PNW April 2023 Weather Discussion

[FroYoBro]

Looks like some strong showers are heading towards the PDX area!

 

46 here with a rain and hail shower. 

[Meatyorologist]

Lots of fun things to look at today on satellite. My two favorites are the rapid convective buildup east of the Cascades, and a sea breeze interacting with that cumulus field along the NW WA coast.

[Phishy Wx]

I reckon we'll get some more GRAUPEL

[Meatyorologist]

47/39 here with partly sunny skies. Atmosphere is recovering well in advance of more thunderstorm chances this evening.

[Meatyorologist]

Getting bubbly

[Ken in Wood Village]

With the heating of the day, showers are starting to pop up. I wouldn't be surprised to see lightning and hear thunder. 

 

The first radar is a wide view of the showers. The second one is a closer look around Portland. You can see a shower forming up in the Vancouver area. As you can see, it developed really fast. I expect this to continue the rest of the day into the evening hours. 

 

I didn't see a whole lot of showers in the Seattle area but that could change. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Really active day. Got down to Albany about 30 minutes ago and it was 39 degrees with some fresh hail on the ground. 

[Ken in Wood Village]

I'm outside and saw these clouds. The second picture you can see what looks like maybe a hail core. It's not doing anything here at the moment. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Kind of wild how the pattern change totally flopped. After tonight and tomorrow morning I think we are probably done with snow here, but geez. Wow. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Northern Oregon Cascade Foothills-Northern Oregon Cascades-
Cascade Foothills in Lane County-Cascades in Lane County-
Upper Hood River Valley-South Washington Cascades-
South Washington Cascade Foothills-
Including the cities of Silver Falls State Park, Government Camp,
Santiam Pass, McKenzie Pass, Willamette Pass, Parkdale,
Coldwater Ridge Visitors Center, Mount St. Helens,
Wind River Valley, and Ariel
137 PM PDT Mon Apr 3 2023

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 11 AM PDT TUESDAY
ABOVE 1500 FEET...

* WHAT...Snow above 1500 feet. Additional snow accumulations of
  1 to 6 inches.

* WHERE...Portions of northwest Oregon and southwest Washington.

* WHEN...Until 11 AM PDT Tuesday.

* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult.

[MossMan]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Northern Oregon Cascade Foothills-Northern Oregon Cascades-
Cascade Foothills in Lane County-Cascades in Lane County-
Upper Hood River Valley-South Washington Cascades-
South Washington Cascade Foothills-
Including the cities of Silver Falls State Park, Government Camp,
Santiam Pass, McKenzie Pass, Willamette Pass, Parkdale,
Coldwater Ridge Visitors Center, Mount St. Helens,
Wind River Valley, and Ariel
137 PM PDT Mon Apr 3 2023

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 11 AM PDT TUESDAY
ABOVE 1500 FEET...

* WHAT...Snow above 1500 feet. Additional snow accumulations of
  1 to 6 inches.

* WHERE...Portions of northwest Oregon and southwest Washington.

* WHEN...Until 11 AM PDT Tuesday.

* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult.

Your kids school might need to invest in one of these! 

[Ken in Wood Village]

Some thunderstorms close to Oregon City 🌩

[lowlandsnow]

3 hours ago, Skagit Weather said:

Here are the updated snowfall maps for WA (and part of OR) and CA for this winter so far (as of April 1). Kind of impressive to see how large of a chunk of the Sierra Nevada has received over 50' (600"). Normally Mt. Baker is the big winner in the lower 48 for snowfall (and it still holds the state record this year at 727"), but a point near Mammoth in California is estimated to have picked up 964" so far this winter. So not quite at Mt. Baker Ski area's annual record (1,140" in '98-99), but close. Of course during that 1998-99 season it was estimated that Mt. Baker itself picked up 1800"+ of snow so the Sierra is nowhere near that value.

This suggests that at least 57-59(2322 inches) meters of snow fell on Mount Baker at 2450 meters in 1998-1999 so over double the max in California this year.

Summer Snowpack Variations – North Cascade Glacier Climate Project (nichols.edu)

How much initial snowfall does this remaining summer snow on Easton and Rainbow Glacier represent? The snowpack in late August had a density of 0.60 g/cm³, this is four times the normal new fallen snow density. Thus, at a minimum at 2450 m the 10.65 m of snow remaining represented 42–43 m of snow compressed by time, melting and refreezing (Fig. 3). Ablation from early June to late August 3.95 m of dense snowpack indicates an additional 15–16 m of snowfall, depending on the degree of compaction of snowfall that had melted prior to our late August measurement. The minimum total snowfall for 1998/99 was then 57–59 m at 2450 m on Easton Glacier, Mt. Baker. The sum of the observed August snowpack SWE (8.2 m) and June–August (3.8 m) ablation indicates that 1998/99 total winter snowfall at 1900 m on Rainbow Glacier was 47–49 m.

[Ken in Wood Village]

2 minutes ago, Ken in Wood Village said:

Some thunderstorms close to Oregon City 🌩

More lightning now 🌩🌩

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Geez… 

[Cascadia_Wx]

3 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Geez… 

Gee whiz Andrew.

[Ken in Wood Village]

There is a lot of activity in central and eastern Washington 🌩

[Ken in Wood Village]

Looks like there could be a little rotation in that big storm NE of Molalla 

[SunAndSnow]

19 minutes ago, Ken in Wood Village said:

Some thunderstorms close to Oregon City 🌩

Pretty sure I’m seeing that out my window 

[Cold Snap]

OT but Ian got upgraded to a Cat 5. That makes five Cat 5 US landfalls now.

[Ken in Wood Village]

3 minutes ago, SunAndSnow said:

Pretty sure I’m seeing that out my window 

IMG_6997.MOV

Looks very impressive 🌩

[SilverFallsAndrew]

That's an intense cell over central Clackamas County!

[Ken in Wood Village]

6 minutes ago, SunAndSnow said:

Pretty sure I’m seeing that out my window 

IMG_6997.MOV

Looks like another storm is forming SW of the other storm. Looks like they could be merging. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

About 7.6" here on this run! Maybe some ridging by hour 384! 

[MossMan]

19 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Gee whiz Andrew.

 

[SunAndSnow]

6 minutes ago, Ken in Wood Village said:

Looks like another storm is forming SW of the other storm. Looks like they could be merging. 

Something’s brewing, the one on the right is taking off

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Early look at May:

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Well, the CANsips is encouraging. NOT a hot summer if that verifies. 

[MossMan]

1 hour ago, Meatyorologist said:

47/39 here with partly sunny skies. Atmosphere is recovering well in advance of more thunderstorm chances this evening.

Radar looks awfully quiet up this way right now.

[Doinko]

Dark clouds to the east and starting to rain

[T-Town]

Buzz kill. 
 

https://gizmodo.com/drinking-for-your-health-isnt-really-a-thing-study-fin-1850295554

[SilverFallsAndrew]

3 minutes ago, T-Town said:

Buzz kill. 
 

https://gizmodo.com/drinking-for-your-health-isnt-really-a-thing-study-fin-1850295554

Well we all gonna die anyway.

[Ken in Wood Village]

Not a good time for the Portland radar to go down

[T-Town]

11 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Well we all gonna die anyway.

Good point. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

3 minutes ago, T-Town said:

Good point. 

Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. 

- Isaiah 22:13

[T-Town]

Another nice day for watching clouds. No precip here since before dawn. 51 degrees and sunny, doesn’t feel to bad out on the deck. 

[Skagit Weather]

1 hour ago, lowlandsnow said:

This suggests that at least 57-59(2322 inches) meters of snow fell on Mount Baker at 2450 meters in 1998-1999 so over double the max in California this year.

Summer Snowpack Variations – North Cascade Glacier Climate Project (nichols.edu)

How much initial snowfall does this remaining summer snow on Easton and Rainbow Glacier represent? The snowpack in late August had a density of 0.60 g/cm³, this is four times the normal new fallen snow density. Thus, at a minimum at 2450 m the 10.65 m of snow remaining represented 42–43 m of snow compressed by time, melting and refreezing (Fig. 3). Ablation from early June to late August 3.95 m of dense snowpack indicates an additional 15–16 m of snowfall, depending on the degree of compaction of snowfall that had melted prior to our late August measurement. The minimum total snowfall for 1998/99 was then 57–59 m at 2450 m on Easton Glacier, Mt. Baker. The sum of the observed August snowpack SWE (8.2 m) and June–August (3.8 m) ablation indicates that 1998/99 total winter snowfall at 1900 m on Rainbow Glacier was 47–49 m.

Yeah, that was the article I was referencing, but I had forgotten about the estimated numbers up at 2,450 meters. That is just an insane amount of snow! It makes me wonder how much snowfall the NOHRSC map would have predicted for that location in 1998-99.

[Deweydog]

6 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. 

- Isaiah 22:13

He who smelt it dealt it.

- Matthew 4:3

[BLI snowman]

Back from Hawaii. Colder here!

[Meatyorologist]

It's not fair. Hawaii deserves to be this cold all the time too!

Maybe the worm will turn soon?