January 2024 Weather in the PNW (Part II)

[MossMan]

5 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

We're having fun on here.  We must be feeling a bit more comfortable something has a good chance of happening!

Much better mood than overnight and early this morning. I think that was our low point! 

[snow_wizard]

The 18z EPS had 12 members go to -14.7 or lower for 850s and it was still dropping at the end.

[GHweatherChris]

1 minute ago, CliffMassYelledAtMe said:

I think he really, really likes to be right. And that's hard in meteorology. You'll notice that his post from a few days ago mentioned the possibility of snow in the lowlands, but didn't commit. Which does make sense because there is uncertainty. But he doesn't want to be wrong (who does?) so he wants to temper expectations with lots of talk of uncertainty but still mention the possibility and then make predictions when things are much closer. 

 

It makes sense, but it also feels kind of defensive at times, especially when he makes declarations like the ground being too warm or whatever. The models can be wrong, but he can't be.

Unless the WRF-ABC model is showing something big he ain't buying it.

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, GHweatherChris said:

Nope, those pics don't show enough snow to be next Friday.

Might very well be true. 

[CliffMassYelledAtMe]

Just now, GHweatherChris said:

I was gonna mow in preparation for snow, its out of hand this winter (been super busy), but I sacrificed a pristine base for snowfall to incentivize it to actually happen.

We have to go and make sure very last dog poo is cleaned up. No surprises in the snow, thank you very much. Usually get most of them, but sometimes the dog goes out on his own and leaves a surprise.

[SpaceRace22]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

The 18z EPS had 12 members go to -14.7 or lower for 850s and it was still dropping at the end.

The 18z EPS were shockingly good and I'm surprised people aren't freaking out more about them, lol

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

7 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

And I apologize for my meltdown earlier. My bad day doesn't need to be projected onto y'all. I truly hope folks get snow and get to post amazing snow photos.

Esp @MR.SNOWMIZER @snow_wizard @SilverFallsAndrew @TT-SEA @Meatyorologist @Cold Snap and @iFred plus lots of others.

Y'all are a class act and I'm truly grateful for this forum.

We've seen far worse meltdowns, so no need to apologize.  And we get why, and this is the place to vent about it, within reason of course, and I think you were within reason.

[GHweatherChris]

Just now, CliffMassYelledAtMe said:

We have to go and make sure very last dog poo is cleaned up. No surprises in the snow, thank you very much. Usually get most of them, but sometimes the dog goes out on his own and leaves a surprise.

Only dogs around here do not belong to us, I think I have sufficiently scared them all away from schitting in our yard, also scooped up our neighbors dog schit up a few times this summer and deposited it in a straight line in their yard.

[CliffMassYelledAtMe]

2 minutes ago, MossMan said:

Much better mood than overnight and early this morning. I think that was our low point! 

I'm guessing there is still another anxiety filled melt-down that will occur, especially if the front is slower than predicted, which it almost always is. That will be a major freak out and there is probably one more in there too. I'm guessing Tues or Wed.

 

Honestly, even this much of a chance is so much more than I thought there would be this winter, so it's all good.

[MossMan]

7 minutes ago, GHweatherChris said:

Nope, those pics don't show enough snow to be next Friday.

Will be more like this! 

[MossMan]

6 minutes ago, CliffMassYelledAtMe said:

We have to go and make sure very last dog poo is cleaned up. No surprises in the snow, thank you very much. Usually get most of them, but sometimes the dog goes out on his own and leaves a surprise.

I do the same!

[Meatyorologist]

I once had an engaging conversation with Cliff while he was four glasses of wine deep at some UW atmospheric sciences convention in the Summer of 2019. We had a debate over whether the convergence zone forecast for the next day would produce thunder or not. He remained more optimistic than I that dizzied evening, tripping over his words to elegantly describe the processes of air motion and thermal transfer. That man loves the science of meteorology as much as any one of us nerds. As you'd expect, I was enthralled in that special moment.

Somewhere out there he's slumped back in his chair, content, knowing he won. (Not that I cared, I got my lightning.)

[Ken in Wood Village]

I didn't realize how much rain I had until I looked at my weather station. Almost 1" today

[Ken in Wood Village]

Just went over an inch with this heavy shower

[TigerWoodsLibido]

1.10" of rain today so far and 1.90" for the month so far.

[Slushy Inch]

4 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

I once had an engaging conversation with Cliff while he was four glasses of wine deep at some UW atmospheric sciences convention in the Summer of 2019. We had a debate over whether the convergence zone forecast for the next day would produce thunder or not. He remained more optimistic than I that dizzied evening, tripping over his words to elegantly describe the processes of air motion and thermal transfer. That man loves the science of meteorology as much as any one of us nerds. As you'd expect, I was enthralled in that special moment.

Somewhere out there he's slumped back in his chair, content, knowing he won. (Not that I cared, I got my lightning.)

Is this a real story…?

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Down to 39F so at least it's chilly. Much better than those shitty 55F+ days.

[MossMan]

A theme I have noticed over the last few years is that the birds really ramp up their game at my bird feeder when we get close to a cold snowy event…And that has started again, they were devouring the seed all day today! 

[CloudJunkie]

12 minutes ago, CliffMassYelledAtMe said:

I think he really, really likes to be right. And that's hard in meteorology. You'll notice that his post from a few days ago mentioned the possibility of snow in the lowlands, but didn't commit. Which does make sense because there is uncertainty. But he doesn't want to be wrong (who does?) so he wants to temper expectations with lots of talk of uncertainty but still mention the possibility and then make predictions when things are much closer. 

 

It makes sense, but it also feels kind of defensive at times, especially when he makes declarations like the ground being too warm or whatever. The models can be wrong, but he can't be.

Same thing happened in geology when plate tectonics was discovered. There was a whole generation of old professors who just couldn't handle the fact that their doctorate research was now obsolete.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosyncline

[OysterPrintout]

25 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

And I apologize for my meltdown earlier. My bad day doesn't need to be projected onto y'all. I truly hope folks get snow and get to post amazing snow photos.

Esp @MR.SNOWMIZER @snow_wizard @SilverFallsAndrew @TT-SEA @Meatyorologist @MossMan @Deweydog @Cold Snap and @iFred plus lots of others.

Y'all are a class act and I'm truly grateful for this forum.

You did this in 2019 and I ended up looking at a dusting while you were hoisting a beer and getting nuked I see what you're up to! 

[Cold Snap]

Down to 33 here right now.

[Mid Valley Duck]

19 minutes ago, SpaceRace22 said:

The 18z EPS were shockingly good and I'm surprised people aren't freaking out more about them, lol

It was outstanding for Portland. 31/50 were at -10c at the end of the run with another 7 between -8c and -10c.

 

[Meatyorologist]

8 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

Is this a real story…?

yeah lol. i've been around in the weather community.

did you know, morgan palmer is exactly how he is on TV as he is in regular conversation?

[Skagit Weather]

39 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

This graphic… 

I generally like the NWS attempts to communicate uncertainty, but in my opinion this is kind of ridiculous and perhaps one of the worst ones I've seen if you're considering the audience is the general public. One reason is simply design complaints. You can barely read the temperatures at the bottom. I have good eyes and I had to get out my magnifying glass. It's like when the graph was created they weren't sure how to change the font size of the x/y labels.

Also, this is incredibly confusing. I have been following weather for decades and the run-up to this storm for days and it took me a minute to understand what this was implying. I mean it looks like they took all the minimum values from the ensembles (I don't know if it's GFS, NBM, Euro, or a combination) on Friday morning (1/12) at 12z and put them into buckets. It looks to me that based on the model they're using there's a 20% chance for the low temperature to be in the single digits or below and a 20% chance for it to be above 35F, but I can guarantee most people are not going to take that information from this. As a weather nerd, I think it does a decent job showing the separation between the warm ensembles and cold ensembles, but there's no additional discussion about that to give context to people not heavily invested in it.

Finally, this is for a single location (I imagine SEA), one of the warmest in the entire state during Arctic outbreaks. But most people who are going to see this have no idea about that. Maps are much better to convey this sort of temperature information and are a more standard method because they address regional climate differences. If they wanted to focus specifically on Seattle they could chose a much better method than this histogram.

My understanding is there are accepted graphic templates that are handed down from on high (changing each year) to each NWS forecast office and the meteorologists in each office can decide which ones to use to communicate forecasts with the general public. I'm pretty sure NWS Seattle is not responsible for the design of the graphic, but it's a questionable choice to distribute.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Down to 35.2˚F after a max of 44.9˚F.

[Slushy Inch]

1 minute ago, Meatyorologist said:

yeah lol. i've been around in the weather community.

did you know, morgan palmer is exactly how he is on TV as he is in regular conversation?

Wow. I’m 23, CS degree, still considering meteorology. 
He is? Haha

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Lots of snowflakes showing up in my official forecast.

[TacomaWx]

3 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

yeah lol. i've been around in the weather community.

did you know, morgan palmer is exactly how he is on TV as he is in regular conversation?

I got to meet Walter Kelly when I was like 12. Just me my brother and him and we got to watch him film some weather forecast segments and talk about the bust that was January 2011. Super cool memory. 

[Meatyorologist]

11 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

Wow. I’m 23, CS degree, still considering meteorology. 
He is? Haha

At least you have a degree! I'm 22, 2/3rd of my undergrad creds done, currently taking a break from school to figure my mind out and build some funds for when I hopefully transfer to UW. All the cool stuff I've done I did for my senior project, save for the UW convention, which Anthony invited me to after I got out of HS.

[SpaceRace22]

7 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

yeah lol. i've been around in the weather community.

did you know, morgan palmer is exactly how he is on TV as he is in regular conversation?

So you're something of a weather South Lake Union Trolley, you could say

[Weiner Warrior]

[Meatyorologist]

5 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

I got to meet Walter Kelly when I was like 12. Just me my brother and him and we got to watch him film some weather forecast segments and talk about the bust that was January 2011. Super cool memory. 

That's so awesome. My mom and I ran into Rebecca Stevenson on her way to work in Ravenna when I was 7. I must've been such a cute and passionate little kid, since she made time to have an unintelligible conversation about this thing I read about called "El Niño". I don't remember what I said, she just laughed along with my mom at all the nonsense. Sweet person.

[SeanNyberg]

My puppy Daisy reviewing the 18z Euro… she’s liking the trends today. Lol

[GHweatherChris]

5 minutes ago, Weiner Warrior said:

Well this post was unnecessary..... 

[Slushy Inch]

10 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

At least you have a degree! I'm 22, 2/3rd of my undergrad creds done, currently taking a break from school to figure my mind out and build some funds for when I hopefully transfer to UW. All the cool stuff I've done I did for my senior project, save for the UW convention, which Anthony invited me to after I got out of HS.

Dang I thought I would be youngest on the forum 

[Anti Marine Layer]

53 minutes ago, Minion said:

Might mention the grass is to long 

The second to last word of the sentence is too short.

[Cold Snap]

1 minute ago, Slushy Inch said:

Dang I thought I would be youngest on the forum 

I’m also 23. It seems like there’s a decent amount of people around our age on this forum.

[Slushy Inch]

Always impressive to me how much cooler the east side is. I need to find a way to get back over there.

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

19 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

I generally like the NWS attempts to communicate uncertainty, but in my opinion this is kind of ridiculous and perhaps one of the worst ones I've seen if you're considering the audience is the general public. One reason is simply design complaints. You can barely read the temperatures at the bottom. I have good eyes and I had to get out my magnifying glass. It's like when the graph was created they weren't sure how to change the font size of the x/y labels.

Also, this is incredibly confusing. I have been following weather for decades and the run-up to this storm for days and it took me a minute to understand what this was implying. I mean it looks like they took all the minimum values from the ensembles (I don't know if it's GFS, NBM, Euro, or a combination) on Friday morning (1/12) at 12z and put them into buckets. It looks to me that based on the model they're using there's a 20% chance for the low temperature to be in the single digits or below and a 20% chance for it to be above 35F, but I can guarantee most people are not going to take that information from this. As a weather nerd, I think it does a decent job showing the separation between the warm ensembles and cold ensembles, but there's no additional discussion about that to give context to people not heavily invested in it.

Finally, this is for a single location (I imagine SEA), one of the warmest in the entire state during Arctic outbreaks. But most people who are going to see this have no idea about that. Maps are much better to convey this sort of temperature information and are a more standard method because they address regional climate differences. If they wanted to focus specifically on Seattle they could chose a much better method than this histogram.

My understanding is there are accepted graphic templates that are handed down from on high (changing each year) to each NWS forecast office and the meteorologists in each office can decide which ones to use to communicate forecasts with the general public. I'm pretty sure NWS Seattle is not responsible for the design of the graphic, but it's a questionable choice to distribute.

They do this all the time. They are trying too hard. They have tried a lot of different formats out, eventually they will figure it out. 

[Doinko]

49 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

And I apologize for my meltdown earlier. My bad day doesn't need to be projected onto y'all. I truly hope folks get snow and get to post amazing snow photos.

Esp @MR.SNOWMIZER @snow_wizard @SilverFallsAndrew @TT-SEA @Meatyorologist @MossMan @Deweydog @Cold Snap and @iFred plus lots of others.

Y'all are a class act and I'm truly grateful for this forum.

Hoping you score!