January 2024 Weather in the PNW (Part I)

[BLI snowman]

6 minutes ago, lowlandsnow said:

I just remember the ensembles in December 2021 being so much colder particular the EURO which concerns me

8-9 days out? There was quite a bit of waffling on the ensemble means, although the OPS stayed fairly consistent from there despite the usual short range pullback. At several points that airmass was being modeled like December 1990 even though the block never supported it 

Not saying we won't see major changes still. That's the whole point. At this range further changes really should be the only expectation. That being said, the ensemble bumps we are seeing are well within the margin of error at this range when compared with past airmasses. 

Edited January 4 by BLI snowman

[Kolk1604]

2 minutes ago, westcoastexpat said:

The ops run is definitely in a world of its own 

Yeah in the world of the EMCWF and GEM 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

2 minutes ago, Timmy Supercell said:

I thought Feb 2019 would be 7-10 days of really fun winter up in K-Falls, turned out to be a month of snow. 

Exactly. Even here in the south valley had like 20” in a 72 hour stretch from 2-25 to 2-27 in 2019.

[iFred]

13 minutes ago, lowlandsnow said:

It's really a huge step back, very concerning

Yup, it's over.

[SpaceRace22]

Friendly reminder that things are literally always going to waffle after the 180 hour mark, and that's okay. You can't seriously expect literally every single run of every single model to get 5 degrees colder and crap out an ensemble mean with 4" more snow than the last one. If the models existed for some of the big historic events, guaranteed they would have shown some even more extreme solutions that eventually took a "step back" into what actually happened.

[Corncob]

3 hours ago, LowerGarfield said:

We all know there are probably like 5-10 lurkers right now who have been reading the thread but have never posted. During the 2019 event, I checked this site religiously  every day before joining like 2 years later. Before the event starts, I challenge you to create an account and say hello! No professional met experience required, but of course those are always appreciated. So if you live in WA, OR, ID, MT, or even northern CA join us...and share your snow totals later.

Fine. I’ve been lurking here for years. I live in Shoreline and do hyperlocal forecasting for friends between the ship canal and Everett since about 2018. I also work with mutual aid groups to help homeless communities get prepared for bad weather.

I moved from Mississippi where I was into tornado and hurricane prediction and fell in love with Seattle weather during 2008 when I lived on Cap Hill. I was a UW grad student and therefore a Mass-hole for several years as I learned the region’s dynamics. I definitely have my favorite and not-favorite posters on this forum, too. I’ll let you guess who.

I always thought it’d be bad luck to create an account preceding a possible snow event but never got around to it otherwise. So if this event busts, I blame Garfield.

[Phishy Wx]

what the GEFS is advertising is uncertainty, but we're still like 8 days+ out so expected.

[Deweydog]

So we DON’T know exactly what will happen?

[TigerWoodsLibido]

1 minute ago, Corncob said:

Fine. I’ve been lurking here for years. I live in Shoreline and do hyperlocal forecasting for friends between the ship canal and Everett since about 2018. I also work with mutual aid groups to help homeless communities get prepared for bad weather.

I moved from Mississippi where I was into tornado and hurricane prediction and fell in love with Seattle weather during 2008 when I lived on Cap Hill. I was a UW grad student and therefore a Mass-hole for several years as I learned the region’s dynamics. I definitely have my favorite and not-favorite posters on this forum, too. I’ll let you guess who.

I always thought it’d be bad luck to create an account preceding a possible snow event but never got around to it otherwise. So if this event busts, I blame Garfield.

I enjoy seeing the new posts from members who have been here a while and also the newbies that join up when a potential winter event is being depicted on the models.

[SouthHillFrosty]

4 minutes ago, iFred said:

Yup, it's over.

[Front Ranger]

As long as the Euro looks good through day 8 and the EPS looks good after that, the odds are in your favor.

That being said, the more model agreement the better...we've definitely seen that down through the years.

[westcoastexpat]

7 minutes ago, westcoastexpat said:

The ops run is definitely in a world of its own 

ECMWF ops run also much colder than it's ensembles.

However both the GEFS and EPS clearly have a bimodal distribution - roughly half the members a cold solution, the other half a more seasonal solution. The ensemble mean represents very few actual members, so it's looking all or nothing.

Given the ops and control runs are siding with the colder members, I would lean toward a colder solution at this stage.

[Phishy Wx]

well at least I can concentrate on getting some work done now

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Ok a 4 hour lull for the F5 key til the evening runs kick off.

[SouthHillFrosty]

Judahs AI small dick forecasting model was right. The east coast is going to get all the cold 

[Winterdog]

9 minutes ago, westcoastexpat said:

The ops run is definitely in a world of its own 

Your graph doesn't look much like this one.  The average line on yours never gets near -5 while this on shows an average below -5 much of the timeline.  Why is that?

[RentonHill]

1 minute ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Judahs AI small **** forecasting model was right. The east coast is going to get all the cold 

tiny pecker wins again!!!

[lowlandsnow]

Just now, Winterdog said:

Your graph doesn't look much like this one.  The average line on yours never gets near -5 while this on shows an average below -5 much of the timeline.  Why is that?

Surface vs 850 mb

[Kolk1604]

[Cascadia_Wx]

1 minute ago, Winterdog said:

Your graph doesn't look much like this one.  The average line on yours never gets near -5 while this on shows an average below -5 much of the timeline.  Why is that?

One is 2m (surface) temps, one is 850mb temps.

[Winterdog]

1 minute ago, lowlandsnow said:

Surface vs 850 mb

Thanks!  I knew there had to be an explanation.

[the_convergence_zone]

13 minutes ago, iFred said:

Yup, it's over.

I just got back from returning the bananas that I bought this morning. 

[Winterdog]

1 minute ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

One is 2m (surface) temps, one is 850mb temps.

Yeah, I could have stared at that thing for an hour and probably never would have seen that huge label telling me that.

[umadbro]

13 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

So we DON’T know exactly what will happen?

Speak for yourself. I know exactly what will happen

[RentonHill]

10 minutes ago, westcoastexpat said:

ECMWF ops run also much colder than it's ensembles.

However both the GEFS and EPS clearly have a bimodal distribution - roughly half the members a cold solution, the other half a more seasonal solution. The ensemble mean represents very few actual members, so it's looking all or nothing.

Given the ops and control runs are siding with the colder members, I would lean toward a colder solution at this stage.

There are several members who stay warm and then get cold later. 

[LowerGarfield]

17 minutes ago, Corncob said:

Fine. I’ve been lurking here for years. I live in Shoreline and do hyperlocal forecasting for friends between the ship canal and Everett since about 2018. I also work with mutual aid groups to help homeless communities get prepared for bad weather.

I moved from Mississippi where I was into tornado and hurricane prediction and fell in love with Seattle weather during 2008 when I lived on Cap Hill. I was a UW grad student and therefore a Mass-hole for several years as I learned the region’s dynamics. I definitely have my favorite and not-favorite posters on this forum, too. I’ll let you guess who.

I always thought it’d be bad luck to create an account preceding a possible snow event but never got around to it otherwise. So if this event busts, I blame Garfield.

You have full permission to blame me. We're happy to have you here! Feel free to share what you know :D.

[snow_wizard]

45 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

The chances of having that many  days in a row below freezing for highs is almost impossible/

Not really.  We had 10 in Jan 1969.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

22 minutes ago, SpaceRace22 said:

Friendly reminder that things are literally always going to waffle after the 180 hour mark, and that's okay. You can't seriously expect literally every single run of every single model to get 5 degrees colder and crap out an ensemble mean with 4" more snow than the last one. If the models existed for some of the big historic events, guaranteed they would have shown some even more extreme solutions that eventually took a "step back" into what actually happened.

Obvious troll.

It has to be epic, super-duper top tier or else you’re just trying to get a rise out of people.

Ban him, @iFred!

[RentonHill]

2 minutes ago, RentonHill said:

There are several members who stay warm and then get cold later. 

I've removed all the members that get cold (<15) before the 13th, leaving just the early warm ones. 

[snow_wizard]

BTW...the GEFS looks pretty good at the 500mb level.  Just not quite as much back digging as the 12z, which is the only run that has been better than this for this event.  6z was in the same ballpark as the 18z.  Both of those way better than the 0z.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

3 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Not really.  We had 10 in Jan 1969.

Like i said almost impossible, or maybe every 50 years? Most of the time we get 3-5 days.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Not really.  We had 10 in Jan 1969.

Which sort of proves his point. If those kind of things are limited to the topmost tier of the top tier, they are pretty much by definition “almost impossible” to get. And El Niño makes our odds even longer.

Speaking of the latter, given the overall state of things, the models are looking pretty darn good for snow lovers.

[SpaceRace22]

Okay I just looked at the 18z GEFS, and they aren't really even a step back? Y'all are wack.

Anywho, here's some actual footage of me opening the back door on Jan 14th 2024

[snow_wizard]

16 minutes ago, Kolk1604 said:

I thought it was over!

[Front Ranger]

5 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Not really.  We had 10 in Jan 1969.

It's like a 100 year event.

Set expectations accordingly. 

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

Don't know if anyone posted this, got it from Cliffs blog, but here is the monthly forecast for January from the ECMWF

[snow_wizard]

3 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Which sort of proves his point. If those kind of things are limited to the topmost tier of the top tier, they are pretty much by definition “almost impossible” to get. And El Niño makes our odds even longer.

Speaking of the latter, given the overall state of things, the models are looking pretty darn good for snow lovers.

!968-69 WAS an El Nino. 

[SpaceRace22]

Just now, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Which sort of proves his point. If those kind of things are limited to the topmost tier of the top tier, they are pretty much by definition “almost impossible” to get. And El Niño makes our odds even longer.

Speaking of the latter, given the overall state of things, the models are looking pretty darn good.

Considering that we've only been keeping records in this region ~150 years, I don't even think an event that has occurred once in that period is really all that "impossible". If the last 150 years is a representative sample (and it's not), over 1,000 years an event that extreme will happen 6-7 times.

Insanely rare and may not happen in our lifetimes? Yes, totally. But "almost impossible"? No way. June 2021 should have taught everyone that the type of extreme events that we think are impossible, really are not.

[SpaceRace22]

4 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

It's like a 100 year event.

Set expectations accordingly. 

Maybe I just view things differently, but a 1 in 100 year event doesn't automatically hit me as "no chance, not even worth considering". People play slots in Vegas and get excited over far worse odds than that.\

It's a 1% chance for any given winter, but the important thing here is that the setup we have shown has boosted that 1% into something more meaningful right in this moment. You roll the dice every single January, and it will only happen 1 in 100 of them. You roll the dice every single January where the models are already showing the setup they are showing, and the odds are a lot better than 1 in 100.

[Requiem]

Ensembles blips and waffling seem well within expectation for 8-10 days out? What matters is pattern evolution, which seems consistent at this current moment. On the other hand this is forum custom