October 2023 Weather in the PNW

[T-Town]

Year seven here and still zero trick or treaters. Neighborhood is all old people and has no sidewalks or streetlights so not that surprising I guess. 

[Phishy Wx]

16 minutes ago, Doinko said:

00z GFS one year ago

 

I posted the druncle from Halloween last year earlier today

[Cold Snap]

Be careful! Make sure to check your kids candy! You might find hour 384 of the GFS in there showing 2 feet of snow!

[Chewbacca Defense]

6 hours ago, Phil said:

That’s exactly where I’d put it.

I figured you'd want to have one up at your house on Stampede Pass

[Chewbacca Defense]

2 hours ago, HuskyMaestro said:

48F and cool. Hope you’re all having a good one. Not too much trick or treaters, so more candy for me! 

Threw on random things, now I feel like Jack Skellington looking at snow and Xmas lights for the first time  

Trying to figure out the bottle situation behind you....Is that some sort of dispenser of distilled spirits?

[Chewbacca Defense]

1 hour ago, T-Town said:

Year seven here and still zero trick or treaters. Neighborhood is all old people and has no sidewalks or streetlights so not that surprising I guess. 

Amazing sunset pictures!

Our neighborhood has kind of died off, still pretty busy but not as much as it used to be.  The neighborhood was starting to turn over before interest rates STB.  So, some empty nesters were able to sell to young families and get out of dodge.  Unfortunately, we got trapped here.  My wife and I are not big on Halloween, so we hang out in the back of the house with all of the lights off. 

Always amazes me that despite the fact we have all the lights off and don't have ANY decorations out, we usually still get a couple of knocks at the door.  Didn't get any this year, though I was surprised to see one family was already out at 4pm.  A lot of folks aren't even home from work yet!

 

 

[Phishy Wx]

The drier northern section of the Arctic Cordillera is largely covered with ice caps while glaciers are more common at the more humid southern end. Large portions of Ellesmere Island are covered with glaciers and ice, with Manson Icefield and Sydkap in the south; Prince of Wales Icefield and Agassiz Ice Cap along the central-east side of the island; and substantial ice cover in Northern Ellesmere Island. The northwest coast of Ellesmere Island was covered by a massive, 500 km (310 mi) long ice shelf until the 20th century. The Ellesmere ice shelf reduced by 90 percent in the twentieth century due to global warming, leaving the separate Alfred Ernest, Ayles, Milne, Ward Hunt, and Markham Ice Shelves.^[10] A 1986 survey of Canadian ice shelves found that 48 km² (19 sq mi), involving 3.3 km³ (0.79 cu mi) of ice, calved from the Milne and Ayles ice shelves between 1959 and 1974.^[11] The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, the largest remaining section of thick (greater than 10 m [33 ft]) landfast sea ice along the northern coastline of Ellesmere Island, lost 600 km (370 mi) of ice in a massive calving in 1961–1962.^[12] It further decreased by 27% in thickness (13 m, 43 ft) between 1967 and 1999.^[13] The breakup of the Ellesmere ice shelves has continued in the 21st century: the Ward Ice Shelf experienced a major breakup during summer 2002;^[14] the Ayles Ice Shelf calved entirely on August 13, 2005—the largest break-off of the ice shelf in 25 years, it may pose a threat to the oil industry in the Beaufort Sea (the piece is 66 km² [25 sq mi]).^[15]

The Barnes icecap is found in the central part of the Baffin Island and has been in retreat since at least the early 1960s when the Geographical Branch of the then Department of Mines & Technical Surveys sent a three-man survey team to the area to measure isostatic rebound and cross-valley features of the Isortoq River.

[Phishy Wx]

The Milne Ice Shelf, a fragment of the former Ellesmere Ice Shelf, is located in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is the second largest ice shelf in the Arctic Ocean. Situated on the north-west coast of Ellesmere Island, it is about 270 km (170 mi) west of Alert, Nunavut.

In 1986, the ice shelf had an area of about 290 km² (110 sq mi), with a central thickness of 100 m (330 ft).^[1] It had been the last ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic to be fully intact until July 2020, when over 40 percent of the sheet collapsed within two days, a consequence of global warming. An uninhabited research camp was lost when the shelf collapsed. It included instruments for measuring water flow through the ice shelf.^[2][3]

[HuskyMaestro]

40 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Trying to figure out the bottle situation behind you....Is that some sort of dispenser of distilled spirits?

Yessir! A liquor dispenser and mini bar I have set up with Kraken rum, tequila, and Kentucky bourbon whiskeys. Gets me through a lot of schoolwork, Seahawks games, and model riding for the winter .  In moderation of course!

[MossMan]

Happy Halloween! The kids really got a kick these skeletons playing soccer…With the goalies skull! Perfect night for trick or treating, crisp and dry! 

[Eastwind]

Hope everyone had a great Halloween !

Our cold dry weather is ending and rain is on the way. The midweek system has the heaviest moisture focused up in Washington but the weekend system will be focused down in Oregon.

 

[LowerGarfield]

It was in the low 40's during our trick or treat time. Not too bad. Fot down to about 34F when I checked about two hours ago.

My car lights are out again which means I probably won't be driving much the next few days. SE Washington should get pounded by the rain the next few days, favored compared to the Basin or even Spokane.

[snow_wizard]

13 hours ago, Meatyorologist said:

I got a question for y'all. If you could set up a weather station anywhere in the PNW, assuming the last century or so of records being accurately filled in, where would you put it?

I'd love to set one up near Cathedral Peak up by the border in the north Cascades. Good Arctic access, high alpine Cascade climate. Probably one of the more wild locations for snowfall in the world.

I have always been curious how much snow Mount Olympus gets.  I don't think anyone has ever stayed up there through a winter to take measurements.  The snowfall amounts up there must be truly incredible.

This is the best picture of that mountain I have ever seen.

 

 

[snow_wizard]

12 hours ago, SnowySeeker50 said:

Tried but just couldn't get below 33 degrees this morning. Some stations nearby did while others read higher.

It dropped to 29 here.  I ended up with 5 straight sub 30 lows here.  A new bench mark for my records for the month of October.

Currently 36.

[snow_wizard]

2 hours ago, Phishy Wx said:

The Milne Ice Shelf, a fragment of the former Ellesmere Ice Shelf, is located in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is the second largest ice shelf in the Arctic Ocean. Situated on the north-west coast of Ellesmere Island, it is about 270 km (170 mi) west of Alert, Nunavut.

In 1986, the ice shelf had an area of about 290 km² (110 sq mi), with a central thickness of 100 m (330 ft).^[1] It had been the last ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic to be fully intact until July 2020, when over 40 percent of the sheet collapsed within two days, a consequence of global warming. An uninhabited research camp was lost when the shelf collapsed. It included instruments for measuring water flow through the ice shelf.^[2][3]

I should point out that scientists have found that Glacier National Park didn't have any glaciers at all prior to the little ice age.  They completely melted sometime between the end of the last ice age and the end of the Medieval Warm Period.

So much of this stuff is natural cycle.  Climate change is a constant process.

[snow_wizard]

The ECMWF went from showing 8 inches of rain over the next 10 days for Seattle on last night's 0z to 3 inches on tonight's run.

[the_convergence_zone]

6 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

I should point out that scientists have found that Glacier National Park didn't have any glaciers at all prior to the little ice age.  They completely melted sometime between the end of the last ice age and the end of the Medieval Warm Period.

So much of this stuff is natural cycle.  Climate change is a constant process.

There are no “cycles” involved with what we’re currently doing to the planet, it’s a one way trip. 

[Ken in Wood Village]

In coming 🌧

[Chewbacca Defense]

End of the road for this stretch of overnight freezes, only got down to 36 last night.  I'm ready for the rain, I've gotten my usual sinus infection that I get whenever we have a stretch of cold dry winter air.

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

9 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

I have always been curious how much snow Mount Olympus gets.  I don't think anyone has ever stayed up there through a winter to take measurements.  The snowfall amounts up there must be truly incredible.

This is the best picture of that mountain I have ever seen.

 

 

My wife climbed it last year. It still has a snow field in August. It is on the rainy side so must get absolutely pounded with snow. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

9 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

I have always been curious how much snow Mount Olympus gets.  I don't think anyone has ever stayed up there through a winter to take measurements.  The snowfall amounts up there must be truly incredible.

This is the best picture of that mountain I have ever seen.

 

 

I've been all over the west exploring and hunting and the Olympics are one of the most rugged and beautiful places on earth. I've Thought about the snowfall as well and it almost has to be close to the baker record. The west slope of that mountain at 7k feet must just get nuked with snow. 

[the_convergence_zone]

23 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

My wife climbed it last year. It still has a snow field in August. It is on the rainy side so must get absolutely pounded with snow. 

Olympic National Park does have a long term record of the ~April 1 snow depth on Blue Glacier along with a number of other sites that they helicopter to every year and take depth and SWE observations with long metal poles. I think they also go out in January if I recall correctly. I don't think it's available online but if you ask the park scientists I bet you could get ahold of it. The Buckinghorse SNOTEL is on the windward side but is too low to really capture how much snow falls over there.

As part of the project that I worked on in grad school we put instruments in just about every clearing we could find on the SW side of the Olympic Mountains. We found that the ~1000-3000 ft elevation band got more precipitation than the higher elevations although there is a ton of local shadowing that depends on wind direction so it's hard to say where the rainiest spot of them all is. Out of what has long term instrumentation, the CRN site near Lake Quinault and the Humptulips RAWS site both get absolutely hammered and can easily hit 120-130 inches/year. And that CRN site is right on the valley floor, it doesn't need any elevation at all to achieve those crazy rainfall totals although we had a site at 1,500 ft elevation up on the ridge above it and that spot got even more, a few times it went over 12" of rain in a single event. I wish we had a long-term site there because it would go over 150 inches of rain for sure in the wetter years.

We also had a 10-ft trailer parked at ~3000 ft near Wynoochee Pass, that might have been the wettest spot of them all. During one storm cycle that spot picked up 40 inches of liquid equivalent in 10 days -- so Seattle's entire annual rainfall in just over a week!!! 

The physical reason is that you need the warm rain processes to achieve the really crazy annual precipitation totals -- it can't be achieved from snow alone. 

 

 

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

24 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I've been all over the west exploring and hunting and the Olympics are one of the most rugged and beautiful places on earth. I've Thought about the snowfall as well and it almost has to be close to the baker record. The west slope of that mountain at 7k feet must just get nuked with snow. 

Almost every hike in the olympics is brutal in terms of elevation gain. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

57 minutes ago, the_convergence_zone said:

Olympic National Park does have a long term record of the ~April 1 snow depth on Blue Glacier along with a number of other sites that they helicopter to every year and take depth and SWE observations with long metal poles. I think they also go out in January if I recall correctly. I don't think it's available online but if you ask the park scientists I bet you could get ahold of it. The Buckinghorse SNOTEL is on the windward side but is too low to really capture how much snow falls over there.

As part of the project that I worked on in grad school we put instruments in just about every clearing we could find on the SW side of the Olympic Mountains. We found that the ~1000-3000 ft elevation band got more precipitation than the higher elevations although there is a ton of local shadowing that depends on wind direction so it's hard to say where the rainiest spot of them all is. Out of what has long term instrumentation, the CRN site near Lake Quinault and the Humptulips RAWS site both get absolutely hammered and can easily hit 120-130 inches/year. And that CRN site is right on the valley floor, it doesn't need any elevation at all to achieve those crazy rainfall totals although we had a site at 1,500 ft elevation up on the ridge above it and that spot got even more, a few times it went over 12" of rain in a single event. I wish we had a long-term site there because it would go over 150 inches of rain for sure in the wetter years.

We also had a 10-ft trailer parked at ~3000 ft near Wynoochee Pass, that might have been the wettest spot of them all. During one storm cycle that spot picked up 40 inches of liquid equivalent in 10 days -- so Seattle's entire annual rainfall in just over a week!!! 

The physical reason is that you need the warm rain processes to achieve the really crazy annual precipitation totals -- it can't be achieved from snow alone. 

 

 

I have seen 10ft of snow at 2500ft around dusk peak near spider lake on the south side. I was up there on a snowmobile in 2007

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

46 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

Almost every hike in the olympics is brutal in terms of elevation gain. 

Even the mt Washington hike is a leg burner!

[ShawniganLake]

1 hour ago, the_convergence_zone said:

Olympic National Park does have a long term record of the ~April 1 snow depth on Blue Glacier along with a number of other sites that they helicopter to every year and take depth and SWE observations with long metal poles. I think they also go out in January if I recall correctly. I don't think it's available online but if you ask the park scientists I bet you could get ahold of it. The Buckinghorse SNOTEL is on the windward side but is too low to really capture how much snow falls over there.

As part of the project that I worked on in grad school we put instruments in just about every clearing we could find on the SW side of the Olympic Mountains. We found that the ~1000-3000 ft elevation band got more precipitation than the higher elevations although there is a ton of local shadowing that depends on wind direction so it's hard to say where the rainiest spot of them all is. Out of what has long term instrumentation, the CRN site near Lake Quinault and the Humptulips RAWS site both get absolutely hammered and can easily hit 120-130 inches/year. And that CRN site is right on the valley floor, it doesn't need any elevation at all to achieve those crazy rainfall totals although we had a site at 1,500 ft elevation up on the ridge above it and that spot got even more, a few times it went over 12" of rain in a single event. I wish we had a long-term site there because it would go over 150 inches of rain for sure in the wetter years.

We also had a 10-ft trailer parked at ~3000 ft near Wynoochee Pass, that might have been the wettest spot of them all. During one storm cycle that spot picked up 40 inches of liquid equivalent in 10 days -- so Seattle's entire annual rainfall in just over a week!!! 

The physical reason is that you need the warm rain processes to achieve the really crazy annual precipitation totals -- it can't be achieved from snow alone. 

 

 

Henderson Lake on Vancouver Island averages about 270” per year and can push it to near 370” in the record setting year. 1997

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 hour ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

Almost every hike in the olympics is brutal in terms of elevation gain. 

A lot of them are, but not all.

One trick is to start high, e.g. in the Deer Park or Hurricane Ridge areas. Even the Mt. Townsend trail has an upper trailhead that starts at about 4,000 feet elevation, which cuts the elevation gain roughly in half.

The Duckabush river trail has a pretty modest elevation gain if you turn around at Big Hump. That was always a springtime favourite of mine (great plant diversity because that area has some outlier populations of generally more southern species due to having never been glaciated, plus has a great variety of habitat types, including rocky balds).

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

The Canadian model is the only one that ever gets the shadow correct. Looks like I will see very little rain over the next week. 

 

[MossMan]

It’s November now! Think snow!

And posting in the November thread! 

Edited November 1, 2023 by MossMan

[the_convergence_zone]

6 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

A lot of them are, but not all.

One trick is to start high, e.g. in the Deer Park or Hurricane Ridge areas. Even the Mt. Townsend trail has an upper trailhead that starts at about 4,000 feet elevation, which cuts the elevation gain roughly in half.

The Duckabush river trail has a pretty modest elevation gain if you turn around at Big Hump. That was always a springtime favourite of mine (great plant diversity because that area has some outlier populations of generally more southern species due to having never been glaciated, plus has a great variety of habitat types, including rocky balds).

The Elwha and the East Fork Quinault (Enchanted Valley) are both nice rolling trails. And absolutely beautiful. I need to get out to the ones on the east side of the peninsula someday...

[Rubus Leucodermis]

7 minutes ago, the_convergence_zone said:

The Elwha and the East Fork Quinault (Enchanted Valley) are both nice rolling trails. And absolutely beautiful. I need to get out to the ones on the east side of the peninsula someday...

The Staircase (north fork Skokomish) area is also nice and relatively flat. Also the less well-known South Fork Skokimish area (outside the National Park on National Forest land) was a favourite of mine. Despite logging being permitted, there's a lot of old growth remaining. Also on NF land is the Dungeness River trail above Sequim.

Most of these require driving on unpaved roads to access, which tends to keep a lot of the crowds away (even though they are graded roads that any old car can navigate).

[Meatyorologist]

2 hours ago, the_convergence_zone said:

The Elwha and the East Fork Quinault (Enchanted Valley) are both nice rolling trails. And absolutely beautiful. I need to get out to the ones on the east side of the peninsula someday...

I had a wonderful opportunity to do a makeshift research/field project at the Elwha in my senior year. Explored and sampled many different parts of the river, went on hikes. We explored the river's mouth, a section immediately off highway 101, as well as the remnants of the Glines Dam and the recovering valley ecosystem. Some part of my soul still lives out on the Olympic peninsula.

[Meatyorologist]

I appreciate how models have since backed off on the shadowing component of tonight's rainstorm for north Seattle. We'll still get a piece of it, and we're right on the edge, but an inch of rain now seems like a decent bet.

[Meatyorologist]

18z GFS was nice. Consistently cool and active.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Obs for the last two days of the month. Ended up with a 58/30 day on the 30th. Morning frost, clear skies and afternoon east winds.

56/34 day on Halloween. Light morning frost then high clouds drifting in at times, calmer afternoon winds. Overall a very visually appealing day sky-wise.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Cascadia_Wx

[snow_wizard]

Pretty interesting to see higher heights over the GOA and Aleutians being advertised about a week out on the latest model runs.  Might be a shot to get things colder again.

[snow_wizard]

On 11/1/2023 at 9:48 AM, the_convergence_zone said:

Olympic National Park does have a long term record of the ~April 1 snow depth on Blue Glacier along with a number of other sites that they helicopter to every year and take depth and SWE observations with long metal poles. I think they also go out in January if I recall correctly. I don't think it's available online but if you ask the park scientists I bet you could get ahold of it. The Buckinghorse SNOTEL is on the windward side but is too low to really capture how much snow falls over there.

As part of the project that I worked on in grad school we put instruments in just about every clearing we could find on the SW side of the Olympic Mountains. We found that the ~1000-3000 ft elevation band got more precipitation than the higher elevations although there is a ton of local shadowing that depends on wind direction so it's hard to say where the rainiest spot of them all is. Out of what has long term instrumentation, the CRN site near Lake Quinault and the Humptulips RAWS site both get absolutely hammered and can easily hit 120-130 inches/year. And that CRN site is right on the valley floor, it doesn't need any elevation at all to achieve those crazy rainfall totals although we had a site at 1,500 ft elevation up on the ridge above it and that spot got even more, a few times it went over 12" of rain in a single event. I wish we had a long-term site there because it would go over 150 inches of rain for sure in the wetter years.

We also had a 10-ft trailer parked at ~3000 ft near Wynoochee Pass, that might have been the wettest spot of them all. During one storm cycle that spot picked up 40 inches of liquid equivalent in 10 days -- so Seattle's entire annual rainfall in just over a week!!! 

The physical reason is that you need the warm rain processes to achieve the really crazy annual precipitation totals -- it can't be achieved from snow alone. 

 

 

Even at that you need to take snowfall measurements every day to really know what the annual snowfall is.

[snow_wizard]

Kind of bizarre that a good 80% of the current analogs are from La Nina years.  Can't wait to see how the next couple of months play out!

[ShawniganLake]

Shawnigan Lake officially recorded 7 days with at least a trace of snow on the ground in October.  Pretty remarkable.  Very well could be the high water mark for this winter season.