PNW March 2023 Weather Discussion (2012 Redux)

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Drakes Crossing dropped from 39 at 5p to 32 with snow at 5:30. Down to 32.0 here with light to moderate snow. 

[Ken in Wood Village]

Interesting shower formation growing to my South. Wonder if it will grow more. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

@TT-SEA Looks like we will have snow covered trees again tomorrow morning. 

[Phishy Wx]

1 hour ago, FroYoBro said:

It rained a little bit. 

any Graupel?

[The Ms. Anthrop]

Looked up as I left the Renton Highlands today around 4:30 and caught the beginning formations of some fantastic  mammatus clouds! It would be lovely to have an accompanying light show tonight.

 

Have we officially stuck a fork in the chance for anymore lowland snow for the Seattle area this winter? I mean, I wouldn’t say no, but it’s not going to happen, right?

[SilverFallsAndrew]

@TT-SEA Looks like we will have snow covered trees again tomorrow morning. 
 

Didn’t mean to post twice. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by SilverFallsAndrew

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Puking snow

[Ken in Wood Village]

There are some interesting cells forming now. 

[MossMan]

18 minutes ago, The Ms. Anthrop said:

Looked up as I left the Renton Highlands today around 4:30 and caught the beginning formations of some fantastic  mammatus clouds! It would be lovely to have an accompanying light show tonight.

 

Have we officially stuck a fork in the chance for anymore lowland snow for the Seattle area this winter? I mean, I wouldn’t say no, but it’s not going to happen, right?

You never know…

[Doinko]

 

[Cascadia_Wx]

Convective debris made for a nice looking sky again this evening from the NGHBRHD park. Checked that brushy area again and the snow patch is gone now, though. 
 

[Ken in Wood Village]

It's very interesting how the showers are getting intense even after the sun has set.

[Ken in Wood Village]

I'm outside in the back yard. Took a couple of pictures. I bought the new Samsung Galaxy Fold 4. It has some amazing resolution. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, Ken in Wood Village said:

It's very interesting how the showers are getting intense even after the sun has set.

Snow has stopped here, waiting to see if that secondary energy produces anything before I go out and measure. Looks like a decent amount of new snow in the past 90 minutes though, just eyeballing it I would say its probably around 1.5" in that time, maybe 2". 

[SouthHillFrosty]

8 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Snow has stopped here, waiting to see if that secondary energy produces anything before I go out and measure. Looks like a decent amount of new snow in the past 90 minutes though, just eyeballing it I would say its probably around 1.5" in that time, maybe 2". 

You have scored this week!!

[Timmy Supercell]

1 hour ago, Doinko said:

NW of McMinnville also is getting a good thunderstorm it looks like

SPC gets a fail for not shading any of the areas who's having a t'storm..

[Cascadia_Wx]

2 minutes ago, Timmy Supercell said:

SPC gets a fail for not shading any of the areas who's having a t'storm..

It was pretty nice when we were down in McMinnville a couple weeks ago. Partly sunny a little breezy and low 50s. We even stopped at the old Lafayette Locks on the Yamhill River on the way home. I never realized that river had enough of a gradient to need locks. Apparently it was designed to get lumber and agriculture from the McMinnville area down to the Willamette and eventually Portland. I wonder how that area fared in the June 2009 thunderstorm outbreak.

 

[LowerGarfield]

4 hours ago, the_convergence_zone said:

Yep, almost all of the wildfire ignitions occur on a handful of days every summer -- usually when there is elevated convection with a ton of lightning. Then they smolder and wait for an offshore wind event while the firefighters try to squash as many of the baby fires as they can before the next windy/dry day. In the September fires the offshore winds can do both the triggering and the blow up, but often they are blowing up old lightning strikes from whatever elevated convection day we had in back July or August. 

Somewhat counter-intuitively, wet spring conditions are somewhat correlated with worse fire seasons because of the extra fuel buildup which dries out in summer. Especially in grassy places like eastern WA. 

I believe water and snowpack do have a bit of say over the length of the 'window' of dry season length, but if you're using an 'acres burned' metric like most do, it comes down to weather patterns. Even a wet June won't save you. I saw a talk once that was focused on Idaho showing that the lag between snowpack melt out and extreme fire danger could be as little as 2-3 weeks. So by the time you get to late July, it doesn't matter when you melted out in most places. 

Yes, although last year was not bad here because we had rain through June and some of the Mtns still held snow at least through May. The shortened hot season helped. The year before that resembled the scenario you described.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

22 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

It was pretty nice when we were down in McMinnville a couple weeks ago. Partly sunny a little breezy and low 50s. We even stopped at the old Lafayette Locks on the Yamhill River on the way home. I never realized that river had enough of a gradient to need locks. Apparently it was designed to get lumber and agriculture from the McMinnville area down to the Willamette and eventually Portland. I wonder how that area fared in the June 2009 thunderstorm outbreak.

 

I caught a 16" smallmouth bass in that exact spot back in the summer of 2006. 

[Meatyorologist]

Pretty boring occlusion-related frontal precipitation here in NYC. Saw some moderately heavy wet snow as a 48/10 environment wetbulbed itself down to a 34F thumping of around half an inch of slop on some guy's Mazda.

Not that the folks here even noticed. Not one single mention of a snowflake or some damp lightbulb... And they trucked on through the commute like not a thing in the world was out of order. What a contrast!

[bainbridgekid]

6 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Pretty boring occlusion-related frontal precipitation here in NYC. Saw some moderately heavy wet snow as a 48/10 environment wetbulbed itself down to a 34F thumping of around half an inch of slop on some guy's Mazda.

Not that the folks here even noticed. Not one single mention of a snowflake or some damp lightbulb... And they trucked on through the commute like not a thing in the world was out of order. What a contrast!

Considering their lack of snow this year that surprises me a bit. They didn’t see their first accumulating snow till February this year and that was less than half an inch.

[Requiem]

Snowing and actually sticking to pavement! A nice surprise 

[Phil]

8 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

Considering their lack of snow this year that surprises me a bit. They didn’t see their first accumulating snow till February this year and that was less than half an inch.

It snowed here 36hrs after a high of 81°F last month. Whacky winter.

Cold/dry advection usually shuts down precip quickly out here as well. Haven’t seen accumulating snow from a cold front in at least 7-8 years, and today was no exception. Sunny with a dry wind was the result.

[Requiem]

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Measured an inch and a half. 12" now for March. Actually moves pretty high up on our March list. Right in that 2nd tier now with 2017 and 2018 (And slightly ahead of 2019, behind the epic 2012. 

[Phil]

Poor eagle  https://hdontap.com/index.php/video/stream/dulles-wetlands-eagle-nest-live?utm_source=hdontap.com&utm_medium=discoverygrid&utm_campaign=hdot+naeagles

[SouthHillFrosty]

 

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

Finally got some precipitation here, temp rose  from 32 to 36. Rain. 

[Doinko]

 

[Doinko]

Starting to snow

[SilverFallsAndrew]

My wife said it was snowing in Oregon City about 30 mins ago. 

[Cascadia_Wx]

33 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Pretty boring occlusion-related frontal precipitation here in NYC. Saw some moderately heavy wet snow as a 48/10 environment wetbulbed itself down to a 34F thumping of around half an inch of slop on some guy's Mazda.

Not that the folks here even noticed. Not one single mention of a snowflake or some damp lightbulb... And they trucked on through the commute like not a thing in the world was out of order. What a contrast!

Maybe the Uber driver was just really lame.

[SunAndSnow]

Snowing! 

[Cascadia_Wx]

Big phat wet flakes falling here, but still pretty slushy. Hopefully some heavier precip could drag down more in the way of cold air aloft. Currently 36 degrees which represents a 6-7 degree drop compared to just an hour ago.

[MossMan]

38 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Pretty boring occlusion-related frontal precipitation here in NYC. Saw some moderately heavy wet snow as a 48/10 environment wetbulbed itself down to a 34F thumping of around half an inch of slop on some guy's Mazda.

Not that the folks here even noticed. Not one single mention of a snowflake or some damp lightbulb... And they trucked on through the commute like not a thing in the world was out of order. What a contrast!

Sounds like a horrible place to live…Everyone should be taking pics of that Mazda! Up close, far back, inside windshield shot…What is wrong with those people!! You should have written this on that car! 

[DRG]

16 minutes ago, Doinko said:

 

Can confirm the confirmation.  Sloppy white rain business in SE PDX trying its lil heart out to stick on non road surfaces 

 

In other news, it also snowed a couple inches just north of Gasquet International Airport this morning

[MossMan]

54/33 on the day. Currently 36 with a moon peeking through the trees. 

[SouthHillFrosty]

Came out to a frozen windshield but only 34.9. The rain on the ground might make a slick commute in the morning 

Edited March 8, 2023 by SouthHillFrosty

[Doinko]

Seems a bit extreme...
 

[Cascadia_Wx]

Had legit heavy wet snow for a little while there, but it has died down again now that precip is lightening up.

Some decently strong radar echos over west Vancouver at the moment and heading NNW. Heads up @BLI snowman @Timmy and that bro who’s always mad.