to a layer of ice with slush on top. 

[TT-SEA]

7 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

I like reading all the comments critiquing people’s driving.  
 

Yes, the bus was going too fast,  because it’s a steep hill and it’s icy AF so it couldn’t slow down.  

Why was the bus breaking in the corner?  Because there were cars all the way across the road and he had nowhere to go.  He was desperately trying to slow down and not kill anybody.  

Why can’t people on the west coast drive when there is only 1” of snow?  I can’t think of anything worse to drive in than 1” of wet snow with a layer of ice underneath. Snow itself has pretty good traction.  Driving through 6 or 8” of snow is pretty D**n easy compared to a layer of ice with slush on top. 

Feel better now that you got that off your chest?  

[MossMan]

6 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

I like reading all the comments critiquing people’s driving.  
 

Yes, the bus was going too fast,  because it’s a steep hill and it’s icy AF so it couldn’t slow down.  

Why was the bus breaking in the corner?  Because there were cars all the way across the road and he had nowhere to go.  He was desperately trying to slow down and not kill anybody.  

Why can’t people on the west coast drive when there is only 1” of snow?  I can’t think of anything worse to drive in than 1” of wet snow with a layer of ice underneath. Snow itself has pretty good traction.  Driving through 6 or 8” of snow is pretty D**n easy compared to a layer of ice with slush on top. 

Yeah many people from the Midwest or east coast usually enjoy the fluffy dry snow that falls on already frozen pavement which actually gives you pretty darn good traction. They also don’t know hills are all about. Wet sloppy Cascade Concrete and hills do not mix! 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

6 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

I like reading all the comments critiquing people’s driving. 

Yes, the bus was going too fast,  because it’s a steep hill and it’s icy AF so it couldn’t slow down.  

Why was the bus breaking in the corner?  Because there were cars all the way across the road and he had nowhere to go.  He was desperately trying to slow down and not kill anybody.  

Why can’t people on the west coast drive when there is only 1” of snow?  I can’t think of anything worse to drive in than 1” of wet snow with a layer of ice underneath. Snow itself has pretty good traction.  Driving through 6 or 8” of snow is pretty D**n easy compared to a layer of ice with slush on top. 

You left out some big ones:

1. Equipment for dealing with snow and ice. In snow country, roads are MUCH more thoroughly plowed, sanded, and salted than they are on the West Coast. That was one thing that shocked me when I first moved to this region. It makes a huge difference in how easy it is to drive during a snowfall.
2. Practice, or lack thereof. West Coast drivers don’t get much practice driving on snow and ice. Even in snow country, with the far better winter road maintenance, the first significant snowfall of the season always results on chaos on the roads, as drivers relearn all the skills they forgot over the summer. Here, they never get proficiency.

[TacomaWx]

Just now, MossMan said:

Yeah many people from the Midwest or east coast usually enjoy the fluffy dry snow that falls on already frozen pavement which actually gives you pretty darn good traction. They also don’t know hills are all about. Wet sloppy Cascade Concrete and hills do not mix! 

Yeah it’s different here since the majority of our snow falls right around the freezing mark. Many times it starts out as rain too and then freezes. Doesn’t matter much how good of a driver you are at that point. Ice and frozen slush are bad for driving. 

[Deweydog]

11 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

I like reading all the comments critiquing people’s driving.  
 

Yes, the bus was going too fast,  because it’s a steep hill and it’s icy AF so it couldn’t slow down.  

Why was the bus breaking in the corner?  Because there were cars all the way across the road and he had nowhere to go.  He was desperately trying to slow down and not kill anybody.  

Why can’t people on the west coast drive when there is only 1” of snow?  I can’t think of anything worse to drive in than 1” of wet snow with a layer of ice underneath. Snow itself has pretty good traction.  Driving through 6 or 8” of snow is pretty D**n easy compared to a layer of ice with slush on top. 

As I watched it I couldn’t help hearing in my head the bus driver repeating “sorry” over and over in a heavy Canadian accent.

[ShawniganLake]

7 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Feel better now that you got that off your chest?  

Haha, maybe a little.   But do people actually think traction gets worse when the snow is deeper?  Drives me crazy. 

[TacomaWx]

43 now in Tacoma, warm!