October 2019 Weather Discussion for the PNW

[High Desert Mat?]

Here’s last nights tree with a low of 6 this morning. I just found the last few years of them and will post them later.

[Phil]

Gotta love the CFS. With niño 3.4 already at 0.8C, this is a pretty gnarly bust.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Gotta love the CFS. With niño 3.4 already at 0.8C, this is a pretty gnarly bust.

 

Looks like your super Nino prediction was spot on.

[Dave]

Here’s last nights tree with a low of 6 this morning. I just found the last few years of them and will post them later.

Impressive!

 

If it gets cold enough here this winter. I think I'll plug up the storm drain in the street and create an ice hockey rink

The neighbors will love it.

[Phil]

Looks like your super Nino prediction was spot on.

What super niño prediction?

[Winterdog]

Low of 23F this morning. I see KSEA once again showed it’s true colors as a warm biased station by coming in at 33F. Ridiculous.

[TT-SEA]

Low of 23F this morning. I see KSEA once again showed it’s true colors as a warm biased station by coming in at 33F. Ridiculous.

 

 

Wind.

 

I think it was even warmer out here... but might have dipped during the night. 

[Winterdog]

Wind.

 

I think it was even warmer out here... but might have dipped during the night.

 

I’m sure the reading is correct and wind no doubt played its part but that location is hardly representative of the greater Seattle area.

[Blizzard777]

Screaming at crown point is 90mph or higher

Getting closer to your measurement of screaming! 

82 mph gust

[Frontal Snowsquall]

00Z ECMWF shows the rain returning by next Thursday... as the block is undercut.

 

Makes sense... seems like the most logical progression.

Looking forward to the return of rain after this dry period.

[TT-SEA]

I’m sure the reading is correct and wind no doubt played its part but that location is hardly representative of the greater Seattle area.

 

 

No place is representative of the Seattle area... wind protected areas are always colder than windy areas in this situation.

[Blizzard777]

Here’s last nights tree with a low of 6 this morning. I just found the last few years of them and will post them later.

Awesome and very creative! 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Long range looking increasingly wet. 

[ShawniganLake]

GFS continues to be close with a glancing shot of cold air next week before the westerlies break through.

 

Ensemble is much warmer than the operational

[Blizzard777]

Looking forward to the return of rain after this dry period.

Complimented with winds ....need a couple southerly events to complete falls expectations 

[Phil]

Uh oh..here we go again?

 

[Phil]

Would be essentially unprecedented for a wind reversal to occur in early December with the current QBO structure. Not sure we even want that..could promote a stronger mid/late winter vortex.

 

But..it would be one hell of a curveball to open winter. With the sun in a coma and a modoki niño style forcing regime under downwelling easterly shear..who knows what could happen if it gets an early kick.

[seattleweatherguy]

Uh oh..here we go again?

 

Snow in Late nov or early dec with this kind of pattern?

[Jbolin]

Would be essentially unprecedented for a wind reversal to occur in early December with the current QBO structure. Not sure we even want that..could promote a stronger mid/late winter vortex.

 

But..it would be one hell of a curveball to open winter. With the sun in a coma and a modoki niño style forcing regime under downwelling easterly shear..who knows what could happen if it gets an early kick.

Legitimate question, what would the ramifications of this be?

 

 

[Jesse]

Loving the long range GFS.

[High Desert Mat?]

Snow in Late nov or early dec with this kind of pattern?

No, the effects are not for a month or so afterwards and the effects are unknown really.

[Front Ranger]

In Oregon it appears this will not be quite as cold with overnight lows than what October 2002 bottomed out at.

Yeah, this is more of an inter-mountain air mass...and we've likely seen new monthly records in at least 3 states.

[Phil]

Legitimate question, what would the ramifications of this be?

Even without it, the next jet retraction/cycle of AAM removal via EAMT begins during the last 10 days of November, and that was the period I was watching for serious cold into the USA..-EPO and/or -NAO outcome.

 

If there a wave attack into the stratosphere, that might simply (in this case) be indicative of the amplitude of the wavebreaking/wave-1 conduit being open thru the NPAC.

 

But if anything funky goes down (IE: a shake-down of the vortex) then I don’t know. Tropical forcing is quite El Niño-ish to open December, so if I suppose perturbing the NAM/PV all the way up and strengthening the mass circulation could overcome that to some extent.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Peter Sinks, UT is currently at -41.4. Not sure what their low was.

 

https://climate.usu.edu/PeterSinks/index.php

 

I notice a -44.2 reading between 07:30 and 07:45 local time this morning.

[Jesse]

Yeah, this is more of an inter-mountain air mass...and we've likely seen new monthly records in at least 3 states.

The horrifying similarities just keep piling up.

[Jbolin]

Peter Sinks, UT is currently at -41.4. Not sure what their low was.

 

https://climate.usu.edu/PeterSinks/index.php

-46.2F 

[Tyler Mode]

-46.2F 

What's the elevation difference?

[Jbolin]

What's the elevation difference?

Best info I could find is

 

Rim is 8,164 asl

Sinks is 8,100 asl

[Rubus Leucodermis]

I went to college at Utah State University, which is in the same county that Peter Sinks is in. I was there during the year where that station set a new state record low of -69˚F, in fact. There is a nearby valley called Middle Sink, which is a little less extreme than Peter Sink when it comes to temperature minima, but U.S. 89 travels through that sink. The highway department would close the road when temperatures got below -50˚F; the worry was that if anyone experienced car problems in those conditions, they might freeze to death before they got help.

 

Both Middle and Peter sinks have what is termed an "inverse tree line". With hard frosts every month of the year (temperatures in the teens occur even in midsummer), it's too cold for trees to survive in the bottom of the sinks.

 

That same morning, stations in the bottom of Cache Valley (where the University is) were in the -40's. The campus, being on a bench above the valley bottom, "only" got down to the -15 to -20 range… but was subject to strong outflow winds coming down Logan Canyon. I had a morning class that quarter, and let me tell you -20˚F with 30 mph winds is not pleasant to walk to class in. Using the wind chill charts published at the time, the wind chill factor was literally off the scale that morning! With several feet of snow on the ground, the resulting ground blizzard had conditions looking like something out of a documentary film on the arctic.

 

It's part of the reason I find it hard to consider anything we experience here in the lowlands west of the Cascades to be truly "cold." My benchmark standards for what real cold is got set to a pretty extreme value in my college years!

[Kayla]

12z ECMWF is definitely trending west with the clipper for early next week...

 

Yesterday's 12z run.

 

Today's 12z run.

 

[Front Ranger]

12z ECMWF is definitely trending west with early next week clipper...

I was just gonna say. A lot colder for you and brushing the PNW.

[TT-SEA]

Wow... here we go again.   Blocking might just stay in place longer.

 

[Kayla]

[TT-SEA]

Of course... the surprisingly superior GEM is not on board at all.   

 

[Phil]

If the mid-November jet extension/+EAMT is delayed, even by a little bit, it opens the door to another backdoor graze before the cold shift eastward.

 

A shame it’s so early. If this were January, some places would be challenging their all-time record lows. Good news is, this pattern (or something similar to it) actually should return in January this year.

[Kayla]

I was just gonna say. A lot colder for you and brushing the PNW.

 

I'd say it's unprecedented but that has already happened like four times this fall.

[Front Ranger]

I'd say it's unprecedented but that has already happened like four times this fall.

Yeah, the Euro shows yet another top tier air mass hitting the Rockies.

[TT-SEA]

12Z ECMWF solution would keep the generally dry weather around much longer.

[TT-SEA]

12Z ECMWF shows about an inch of snow for the WA Cascades over the next 10 days... while Kayla gets buried again.

[Kayla]

Jeez...primed for retrogression at day 10 as well.