October 2023 Weather in the PNW

[Anti Marine Layer]

30 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Breezy!

Offshore wind event. 

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Timmy Supercell said:

Colorado knows how to start em big. Nearly all my first snows are pretty much teasers in the places I've lived.

Denver/Colorado Springs et al are my dream climate.

- Snowfall from October to April. And it’s relatively consistent, unlike the feast or famine tendency out here. Plus it sticks around longer in CO, don’t have to worry about surges of stuffy 70°F gulf air at 1AM in the middle of January.

- No oppressive humidity in the summer. And large diurnal cycles w/ instantaneous cooling at sunset. Also the thinner air makes warmth less noticeable too. I realized this when visiting CO Springs in May and an 80°F afternoon almost felt like room temperature, even in the Sun.

- Decent thunderstorms without hot/humid weather, thanks to the terrain circulations. And the storms in CO are absolutely beautiful, unlike here, where thick low level scud obscures the updraft 90% of the time. And CO storms retain a more discrete, cellular structure w/ healthy hail cores, without producing destructive microbursts (which occurs 100% of the time hail reaches the ground here in JJA).

- Consistent sunshine year round, even more than here. Also basically the same latitude, so wouldn’t be a huge adjustment for me. No long winter nights like up north.

- Another thing I noticed in CO was the lack swarming mosquitos/other insects. Don’t think I saw a single mosquito, in fact. Though I’m sure any other climate would be better than here..somehow this area has more insects than anywhere I’ve visited in FL/GA.

I mean, how is it possible to get a better climate than that? Not sure there is anything else like it on earth except maybe somewhere up in the Himalayas?

[MossMan]

Lovely morning at the lake earlier. 

[Gradient Keeper]

12z GFS re-cap: 10 Day GIFs: 500mb Height Anomaly, 850mb Temperatures, 1000-500mb Thickness/Precip

[Gradient Keeper]

12z GFS 10 Day Rainfall, Snowfall totals

[Gradient Keeper]

12z ECMWF re-cap: 10 Day GIFs: 500mb Height Anomaly, 850mb Temperatures, 1000-500mb Thickness/Precip

[Gradient Keeper]

12z ECMWF 10 Day Rainfall, Snowfall totals. Insanely wet run!

[Phil]

48 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

October might still pull off a positive temperature anomaly here.  

That’s criminal. But I’d take the deal.

Reminds me of now 2015/16 was the warmest winter on record here (until 2022/23, lol) but had one of the greatest blizzards on record imbedded within.

Which is why I wouldn’t call for “dud” winter in the lowland PNW. Nearly the entire winter could have a disastrous pattern, but it only takes one week of subseasonal alignment (or even just fluky timing) to change the equation entirely.

[Cold Snap]

Low of 27 this morning. A degree warmer than the night before.

[OysterPrintout]

41 minutes ago, Phil said:

Snowfall from October to April.

Not to summon my inner preference war Tim and definitely some people are gluttons for this but as someone who lived for a long time in SLC area, 6 months of snow gets pretty old after a while. You got endless shoveling, god forbid you don't have a garage and you have to de-ice your car constantly, sometimes you get stuck places you don't want to be, the roads can get downright terrifying even with proper infrastructure. I wish it would snow more here but have no interest in moving back to that high desert climate. I'll take greenery and beachside cliffs and the occasional snowstorm that gets everyone out of work for a few days.

[Timmy Supercell]

56 minutes ago, Phil said:

Denver/Colorado Springs et al are my dream climate.

- Snowfall from October to April. And it’s relatively consistent, unlike the feast or famine tendency out here. Plus it sticks around longer in CO, don’t have to worry about surges of stuffy 70°F gulf air at 1AM in the middle of January.

- No oppressive humidity in the summer. And large diurnal cycles w/ instantaneous cooling at sunset. Also the thinner air makes warmth less noticeable too. I realized this when visiting CO Springs in May and an 80°F afternoon almost felt like room temperature, even in the Sun.

- Decent thunderstorms without hot/humid weather, thanks to the terrain circulations. And the storms in CO are absolutely beautiful, unlike here, where thick low level scud obscures the updraft 90% of the time. And CO storms retain a more discrete, cellular structure w/ healthy hail cores, without producing destructive microbursts (which occurs 100% of the time hail reaches the ground here in JJA).

- Consistent sunshine year round, even more than here. Also basically the same latitude, so wouldn’t be a huge adjustment for me. No long winter nights like up north.

- Another thing I noticed in CO was the lack swarming mosquitos/other insects. Don’t think I saw a single mosquito, in fact. Though I’m sure any other climate would be better than here..somehow this area has more insects than anywhere I’ve visited in FL/GA.

I mean, how is it possible to get a better climate than that? Not sure there is anything else like it on earth except maybe somewhere up in the Himalayas?

I do notice that the skies are messy when t'storms approach here. Too much outflow and in combination with the "white out" sheets of rain these storms produce. I had more cloud structure out of thunderstorms in Klamath Falls. 

Oh yeah, not sure I've had more than a 40 degree swing from low to high here, and it occurs in a very small window of the year in Kentucky. Sometimes our lows in the summer get tiring, even on days we get to only 78, you bet it won't be lower than 69 the next morning. lol

This region gets shelf clouds, but usually I'd see a photo of one somewhere in central or western KY on facebook, then these storms lose them the moment they get here I swear. Maybe if a June 2012 or a March 2017 kind of line hit again, we'd get a nice view of one from the northeastern corner.

[Omegaraptor]

14 minutes ago, OysterPrintout said:

Not to summon my inner preference war Tim and definitely some people are gluttons for this but as someone who lived for a long time in SLC area, 6 months of snow gets pretty old after a while. You got endless shoveling, god forbid you don't have a garage and you have to de-ice your car constantly, sometimes you get stuck places you don't want to be, the roads can get downright terrifying even with proper infrastructure. I wish it would snow more here but have no interest in moving back to that high desert climate. I'll take greenery and beachside cliffs and the occasional snowstorm that gets everyone out of work for a few days.

 

Yeah... here's a winter month in northern Maine. I'm not convinced most people here would actually enjoy this, lol.

It's one thing to enjoy severe winter weather for a couple days at a time, and even drive out to Okanogan County or wherever to chase it. It's another thing to have weather like that as the average for months on end. You might enjoy windstorms when they happen, but life would be pretty D**n difficult if we had 70 MPH gusts every single day.

[Doinko]

5 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

That’s wild. Usually your spot does pretty well. We got down to 30 this morning which was nice considering the warming airmass aloft. 

East wind kept us up overnight I think. Hillsboro just a couple miles away got into the 20s which is interesting

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

Denver/Colorado Springs et al are my dream climate.

- Snowfall from October to April. And it’s relatively consistent, unlike the feast or famine tendency out here. Plus it sticks around longer in CO, don’t have to worry about surges of stuffy 70°F gulf air at 1AM in the middle of January.

- No oppressive humidity in the summer. And large diurnal cycles w/ instantaneous cooling at sunset. Also the thinner air makes warmth less noticeable too. I realized this when visiting CO Springs in May and an 80°F afternoon almost felt like room temperature, even in the Sun.

- Decent thunderstorms without hot/humid weather, thanks to the terrain circulations. And the storms in CO are absolutely beautiful, unlike here, where thick low level scud obscures the updraft 90% of the time. And CO storms retain a more discrete, cellular structure w/ healthy hail cores, without producing destructive microbursts (which occurs 100% of the time hail reaches the ground here in JJA).

- Consistent sunshine year round, even more than here. Also basically the same latitude, so wouldn’t be a huge adjustment for me. No long winter nights like up north.

- Another thing I noticed in CO was the lack swarming mosquitos/other insects. Don’t think I saw a single mosquito, in fact. Though I’m sure any other climate would be better than here..somehow this area has more insects than anywhere I’ve visited in FL/GA.

I mean, how is it possible to get a better climate than that? Not sure there is anything else like it on earth except maybe somewhere up in the Himalayas?

My only complaints are it's a bit too dry for my taste. Not unusual to go weeks without precip, especially in the winter.

Also the lack of large bodies of water.

[Timmy Supercell]

21 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

My only complaints are it's a bit too dry for my taste. Not unusual to go weeks without precip, especially in the winter.

Also the lack of large bodies of water.

Yup Colorado is no stranger to droughts too. I think I'm done with that whole thing.

And, before moving east, I didn't know you guys had tumbleweed tsunamis just outside of the city..

[Doinko]

2 hours ago, Phil said:

Denver/Colorado Springs et al are my dream climate.

- Snowfall from October to April. And it’s relatively consistent, unlike the feast or famine tendency out here. Plus it sticks around longer in CO, don’t have to worry about surges of stuffy 70°F gulf air at 1AM in the middle of January.

- No oppressive humidity in the summer. And large diurnal cycles w/ instantaneous cooling at sunset. Also the thinner air makes warmth less noticeable too. I realized this when visiting CO Springs in May and an 80°F afternoon almost felt like room temperature, even in the Sun.

- Decent thunderstorms without hot/humid weather, thanks to the terrain circulations. And the storms in CO are absolutely beautiful, unlike here, where thick low level scud obscures the updraft 90% of the time. And CO storms retain a more discrete, cellular structure w/ healthy hail cores, without producing destructive microbursts (which occurs 100% of the time hail reaches the ground here in JJA).

- Consistent sunshine year round, even more than here. Also basically the same latitude, so wouldn’t be a huge adjustment for me. No long winter nights like up north.

- Another thing I noticed in CO was the lack swarming mosquitos/other insects. Don’t think I saw a single mosquito, in fact. Though I’m sure any other climate would be better than here..somehow this area has more insects than anywhere I’ve visited in FL/GA.

I mean, how is it possible to get a better climate than that? Not sure there is anything else like it on earth except maybe somewhere up in the Himalayas?

I was really lucky to have my trip there coincide with the arctic blast last December. We were hiking in the mid 60s, then in the night it almost looked like a wall of clouds was approaching. Then it started snowing and I woke up to 4" of snow on the ground with a temp around -20. It was really amazing.

The mountains were really beautiful too.

[Phil]

1 hour ago, OysterPrintout said:

Not to summon my inner preference war Tim and definitely some people are gluttons for this but as someone who lived for a long time in SLC area, 6 months of snow gets pretty old after a while. You got endless shoveling, god forbid you don't have a garage and you have to de-ice your car constantly, sometimes you get stuck places you don't want to be, the roads can get downright terrifying even with proper infrastructure. I wish it would snow more here but have no interest in moving back to that high desert climate. I'll take greenery and beachside cliffs and the occasional snowstorm that gets everyone out of work for a few days.

It would take a *lot* to make me tired of snow. I think if that were ever going to be a problem for me 2009/10 would have revealed it.

Though this climate isn’t consistently snowy from year to year, so can’t say for certain how I’d feel after 5+ years of that.

1 hour ago, Timmy Supercell said:

I do notice that the skies are messy when t'storms approach here. Too much outflow and in combination with the "white out" sheets of rain these storms produce. I had more cloud structure out of thunderstorms in Klamath Falls. 

Oh yeah, not sure I've had more than a 40 degree swing from low to high here, and it occurs in a very small window of the year in Kentucky. Sometimes our lows in the summer get tiring, even on days we get to only 78, you bet it won't be lower than 69 the next morning. lol

This region gets shelf clouds, but usually I'd see a photo of one somewhere in central or western KY on facebook, then these storms lose them the moment they get here I swear. Maybe if a June 2012 or a March 2017 kind of line hit again, we'd get a nice view of one from the northeastern corner.

Oh yeah, storms in our region produce rainfall as heavy as anywhere on earth, no joke. Atmospheric profile is uniquely suited for it. In fact the world record for 1 minute rainfall occurred in MD.  

You’ve also had some unlucky timing out there the last 2 years. Lots of shortwaves crossing your area during the overnight/AM hours. Same reason western KY has been on a hot streak, along with places out here east of the apps.

At some point that will reverse and you’ll get some real action.

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Front Ranger said:

My only complaints are it's a bit too dry for my taste. Not unusual to go weeks without precip, especially in the winter.

Also the lack of large bodies of water.

I suppose nothing is perfect. But we also can go weeks without precipitation, in both autumn and winter. So that wouldn’t be a huge downgrade.

In fact this year that was the norm until mid-June. Fortunate that the floodgates opened when they did, as the 4th of July was 3 weeks away & fires were already popping up. Would not have ended well.

[Gradient Keeper]

2 hours ago, OysterPrintout said:

Not to summon my inner preference war Tim and definitely some people are gluttons for this but as someone who lived for a long time in SLC area, 6 months of snow gets pretty old after a while. You got endless shoveling, god forbid you don't have a garage and you have to de-ice your car constantly, sometimes you get stuck places you don't want to be, the roads can get downright terrifying even with proper infrastructure. I wish it would snow more here but have no interest in moving back to that high desert climate. I'll take greenery and beachside cliffs and the occasional snowstorm that gets everyone out of work for a few days.

That's a good perspective and one I certainly do not have. I could see that for even the most snow deprived Portlanders when the snow becomes more of a hindrance and causing issues than just watching it fall and enjoying it for 1 day to two weeks tops.

00z GFS in 4 hours 23 minutes

[Deweydog]

A week from now it will be 4:22 pm

[Phishy Wx]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

It would take a *lot* to make me tired of snow. I think if that were ever going to be a problem for me 2009/10 would have revealed it.

Though this climate isn’t consistently snowy from year to year, so can’t say for certain how I’d feel after 5+ years of that.

Oh yeah, storms in our region produce rainfall as heavy as anywhere on earth, no joke. Atmospheric profile is uniquely suited for it. In fact the world record for 1 minute rainfall occurred in MD.  

You’ve also had some unlucky timing out there the last 2 years. Lots of shortwaves crossing your area during the overnight/AM hours. Same reason western KY has been on a hot streak, along with places out here east of the apps.

At some point that will reverse and you’ll get some real action.

The older I get the less I like to deal with snow.  still love to watch it fall, not a fan anymore of shovelling or driving in it for 3-4 months a year.  I lived in NH in the early 2000s for 3 years but I was a lot younger in my mid to late 20s and the property we rented had a snow removal service for the driveway so I only had to shovel the mailbox and stairs in front of the house and I was young and stronger.  now approaching 50, not a fan of snow removal, so much so I asked my landscapers to quote me their services for this winter.  we'll be back on the east coast in the next 5-8 years and will settle in the Carolinas or VA.  I'm fine with it.  I'll get on a plane to go see snow or drive up to the local mtns there if I know snow is forecast.

[Mercurial]

I lived in Hokkaido, Japan for the last two winters, seeing 300" both times.  I still wanted more.  I remember being jealous of the locals in Iwamizawa and Bibai while riding the train between Sapporo and Asahikawa.  I realized they had 7 feet of snow on the ground vs my 4 feet in Otaru.  It's basically a mental illness lol

[MossMan]

C’MON Y’All!! You’re telling me there is a thing as too much snow and for too long??? NEVER!! I don’t care if I have to do snow removal from October to April I would love every minute of it!! I have a great system down, I can plow the driveway, shovel the deck for the dogs, and shovel the front entrance for deliveries in about an hour. Bring it!!!!! 

[MossMan]

49/29 on the day. Blew the roof and driveway, put the Mossy B Gone on the roof, and cleaned the gutters. Plus the Seahawks won. It was a good day! 

Edited October 30 by MossMan

[HuskyMaestro]

42 minutes ago, Mercurial said:

I lived in Hokkaido, Japan for the last two winters, seeing 300" both times.  I still wanted more.  I remember being jealous of the locals in Iwamizawa and Bibai while riding the train between Sapporo and Asahikawa.  I realized they had 7 feet of snow on the ground vs my 4 feet in Otaru.  It's basically a mental illness lol

That's the dream right there. I wanna live in Sapporo for a winter and experience that kind of snow that makes lake effect snow at the Great Lakes look like nothing. The Sea of Japan is basically a giant lake. Nice to just have the coldest Siberian air right at your doorstep lol 

[VancouverIslandSouth]

5 hours ago, Phil said:

Denver/Colorado Springs et al are my dream climate.

- Snowfall from October to April. And it’s relatively consistent, unlike the feast or famine tendency out here. Plus it sticks around longer in CO, don’t have to worry about surges of stuffy 70°F gulf air at 1AM in the middle of January.

- No oppressive humidity in the summer. And large diurnal cycles w/ instantaneous cooling at sunset. Also the thinner air makes warmth less noticeable too. I realized this when visiting CO Springs in May and an 80°F afternoon almost felt like room temperature, even in the Sun.

- Decent thunderstorms without hot/humid weather, thanks to the terrain circulations. And the storms in CO are absolutely beautiful, unlike here, where thick low level scud obscures the updraft 90% of the time. And CO storms retain a more discrete, cellular structure w/ healthy hail cores, without producing destructive microbursts (which occurs 100% of the time hail reaches the ground here in JJA).

- Consistent sunshine year round, even more than here. Also basically the same latitude, so wouldn’t be a huge adjustment for me. No long winter nights like up north.

- Another thing I noticed in CO was the lack swarming mosquitos/other insects. Don’t think I saw a single mosquito, in fact. Though I’m sure any other climate would be better than here..somehow this area has more insects than anywhere I’ve visited in FL/GA.

I mean, how is it possible to get a better climate than that? Not sure there is anything else like it on earth except maybe somewhere up in the Himalayas?

I flew over Borneo on the way back from Bali. It's deep in the ITCZ and the convection was impressive, must have been near 60K ceilings because the cloud tops were well above the 40K cruising altitude. The lowlands are oppressive, but find a nice place on Mount Kinabalu and you get all the storms with none of the heat.

 

[Mercurial]

37 minutes ago, HuskyMaestro said:

That's the dream right there. I wanna live in Sapporo for a winter and experience that kind of snow that makes lake effect snow at the Great Lakes look like nothing. The Sea of Japan is basically a giant lake. Nice to just have the coldest Siberian air right at your doorstep lol 

Plus, the city itself is excellent.  Great food, lots to do, awesome climate, solid access to nature and other assorted day trips, etc.  You can buy a decent condo in central Sapporo for $50k and live comfortably on $2k/mo.  Japan is quite cheap these days outside Tokyo.

[VancouverIslandSouth]

38 minutes ago, HuskyMaestro said:

That's the dream right there. I wanna live in Sapporo for a winter and experience that kind of snow that makes lake effect snow at the Great Lakes look like nothing. The Sea of Japan is basically a giant lake. Nice to just have the coldest Siberian air right at your doorstep lol 

It's not just that, but the Kuroshio current partially splits around Japan allowing some warm water from the subtropics to continue to flow into the Sea of Japan, adding energy to the sea effect snow. And the islands have a mountain chain to force upslope and cold air damming. It's interesting though that as you head south from Hokkaido you get sea level climates that experience weeks of 34F snow.

[the_convergence_zone]

I never got a freeze this week, 33.4 was the coldest and that was only a brief dip right at sunrise, otherwise it stayed above 35. None of my sensitive plants were damaged, even my dahlias and zinnias are fine. There are some more blooms coming so I’ll leave them. That’s pretty typical for my spot, it doesn’t usually freeze until the second half of November. 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Coldest temp on my birthday since 2006.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

36 minutes ago, Mercurial said:

Plus, the city itself is excellent.  Great food, lots to do, awesome climate, solid access to nature and other assorted day trips, etc.  You can buy a decent condo in central Sapporo for $50k and live comfortably on $2k/mo.  Japan is quite cheap these days outside Tokyo.

Wow! Surprising to hear it’s so affordable. My wife has family in Japan as her grandmother is Japanese and came over after the war (Married my wife’s grandfather who was a GI.). My wife has an aunt and first cousins there as her grandmother also had a kid from a previous marriage who did not come to the US. Anyways, they live about an hour and a half north of Tokyo I believe in what I believe is a more rural semi mountainous region. She always talks about us going to visit, but we never have. 

[Phil]

11 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Coldest temp on my birthday since 2006.

Happy birthday brother.  

[Gradient Keeper]

1 hour ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Coldest temp on my birthday since 2006.

Happy Birthday bruh!

[Gradient Keeper]

00z GFS Day 1

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[iFred]

1 hour ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Coldest temp on my birthday since 2006.

Happy birthday!

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[Gradient Keeper]

Day 7 nice jet aimed at us.

 

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Day 9'er

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

7 hours ago, OysterPrintout said:

Not to summon my inner preference war Tim and definitely some people are gluttons for this but as someone who lived for a long time in SLC area, 6 months of snow gets pretty old after a while. You got endless shoveling, god forbid you don't have a garage and you have to de-ice your car constantly, sometimes you get stuck places you don't want to be, the roads can get downright terrifying even with proper infrastructure. I wish it would snow more here but have no interest in moving back to that high desert climate. I'll take greenery and beachside cliffs and the occasional snowstorm that gets everyone out of work for a few days.

Hmm. Snow blower instead of a shovel and park the car in a garage.  Just got 50% easier living in that snowy climate.

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 10

[Gradient Keeper]

00z GFS re-cap. 10 Day GIFs: 500mb Height Anomaly, 850mb Temperatures, 1000-500mb Thickness/MSLP/Precip

[Gradient Keeper]

00z GFS 10 Day Rainfall, Snowfall totals

[Gradient Keeper]

The 00z Canadian was WET

[Gradient Keeper]

Who's ready for what I think is going to be an action packed soaker of a run? Yeah.

00z ECMWF in 10 minutes