January Weather In The PNW 2024 (Part III) - The Warming Shot

[SnowWillarrive]

1 minute ago, RCola said:

Bets for 18z Euro?

My guess is low comes in south enough for Mount Vernon north. Rain south of that.

18z will show low south of Olympia

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Here’s how much ice has fallen in downtown Springfield so far.

And more on the way…

[RCola]

1 minute ago, SnowWillarrive said:

18z will show low south of Olympia

One can dream  

[ShawniganLake]

Canadian mesoscale models think the trough from the north is coming in stronger.  Northern areas are going to get a big thump of snow through Wednesday. 

[Chewbacca Defense]

1 minute ago, Slushy Inch said:

The distance you can go on a charge has become pretty good but not in a situation like this 

Petrol vehicles are so much more practical in a SHTF situation like what is going on in Oregon now, or when the Cascadia Fault finally decides to do it's thing..

If you can get the gasoline into the area, you can get it into the cars.  We have plenty of readily available fuel in gas station tanks if it was a major SHTF situation.  It would take some creativity, but it could happen.

If you can't get gas into the area, you can pretty much guarantee there is not going to be any power to the area...

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

18 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Dude you are in a sweet spot. 4-8 very possible. 

My flight back is Wednesday morning. I have 7” here in middle Tennessee 

[TT-SEA]

10 minutes ago, Dave said:

I've been waiting for a decent news article to come out, but there was a traffic jam yesterday that was up to FIFTEEN hours long with temps in the 20's on I-5 northbound. A bunch of big rigs wrecked, flipped, jackknifed, took out power poles, etc. A backup of 25 miles. EV cars running out of battery, people freezing, just an unbelievable situation. It was around the Cottage Grove area. I'll post an article when I find one. ODOT was completely inept and did not close the freeway so thousands of people got on the freeway not knowing what was ahead of them. No way to get out. Just a total nightmare.

Wow... what a mess.    And possibly more freezing rain coming.   

@SnowWillarrive sounds awesome right?  

[MossMan]

10 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

These ev cars just aren't there yet with the technology,  sure they work but this is a great example of why battery technology has a ways to go.

Funny…I was just talking to two of my co workers an hour ago that bought electric cars this summer, and they were shocked about how their range dramatically dropped starting on Thursday and were not expecting that at all. One had to scramble while down in Bellevue on Friday to find a quick charge station. 

Edited January 15 by MossMan

[Slushy Inch]

1 minute ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Petrol vehicles are so much more practical in a SHTF situation like what is going on in Oregon now, or when the Cascadia Fault finally decides to do it's thing..

If you can get the gasoline into the area, you can get it into the cars.  We have plenty of readily available fuel in gas station tanks if it was a major SHTF situation.  It would take some creativity, but it could happen.

If you can't get gas into the area, you can pretty much guarantee there is not going to be any power to the area...

Good thing SHTF hitting the fan is rare. 

[Dave]

Oops. That's my Doug Fir drooping to about 5 feet above the road.

 

 

[Chewbacca Defense]

2 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

Good thing SHTF hitting the fan is rare. 

Yes but.....even up here where we got ZERO snow, we are getting alerts to turn our heat down, don't do laundry and conserve power.  What about plugging your car in?

 

Same thing with opposite side of the temp spectrum, you get a good heatwave going on and the same warnings come out.  Conserve power.

[MossMan]

Hopefully MS parks his electric somewhere less slippy slidy this time! 

 

[Phishy Wx]

and here come the anti EV goober comments

 

a smart person has an EV for around town errands in decent wx (99.9% of the time) and an ICE vehicle for times like these (although wouldn't make a difference in this situation if you were stuck in a traffic jam)

but yeah let's cherry pick a fairly rare ice storm occurrence to trash EVs

[Dave]

BTW, that is all ice. A combination of an inch and a half of sleet and a half inch of ZR all blended together and frozen solid. We didn't get any snow at all.

[Randyc321]

2 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

and here come the anti EV goober comments

 

a smart person has an EV for around town errands in decent wx (99.9% of the time) and an ICE vehicle for times like these (although wouldn't make a difference in this situation if you were stuck in a traffic jam)

but yeah let's cherry pick a fairly rare ice storm occurrence to trash EVs

Or, we could just talk about weather hear and rant in other, more appropriate threads.   Same with all the sports bs.

[Dave]

Here is a reddit thread that had many people that were stuck in the traffic jam posting about it. It just sounds like pure misery. Chains are required on I-5 from Cottage Grove north.

 

[MossMan]

7 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

and here come the anti EV goober comments

 

a smart person has an EV for around town errands in decent wx (99.9% of the time) and an ICE vehicle for times like these (although wouldn't make a difference in this situation if you were stuck in a traffic jam)

but yeah let's cherry pick a fairly rare ice storm occurrence to trash EVs

I would use an electric vehicle for my 1.6 mile round trip commute each day! 

[Slushy Inch]

18z euro a little south so far

[Phishy Wx]

2 minutes ago, MossMan said:

I would use an electric vehicle for my 1.6 mile round trip commute each day! 

you should.  If I had a commute I would too, but my commute is about 10' down the hall in my house

[Slushy Inch]

[van city]

2 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

[Phishy Wx]

WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM TUESDAY TO 4 AM PST
THURSDAY...

* WHAT...Heavy snow expected. Total snow accumulations between 6 to
12 inches in the valleys and 12 to 18 inches in the mountains.

* WHERE...Airway Heights, Priest River, Moscow, Deer Park, Plummer,
Chewelah, Tiger, Worley, Hayden, Springdale-Hunters Road,
Fruitland, Davenport, Coeur d'Alene, Eastport, Metaline, Spokane
Valley, Newport, Colville, Fairfield, Post Falls, Downtown
Spokane, Bonners Ferry, Athol, Kettle Falls, Flowery Trail Road,
Schweitzer Mountain Road, Genesee, Northport, Cheney, Orin-Rice
Road, Potlatch, Clark Fork, Metaline Falls, Ione, Sandpoint, and
Rockford.

* WHEN...From 10 PM Tuesday to 4 AM PST Thursday.

* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult. The hazardous conditions
could impact the Wednesday morning and evening commutes.

[TT-SEA]

No real trend for Wednesday morning when low reaches the coast... 18Z run now included here.    Whatcom County and SW BC going to get pounded for sure. 

[Slushy Inch]

Convergence zone ZR I don’t think so.

[TT-SEA]

[Slushy Inch]

2 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

No real trend for Wednesday morning when low reaches the coast... 18Z run now included here.    Whatcom County and SW BC going to get pounded for sure. 

It is colder though.

[bainbridgekid]

I was able to walk on Lake Washington near the shore at Log Boom Park in Kenmore today. 

[TT-SEA]

18Z loop of entire system.

[Slushy Inch]

2 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

That little blip over central sound is from convergence zone

[MossMan]

10 minutes ago, van city said:

Literally just needs to trend another 10 miles to the south and I’m good lol 

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

I was able to walk on Lake Washington near the shore at Log Boom Park in Kenmore today. 

Palm!  Bet it will still be there during the boating season. 

[Phishy Wx]

I noticed if Vancouver BC/SW BC gets a good storm it's usually good for us over here.  not sure if there's a correlation, but i've noticed it a few times over the past 6 winters

[Slushy Inch]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

18Z loop of entire system.

Cool how there is an Arctic front going south up north. Still makes this a more unpredictable situation

[ShawniganLake]

14 minutes ago, van city said:

Track reminds me of Dec 19-20 of 2022 but airmass is milder. 

[crf450ish]

8 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

I was able to walk on Lake Washington near the shore at Log Boom Park in Kenmore today. 

WOW!!! I am curious as to when the last time this lake froze over enough to allow this!! Incredible.

[Skagit Weather]

14 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

It's so darn close! Maybe this is going to be like February 2014 where I had like 2.50" of precipitation that all fell as snow/snowrain while a couple miles to my north places got buried. I got 1-2" of snow/slop out of it, but I was so close to almost 1-2 feet of snow. The temperature was stuck at 33F for two days straight.

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, crf450ish said:

WOW!!! I am curious as to when the last time this lake froze over enough to allow this!! Incredible.

I think the entire lake froze in 1950.   

[MossMan]

Still a full day of model riding coming up! 

[SnowWillarrive]

10 minutes ago, MossMan said:

Literally just needs to trend another 10 miles to the south and I’m good lol 

I still think there will be some surprises with this. Wouldn’t surprise me if you see a period of snow.

[Andstorm]

GFS 12z ensembles are pretty wild. Portland area warms up for like 12 hours before temps drop back down to 30s, which is clearly the effect of second cold trough and return of offshore flow. EURO definitely not as on board but does reflect the cool down thurs-fri. This is why the situation Tues-Wed feels so precarious to me for Portland. If GFS verifies (for a change) there is a non-zero chance Portland stays near or below freezing. I’m also factoring in impacts of a snow covered columbia basin and what that can do to outflow temps. This is all extremely unlikely but a definitely a more dynamic situation than your conventional warming trend. I can’t imagine the shock if Portland stayed frozen until like Friday!