January 2024 Weather in the PNW (Part I)

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

I mean, the odds against the crazy cold verifying were virtually zero anyhow. Backpedalling was inevitable. Some good snow chances coming up. In January. In a Niño winter.

1969 was a Nino.

I think it's premature to say top tier is off the table.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 minute ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

That’s just typical doe-eyed trolling. To be expected.

Hard to say who will get the goods this far out. Could easily all trend north.

[snow_wizard]

Just now, TigerWoodsLibido said:

This location sucks. We never get Arctic air down here anymore. Only 1 sub freezing high in 7 years.

Embarrassing and indicative of the rapid warming of this area.

Keep the faith.

[TT-SEA]

5 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

That’s just typical doe-eyed trolling. To be expected.

Are you talking about me?    How in the world am I trolling?   For reference... that was snow map that included the Portland area as well.    And regardless I am just taking every run as it comes.   You really want to start this?     This is the passive aggressive stuff you do.   Just stop.    

[Cascadia_Wx]

Just now, TacomaWx said:

I know it doesn’t always necessarily work this way but I’d trade more snow for colder. We’ve had so much snow the last few years anyways. 

A more aggressive initial penetration for cold means it likely lasts longer as well. Which means better chances for longer for everyone. And of course regional overrunning when things eventually warm up.

[TT-SEA]

Closer look at Saturday snow event...

[Deweydog]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

Closer look at Saturday snow event...

Mossy male votes NO

[snow_wizard]

I don't think it's relevant we're a in Nino right now given the pieces we have in play.  A lot of tools still say a big deal is very possible.  This GFS run is great for many of us.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 minute ago, Deweydog said:

Mossy male votes NO

As do all with discerning tastes.

[Requiem]

I think areas further south will be okay in the end 

[HuskyMaestro]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Closer look at Saturday snow event...

Olympia and Centralia looking to get the pepto goods. If only that purple can get further into Tacoma.. 

[snow_wizard]

5 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Hard to say who will get the goods this far out. Could easily all trend north.

Or south.

[TacomaWx]

1 minute ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

A more aggressive initial penetration for cold means it likely lasts longer as well. Which means better chances for longer for everyone. And of course regional overrunning when things eventually warm up.

All very true. I’d rather get a 18 degrees high temp smashing the coldest max on record for the century up here than a foot of snow. I know many other people would take the big snow nothing wrong with that. I’ve averaged about 12” of snow IMBY roughly the last 7 winters. Legit record cold is so hard to come by. 

[snow_wizard]

Looks like it's toying with the idea of a second act.

[TT-SEA]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

Or south.

Trend this morning on ECMWF was definitely west and then locked in.  

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Gonna lowkey be depressed as fuck seeing everybody's snow pictures when I haven't had the opportunity to post any daytime snow pictures since 2-25-19. And still zero Arctic airmasses at the upper level in over 7 years...

 

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, TacomaWx said:

All very true. I’d rather get a 18 degrees high temp smashing the coldest max on record for the century up here than a foot of snow. I know many other people would take the big snow nothing wrong with that. I’ve averaged about 12” of snow IMBY roughly the last 7 winters. Legit record cold is so hard to come by. 

We need at least 4 inches to achieve max cold though.  Max cold depends on snow cover.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

8 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

This location sucks. We never get Arctic air down here anymore. Only 1 sub freezing high in 7 years.

Embarrassing and indicative of the rapid warming of this area.

Is it possible for you to move?

[TigerWoodsLibido]

3 minutes ago, Requiem said:

I think areas further south will be okay in the end 

Doubtful.

[snow_wizard]

Just now, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Gonna lowkey be depressed as **** seeing everybody's snow pictures when I haven't had the opportunity to post any daytime snow pictures since 2-25-19. And still zero Arctic airmasses at the upper level in over 7 years...

 

I think your chances are still 50/50.

[TacomaWx]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

We need at least 4 inches to achieve max cold though.  Max cold depends on snow cover.

I’m sure if it got that cold the snow would probably be there too. 

[Meatyorologist]

The Euro is gonna cave to the GFS tonight and Santa is going to die. The Spire is onto something with the bulk of the Arctic air sliding east, not that we need a huge trough to get snow anyways since the 12z GFS showed an overrunning event, so why don't we just sneak in a brief 24 hour bleedout 30F overrunning event to shut you annoying hyped losers up and reset the pattern by hr168 so I can go back to planting daffodils and sharing warm EPS maps. As I've said many times before, once the holidays are over snow loses its magic and just becomes inconvenient to real people with actual lives.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

1 minute ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Is it possible for you to move?

No. I have severe epilepsy and our family is too poor.

[Cascadia_Wx]

2 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Is it possible for you to move?

The funny part is he’s done just fine for cold and snow in recent years, relative to the rest of the forum.

[Blizzard777]

48 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Your posts are amazing today.

I agree….wish there was more of this on the forum to teach us!   Way to go Fred! 

[TT-SEA]

18Z GFS hangs onto to the surface cold air well into Monday... way longer than the 12Z run.  

[iFred]

12 minutes ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

Will the AI models ever do ensembles?  Since the initialization data isn't perfect, so maybe they would.

I am also guessing someday with better satellites, we may have better data to input for initialization.

The amount of GPU compute for a traditional ensemble makes that a little cost prohibitive. For Graphcast, you can change some of the initialization parameters to act as a perturbation, but it isn't effective because that perturbation isn't going to be reflected in the training data and just wiped out a few frames in.

[ajreich]

3 minutes ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

Will the AI models ever do ensembles?  Since the initialization data isn't perfect, so maybe they would.

I am also guessing someday with better satellites, we may have better data to input for initialization.

Not quite in the same way, since they are by definition probabilistic.  The AI models are essentially taking a complex set of atmospheric conditions and turning them into mathematical vectors that can be used to query for similarity - the process of training is itself probabilistic, so you only need run the model once to determine the highest probability outcome for a given set of specific criteria. 

This is one of the fundamental advances in the field. Ensembles only exist to deal with the inherent stochastic limitations of a deterministic physics model; they are trying to capture the probability distribution, but in a very backwards way. We never known whether the ensemble distribution is representative of reality, or just a distribution of the limitations of the underlying physics packages. 
 

AI model solutions generally reflect the probabilities of actual weather conditions occurring, which is why they are/will be so much better than our current model outputs.  Add in the simplicity of adding additional data (adding additional vectors without having to bother with physics whackamole), the infinite geographic scaling and you end up with a completely different category of weather prediction that what we’re familiar with. 
 

Part of the existential crisis in weather forecasting behind closed doors right now is that this technology renders the NBM and much of the existing forecasting infrastructure obsolete, along with a lot of jobs devoted to developing and servicing the large global deterministic models. Lots of competing pressures and entrenched interests. 

[iFred]

5 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

The Euro is gonna cave to the GFS tonight and Santa is going to die. The Spire is onto something with the bulk of the Arctic air sliding east, not that we need a huge trough to get snow anyways since the 12z GFS showed an overrunning event, so why don't we just sneak in a brief 24 hour bleedout 30F overrunning event to shut you annoying hyped losers up and reset the pattern by hr168 so I can go back to planting daffodils and sharing warm EPS maps. As I've said many times before, once the holidays are over snow loses its magic and just becomes inconvenient to real people with actual lives.

Eat shit.

[snow_wizard]

4 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

The Euro is gonna cave to the GFS tonight and Santa is going to die. The Spire is onto something with the bulk of the Arctic air sliding east, not that we need a huge trough to get snow anyways since the 12z GFS showed an overrunning event, so why don't we just sneak in a brief 24 hour bleedout 30F overrunning event to shut you annoying hyped losers up and reset the pattern by hr168 so I can go back to planting daffodils and sharing warm EPS maps. As I've said many times before, once the holidays are over snow loses its magic and just becomes inconvenient to real people with actual lives.

Good lord.  The Graph Cast was the coldest yet.  Don't know which is the best model though.

[OysterPrintout]

If we can just hang on with the cold pool feels like the gorge will save the day down here again in the end. Annoying to kick the can down the road a bit but it's where we are.

[Front Ranger]

9 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

All very true. I’d rather get a 18 degrees high temp smashing the coldest max on record for the century up here than a foot of snow. I know many other people would take the big snow nothing wrong with that. I’ve averaged about 12” of snow IMBY roughly the last 7 winters. Legit record cold is so hard to come by. 

You've had it so much better than I did when I lived in Tacoma. 

[iFred]

Just now, OysterPrintout said:

If we can just hang on with the cold pool feels like the gorge will save the day down here again in the end. Annoying to kick the can down the road a bit but it's where we are.

I'll be in Moses Lake with my blowdryer aimed at the sky. If I can't have fun, neither should you.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, iFred said:

The amount of GPU compute for a traditional ensemble makes that a little cost prohibitive. For Graphcast, you can change some of the initialization parameters to act as a perturbation, but it isn't effective because that perturbation isn't going to be reflected in the training data and just wiped out a few frames in.

To me the Graph Cast looks kind of like an ensemble mean anyway.  Probably the nature of the beast.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Hahaha go to day ten on gfs and start clicking back runs. Anything can happen!!

[TigerWoodsLibido]

We don't fall below freezing on this run, damn. 14 freezes for Springfield so far though and some seasonably cool weather coming up.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

You've had it so much better than I did when I lived in Tacoma. 

You were there during the horrible period.  No doubt our winters bottomed out many years ago.

[RentonHill]

21 minutes ago, Weiner Warrior said:

Where's the train? I need to jump back on!!

 

[TT-SEA]

4 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Good lord.  The Graph Cast was the coldest yet.  Don't know which is the best model though.

@Meatyorologist was doing the reverse psychology thing.   It has worked for years for me and Randy during Seahawks games!    Its a great tactic.   

[snow_wizard]

Just now, TigerWoodsLibido said:

We don't fall below freezing on this run, D**n. 14 freezes for Springfield so far though and some seasonably cool weather coming up.

Some models say you are going to be fine.