PNW February 2023 Weather Discussion - Meteorological winter finale

[weatherweenie]

27 minutes ago, TonyP said:

Moderate snow in downtown Tacoma at the moment! Surfaces starting to turn white.

Jury duty for me there tomorrow!

[Perturbed Member]

3 minutes ago, Doinko said:

Radar doesn't look great right now, I think 3-4" will be what we end up with. Nice but kind of disappointing compared to the massive snowstorm east metro

There was an intense deformation band sitting over PDX, east metro and southern Clark county for more than 8 hours. Always tough to predict where those will set up and certainly going to be hard to top that. 

I can understand the disappointment though. 

[Frontal Snowsquall]

00z UKMET snow totals from 10pm tonight to 10am tomorrow. You guys on the West side might still get more good accumulations.

[Doinko]

5 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Best hope is for the southern activity to rotate up the westside, probably in the early morning. Window looks like it maybe extends to 7-8am before the low is finally out of the picture.

Looks like east metro wins again, but at least this winter isn't going to be completely snowless. Pretty amazing event

[The Blob]

Big score for me!

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 minutes ago, OysterPrintout said:

Sorta? Jan 2017 had some winners and losers but a LOT more winners.

True, I was thinking that and more widespread. Though we don’t know what will happen over the next 8-12 hours. 

[BLI snowman]

1 minute ago, Doinko said:

Looks like east metro wins again, but at least this winter isn't going to be completely snowless. Pretty amazing event

NWS Office is reporting 10.8" of snow. Pretty insane for that part of town.

[TT-SEA]

Some nice enhancement south of Tacoma right now on the radar.

[NWbyNW]

The snow is coming down in parts the Lower Mainland but it isn't sticking to the roads.  Abbotsford, Vancouver, Langley, the roads are all bare or just wet.

The real snow fall is on Vancouver Island, and in a localized region.  Victoria is seeing a dusting.

While other more rural areas are seeing the snow come down and begin to consume the roads such as the camera below south of Naniamo.

Or check out the snow-crews working on Shawnigan Lake Road.

Further north towards Campbell River, the snow is coming down, but the roads seem bare or wet.

It's a snowy time on Vancouver Island!! 

[DecimalCat]

3 minutes ago, Doinko said:

Radar doesn't look great right now, I think 3-4" will be what we end up with. Nice but kind of disappointing compared to the massive snowstorm east metro

S. Metro curse continues! I’ve got barely .5 inch in Gladstone/OC. Perspective is everything.  Your three inches seems “massive” to me.  Maybe I should rephrase that. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 minute ago, The Blob said:

Big score for me!

That’s awesome! 

[Requiem]

1 minute ago, BLI snowman said:

NWS Office is reporting 10.8" of snow. Pretty insane for that part of town.

10.8 about half an hour before precip cut off as well, which means we could end up with over 11" as an official daily total. Wild storm.

[OysterPrintout]

2 minutes ago, Doinko said:

Looks like east metro wins again, but at least this winter isn't going to be completely snowless. Pretty amazing event

Given the models it was a total reverse. I was completely prepared for 2" while you all got hammered. No model got this right. Hoping against hope for some overnight magic there. 

[SunAndSnow]

8 minutes ago, NWbyNW said:

Checking some cameras, we got snarling traffic in Vancouver over the I-5 bridge, I assume for cars spinning out in the snow.  The roads are completely snow covered.  Whatever the issue is, avoid Vancouver right now, traffic is horrible heading south from either freeway.

Head north just a bit to Ridgefield and the condition continue to be snowy.

But all the snow disappears less then a dozen miles north once you get to Kalama and Longview.  The roads are just wet. Cameras show non-snowy conditions up into the Seattle metro with Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett simply being wet.  No snow on the sides of the roads.  North of Everett, there is now snow. It's cold but no moisture!

On the Olympic Peninsula, snow again appears in areas north of Queets.  The Hood Canal is seeing some snow on the sides of the roads, but nothing on the roads. 

The snow is very localized to mainly Southwestern Washington and up the Columbia Gorge a bit such as North Bonneville.  The snow gets less and less as you head towards White Salmon until it is merely a dusting at Dallesport.

 

As for the Portland metro, it's a winter wonderland for a change with white scenes across the PDX.

But while the snow remains, the roads simply become wet very quickly as you head east, south, or west of downtown.  It might be snowing/raining in parts of Eugene, but it isn't sticking according to the cameras.

The 26 cameras on the west side before the tunnel are so bad. So many abandoned cars, bumper to bumper traffic. NWS/local mets did a disservice not saying anything until it was too late today. 

[BLI snowman]

7 minutes ago, Perturbed Member said:

There was an intense deformation band sitting over PDX, east metro and southern Clark county for more than 8 hours. Always tough to predict where those will set up and certainly going to be hard to top that. 

I can understand the disappointment though. 

Models did a decent job of catching onto the fact that it would be a pretty thin 10 x 10 mile strip of intense totals with a wider area of 2-3" around it. Just ended up being a bit further east than where most had it placed.

Edited February 23 by BLI snowman

[TacomaWx]

10 minutes ago, Cold Snap said:

I think you are going to get more than that 1/2” tonight based on radar. Hoping you do well!

We will see, temps down to 30…but just not getting sustained precip. We’ve slowly been getting more flakes but just enough to barely coat the beauty bark and elevated surfaces. I’m sure eventually some precip will break through and we manage 1/2” or so. Maybe more if we’re lucky. 

[SouthHillFrosty]

4 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Some nice enhancement south of Tacoma right now on the radar.

Looks good! Hopefully it can make it up to me. I have had snow overhead for five  hours that has equaled 5 snowflakes!

Edited February 23 by SouthHillFrosty

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Radar starting to blossom over the south valley. Next band is forming. 

[kokaneekidz]

1 hour ago, Gradient Keeper said:

A most incredible snow storm. At times the snowfall rates have been as heavy or slightly heavier than January 2017. Temp 27.5, Dewpoint: 27.1 with gusty east wind and very heavy snow continuing. I'm at 11 1/2" now! UNBELIEVABLE!!!! This pic does no justice at all.

Just need some Xmas lights to top it off

[WildrootParable]

Genuinely grinning like an idiot at all the OR-flavored joy here right now. So awesome! Y'all deserve it! 

It's definitely sticking here, now. We've had constant, light snow for the last several hours and I think we probably just passed 1/2 inch on gravel and cars, though not sticking to the concrete patio/streets that I can tell. 

[MossMan]

3 minutes ago, kokaneekidz said:

Just need some Xmas lights to top it off

Yes! One of the reasons why I keep mine up until the end of February! 

[ShawniganLake]

Cold powder snow here. 25.5F. I’d guesstimate a generous 3 inches. 

[TT-SEA]

8 minutes ago, SunAndSnow said:

The 26 cameras on the west side before the tunnel are so bad. So many abandoned cars, bumper to bumper traffic. NWS/local mets did a disservice not saying anything until it was too late today. 

Yeah... quite a mess.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

One of my coworkers had to fly to Boise for a quick meeting, but unfortunately is not gonna be making it back tonight… 

[Snownerd3000]

Gefs looks amazing 

[Deweydog]

Looks like we’ll wind up with about six inches on the ground after probably eight total inches of accumulation. Pretty unique storm.

[MWG]

32F and all dry. At this point not expecting anything down here. Glad people up north scored some snow. 

[TT-SEA]

1 hour ago, Gradient Keeper said:

A most incredible snow storm. At times the snowfall rates have been as heavy or slightly heavier than January 2017. Temp 27.5, Dewpoint: 27.1 with gusty east wind and very heavy snow continuing. I'm at 11 1/2" now! UNBELIEVABLE!!!! This pic does no justice at all.

I missed this in all the pages since I last logged in until it was just quoted... WOW!    

Really happy for you Rob... looks insane! 

[Roman-Dallas Snow-Zone]

Radar finally filling in over my house last 20minutes or so. Snow sticking to everything hope for multiple hour dump! Congrats Portland folks what a day!!

[snow_wizard]

Just one round of cold after another on the GFS tonight.  Looks like a very long run of chilly to cold weather coming up.  Looking further out PNA, EPO, and NAO are all minus well into March.  Things will probably be a bit on the continental side.  Oh darn!

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

2/12/95 redux? 

More impressive air mass this time, especially given how much deeper into February this one's happening.

[Phishy Wx]

wind will not relent here

 

10 with a WC of -8

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

I missed this in all the pages since I last logged in until it was just quoted... WOW!    

Really happy for you Rob... looks insane! 

Really nice looking snowstorm alright!

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, Front Ranger said:

More impressive air mass this time, especially given how much deeper into February this one's happening.

For sure.  1995 was a two day wonder.  This is way more.

[Kolk1604]

13 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Looks good! Hopefully it can make it up to me. I have had snow overhead for five  hours that has equaled 5 snowflakes!

I'm hoping. Temp has been a steady 33, but dew point continues to drop 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, Roman-Dallas Snow-Zone said:

Radar finally filling in over my house last 20minutes or so. Snow sticking to everything hope for multiple hour dump! Congrats Portland folks what a day!!

Where do you live in relation to the town of Dallas proper?

[snow_wizard]

No snow here, but windy and cold.  Down to 28.8 now.

[Omegaraptor]

Radar shows green stuff entering the southern Willamette Valley!

[JW8]

Blazers did not get a heads up

[SilverFallsAndrew]

I think we have to start talking about where our November-February averages are going to end up. 

[Roman-Dallas Snow-Zone]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Where do you live in relation to the town of Dallas proper?

North side of town. Next to Perrydale road. 

[MossMan]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Just one round of cold after another on the GFS tonight.  Looks like a very long run of chilly to cold weather coming up.  Looking further out PNA, EPO, and NAO are all minus well into March.  Things will probably be a bit on the continental side.  Oh darn!

For some reason I thought Tim wrote this and I was about to be SHOCKED about the last line, lol! 

[Timmy]

Looks like 6-8” here so far. Just drove home from Hillsboro.  Had to go over skyline cause roads were closed. Went by my old house there was over a foot on the road up there.  Saw a completely burned Subaru in the middle of the road.

[TT-SEA]

00Z ECMWF still shows some precip over King County tonight... 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, Roman-Dallas Snow-Zone said:

North side of town. Next to Perrydale road. 

Do you get more snow than town or about the same? 

[Perturbed Member]

Down to just flurries here now. About 2.3 inches. Radar looks like it might be wrapping up here. 

This performance in isolation is absolutely great, cold east wind and winter wonderland outside. I guess I bought too much into all those pepto maps focused on the west side since this somehow feels a bit disappointing. 

[TT-SEA]

Radar looks really good for the Salem/Corvallis area right now.  

[snow_wizard]

Don't think I've ever seen an ensemble mean where 850s are below -5 for the entire run this late in the season.  Normal is nowhere in sight right now.

[Timmy]

4 minutes ago, Timmy said:

Looks like 6-8” here so far. Just drove home from Hillsboro.  Had to go over skyline cause roads were closed. Went by my old house there was over a foot on the road up there.  Saw a completely burned Subaru in the middle of the road.

Absolutely crazy wind and snow drifts. I miss it up there.

[snow_wizard]

15 minutes ago, Snownerd3000 said:

Gefs looks amazing 

Just an amazing pattern.  We could easily be looking at the coldest Nov - Mar average in a very long time this season.  nice to see some sustained cold finally happen.