January 2019 Weather in the Pacific Northwest

[TT-SEA]

Cold onshore flow.

 

Day 10 looks pretty fun... lots of sun breaks and convective precip.    Probably ice pellet showers in the lowlands with highs in the upper 30s and low 40s... and passing snow squalls for you and me and Timmy.   

 

 

[Perturbed Member]

I'm cautiously optimistic at the moment. The deformation band is going to be the true wildcard in all of this. This time period before the events of February 6 2014, January 10 2017 and February 18 2018 really didn't show much of anything if anything at all leading up to those events. That's what gives me hope.

 

Feb 2014 and Jan 2017 were both overrunning events involving an east wind and lows coming up out of the south, I always feel a lot more confident in Portland's ability to perform with such setups. We had an impressively cold airmass already in place for Feb 2014. I will say the convective nature of Jan 2017 wasn't predicted by any model and that really led it to blow away all the forecast amounts. Such a pleasant surprise. A nice and long lived deformation band would be an awesome surprise next week for sure.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Day 10 looks pretty fun... lots of sun breaks and convective precip.    Probably ice pellet showers in the lowlands with highs in the upper 30s and low 40s... and passing snow squalls for you and me and Timmy.   

 

 

 

The kind of day that may have a high of 40-42 in the lowlands, but only mid 30s up here because of the convective showers streaming in. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Feb 2014 and Jan 2017 were both overrunning events involving an east wind and lows coming up out of the south, I always feel a lot more confident in Portland's ability to perform with such setups. We had an impressively cold airmass already in place for Feb 2014. I will say the convective nature of Jan 2017 wasn't predicted by any model and that really led it to blow away all the forecast amounts. Such a pleasant surprise. A nice and long lived deformation band would be an awesome surprise next week for sure.

 

Yeah we had pretty cold air in place before the 2014 event. I think I was like 29/17 on February 5th. Pulled off a 23/13 on the 6th. That was a very cold low level airmass.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

The Columbia Basin was a lot colder for the Jan 2017 event too.  This will be nowhere close.

[Deweydog]

I've been thinking it for a few days, but a lobe of northern energy phasing with a ULL to our south is just a non-traditional way to get a meaninful cold pattern here. Probably part of why the models are struggling with it/backing off. Are there any historical instances of us getting appreciable cold here with such a pattern? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Already covered.

 

Weird pattern.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Going to head on over to the Feb page now. Nice to put one of the south valley's worst/most boring Januaries behind us.

[Perturbed Member]

The Columbia Basin was a lot colder for the Jan 2017 event too.  This will be nowhere close.

 

Looks cold enough to get the job done if you believe the WRF. -9c 925mb temps?  Low to the south pulling that cold air right over us with some precip overhead. It isn't a January 2017 but it seems believable enough. 

 

 

[Frontal Snowsquall]

Feb 2014 and Jan 2017 were both overrunning events involving an east wind and lows coming up out of the south, I always feel a lot more confident in Portland's ability to perform with such setups. We had an impressively cold airmass already in place for Feb 2014. I will say the convective nature of Jan 2017 wasn't predicted by any model and that really led it to blow away all the forecast amounts. Such a pleasant surprise. A nice and long lived deformation band would be an awesome surprise next week for sure.

Yeah, their all different in their own ways but I'm talking mainly the moisture it showed a few days out. February 2014 with the first event, the models had moisture no where close to PDX and even then right up to the event, we overperformed. Honestly, my gut feeling tells me PDX Metro is going to get a good snowstorm out of this.

[Frontal Snowsquall]

The Columbia Basin was a lot colder for the Jan 2017 event too. This will be nowhere close.

Looks cold enough to get the job done if you believe the WRF. -9c 925mb temps? Low to the south pulling that cold air right over us with some precip overhead. It isn't a January 2017 but it seems believable enough.

 

 

The January 2017 event was colder because the cold pool was able to get firmly entrenched for a longer duration and because it occurred close to peak cold season. It wasn't really an Arctic Blast type set-up.

 

Based on what the 00z WRF shows, it will definitely be cold enough to get the job done. In some ways you don't want the Gorge winds to be too cold because then it gets hungry and starts eating into the moisture.

[Frontal Snowsquall]

Well we are minutes away to the end of the month. It's been a great month of model riding tracking cold and snow. Goodbye January 2019!

[Jesse]

Already covered.

 

Weird pattern.

I must have missed the discussion then. Unless you are literally just referring to the “weird pattern” post, which didn’t really elaborate things. Just came off as a typical above the fray one-liner at the time.

[Deweydog]

I must have missed the discussion then. Unless you are literally just referring to the “weird pattern” post, which didn’t really elaborate things. Just came off as a typical above the fray one-liner at the time.

It’s a weird pattern, or it was. It was trying to thread a needle in an existing split flow pattern which was trying to go somewhat meridional. Tepid blocking. The split flow ended up dominating, at least with this first “load.” The fray or that which resides above it has nothing to do with it.

[Jesse]

It’s a weird pattern, or it was. It was trying to thread a needle in an existing split flow pattern which was trying to go somewhat meridional. Tepid blocking. The split flow ended up dominating, at least with this first “load.” The fray or that which resides above it has nothing to do with it.

Good analysis. I agree with your take.

[snow_wizard]

I'm really ticked off by the snow chances evaporating for the Seattle area Sunday and Monday, but it's hard to be too upset about the big picture.  It's still going to be a cold week coming up, and the chances appear high for another significant intrusion of cold air late next week.  The ECMWF ensemble shows a GOA ridge persisting through mid month.  Looks like a very realistic snow chance with the second cold shot as well.  Still a good chance we will all be happy come mid February.

 

BTW there is still a small chance the event early next week could improve in the home stretch.  Once the digging trough gets out over the ocean surprises could happen.

[epiceast]

Columbia basin can't stay cold in February, the sun angle is actually not a meme there because of vegetation color... I'm pretty sure you need a direct Fraser hit not a gorge backdoor to have a non marginal precip rate driven snow event.

[BLI snowman]

Columbia basin can't stay cold in February, the sun angle is actually not a meme there because of vegetation color... I'm pretty sure you need a direct Fraser hit not a gorge backdoor to have a non marginal precip rate driven snow event.

 

Nah, there are some examples of the Columbia Basin staying quite cold in the lower levels in February (and even March). Just takes a unique setup and airmass.

[epiceast]

Nah, there are some examples of the Columbia Basin staying quite cold in the lower levels in February (and even March). Just takes a unique setup and airmass.

I lived there for almost a decade and never saw non-marginal snow setup after January.  Actually only it probably only sowed after January maybe 3 or 4 times while i lived there, most of the time at night, even cold convection only brought graupel in tri-cities in March. I know last year probably destroyed all of that and then some, but that's because there was a deep persistent snowpack until early march across the vast majority of it that broke multi-decade records.

 

I'm thinking it was more of a hangover from a good winter rather than a fresh set-up.

[BLI snowman]

I lived there for almost a decade and never saw non-marginal snow setup after January.  Actually only it probably only sowed after January maybe 3 or 4 times while i lived there, most of the time at night, even cold convection only brought graupel in tri-cities in March. I know last year probably destroyed all of that and then some, but that's because there was a deep persistent snowpack until early march across the vast majority of it that broke multi-decade records.

 

I'm thinking it was more of a hangover from a good winter rather than a fresh set-up.

 

 

February 2014 was a long ways from marginal there. 19/6 at Pasco on February 6, and then a 27/25 day a few weeks later on March 2. And in 1993, Pasco had a 23/5 day on February 27, from a snowcover fueled cold pool.

[wxmet]

6z GFS resumes the snowstorm. It shows the trough farther northeast. Great result for western WA.

[Timmy]

There is an eastward jog on the 6z... one could even say it's a notch further east. Let's see how the 12z models look

fv3 it’s noticable. Also cooler through weds. And it has a decent reload day 9-10