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

[Phishy Wx]

1 minute ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Eh....you'd think so, but the track record for the Seattle office hasn't been stellar of late.  Lots of watches and warnings issued after we are well into the event that warranted the watch/warning.  "Hey there's 5" of snow on the ground, maybe we should issue a winter weather advisory."

 

I seem to remember that right around the time JAYA retired, a lot of other "senior" mets in the Seattle office also retired/left.

I guess I'm 'spoiled' by NWS Spokane.  sure they occasionally bust, but are generally good forecasters.  that's a shame for an area as large as Seattle to suffer if that's truly the case?

[Randyc321]

1 hour ago, Slushy Inch said:

One of the worst freezing rain events ever for PS on gfs?

I don’t remember any ZR map ever verifying in the PS.   I don’t see it getting this bad    I always mix out very early.  Even with weak outflow still happening. 
I believe we will get the ZR but not that much near the water.  

[Slushy Inch]

Just now, Phishy Wx said:

I guess I'm 'spoiled' by NWS Spokane.  sure they occasionally bust, but are generally good forecasters.  that's a shame for an area as large as Seattle to suffer if that's truly the case?

Yeah… they also put out a terrible graphic last year.

[MossMan]

Found another screenshot I had taken from that windstorm fail 

[Chewbacca Defense]

2 minutes ago, MossMan said:

23.4

20.3. 

 

9.9 out of 10 times you out perform me once the cold has settled in, and that has always amazed me.  This event has been the exception. 

[Frontal Snowsquall]

2 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Down to 20 here. Notice some cold air bleeding into the Umpqua basin. That 33 at Roseburg comes with N winds. 

Roseburg below freezing now. A few more locations up here down to the teens. Gonna be another cold night!

 

[the_convergence_zone]

7 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

That windstorm miss was a big deal for the NWS. That event severely eroded public trust and sparked an internal investigation. It was pretty severe for the context, IMO.

The storm ultimately missed to the north. iirc the WRF was the first to hook it north into southern Vancouver Island, a prediction the NWS was understandably weary of given the model consensus. Then each subsequent model suite brought significant bumps north as the track error corrected, until the actual low came in well north of even last minute model guidance and tracked into central Vancouver Island. Terrible fail with no warning. It was so heartbreaking having to deal with the rug pull, as well as watch the NWS get their asses handed to them by a criminally uninformed media.

That was a brutal one. Model consensus at about a 48 hour lead showed a significant event, then each run after that pulled it back a little more. I think the 12Z models the day of showed advisory level at best. I remember being pretty sure it was going to bust, I went out to dinner with my girlfriend that evening and there was nobody in the restaurant. 
 

It wasn’t just the NWS, everyone thought it was going to be a big deal and when the models pulled back it was too late, then having it just be a bit breezy was the icing on the cake. 
 

Normally advisories don’t go out until 24 hour lead time? So it would be up to the night shift to issue them tonight. If I was them I would issue winter weather advisories for north and east of Seattle but I wound leave the city itself out of any advisories for now. 

[Phil]

14 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

@Phil Come laugh at this with me. What a cruel joke of a sounding!!

Ooof. If there was such thing as warm-bulbing, that sounding would be it.  

[Rubus Leucodermis]

11 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Eh....you'd think so, but the track record for the Seattle office hasn't been stellar of late.  Lots of watches and warnings issued after we are well into the event that warranted the watch/warning.  "Hey there's 5" of snow on the ground, maybe we should issue a winter weather advisory."

I seem to remember that right around the time JAYA retired, a lot of other "senior" mets in the Seattle office also retired/left.

They seem to overrely on the NBM. It's how they busted hard for the big snow Portland got last February.

And right now the NBM is a stingy outlier when it comes to snowfall for the coming event.

I do not believe any other model is calling for that little snow to fall in Whatcom/BCLM.

[Snownerd3000]

2 hours ago, bainbridgekid said:

I was driving around today and noticed frozen rivers running out into the street from at least ten different homes. Must be a lot of busted pipes. 

I was walking my dog Saturday and had a neighbor stop me to help him with another neighbors busted pipe. Yesterday while walking her, that same neighbor that was helping his neighbor had his pipe bursted along with 2 other neighbors that we know. I think about those insane maps showing negative temps and think if what happens when /of that ever occurs. It's going to be game over. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

This is trying to put together another overrunning event on Friday morning. 

Looks to be from strong offshore flow.

Going to be some crazy weather this week.

Edited January 16 by MR.SNOWMIZER

[iFred]

1 minute ago, Snownerd3000 said:

I was walking my dog Saturday and had a neighbor stop me to help him with another neighbors busted pipe. Yesterday while walking her, that same neighbor that was helping his neighbor had his pipe bursted along with 2 other neighbors that we know. I think about those insane maps showing negative temps and think if what happens when /of that ever occurs. It's going to be game over. 

Way too many people thinking their pex pipes are impervious.

[Chewbacca Defense]

Off topic, I just stumbled across a dude that has to be at least in his mid-60's live streaming himself playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare.  His channel is GrndpaGaming.  He seems to be doing alright....Getting pretty worked up about it when he doesn't do so well.  You GO GRANDPA!!!!!!

[Corncob]

30 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

Pretty much all models were predicting one of the strongest windstorms in Seattle history with a strong low tracking over the Olympics and bent back occlusion roaring right through the Puget Sound.  NWS warned accordingly and had pie on their face when the low deepened more than modeled, tracked further offshore, and it was hardly even breezy. 
 

The public lost a lot of their confidence in Mets after that and ever since the NWS has been extremely gun shy about predicting anything severe until it’s actually started happening. 

I had my third kid the night of Oct 12, 2016 at Swedish in Seattle.

The nurses said I could claim to “not feel right” if I wanted to stay at the hospital and miss the storm.

I went home, and was treated to a little breeze. IIRC, coastal areas had 100mph gusts, though, right?

[the_convergence_zone]

12 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Eh....you'd think so, but the track record for the Seattle office hasn't been stellar of late.  Lots of watches and warnings issued after we are well into the event that warranted the watch/warning.  "Hey there's 5" of snow on the ground, maybe we should issue a winter weather advisory."

 

I seem to remember that right around the time JAYA retired, a lot of other "senior" mets in the Seattle office also retired/left.

After they were slow with the Dec 2022 ice storm there was some chatter about it…I still think they got lucky on that one because of timing.

The current leadership does tend to prefer to communicate directly with stakeholders and is not as keen on issuing headlines or graphics other than the bare minimum. They have very good relationships with stakeholders but are not very interactive with the weather community. So it’s very possible that they briefed everyone tonight even if they didn’t issue any advisories. 

[Snownerd3000]

2 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Off topic, I just stumbled across a dude that has to be at least in his mid-60's live streaming himself playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare.  His channel is GrndpaGaming.  He seems to be doing alright....Getting pretty worked up about it when he doesn't do so well.  You GO GRANDPA!!!!!!

I've never watched a full stream if his, only clips. He's pretty good! 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2024/01/drivers-stuck-for-hours-on-i-5-south-of-eugene.html

[HuskyMaestro]

17 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

That windstorm miss was a big deal for the NWS. That event severely eroded public trust and sparked an internal investigation. It was pretty severe for the context, IMO.

The storm ultimately missed to the north. iirc the WRF was the first to hook it north into southern Vancouver Island, a prediction the NWS was understandably weary of given the model consensus. Then each subsequent model suite brought significant bumps north as the track error corrected, until the actual low came in well north of even last minute model guidance and tracked into central Vancouver Island. Terrible fail with no warning. It was so heartbreaking having to deal with the rug pull, as well as watch the NWS get their asses handed to them by a criminally uninformed media.

Reminds me of that one year, it might've been 2015, when there was this epic historic snowstorm/blizzard projected to hit NYC. Predicting as much as 2" of snow to slam the area, the city shut down in anticipation, and then... only a few inches came from the storm. Meteorologists got sent death threats and got doxxed, and New York media absolutely eviscerated these poor mets. Can't really remember the meteorological set up that made this forecast bust, something something the blizzard was more east to snow on Long Island instead. 

I remember that windstorm and how badly it busted. Seattle media is pretty soft and the NWS still got roasted hard. Fife didn't even have that bad of a breeze that night lol. 

[bainbridgekid]

8 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

This is trying to put together another overrunning event on Friday morning. 

Looks to be from strong offshore flow.

Going to be some crazy weather this week.

That is a bizarre looking map. 6” throughout Kitsap and random holes of no snow West of Hood Canal. 

[RaleighHillsRunner]

Woof, crazy not fun weekend. Power out since early Saturday with no estimation on restoration still. Our best guess is Wednesday AM, but with the impending ice who the hell knows. We had fires to keep it livable, but finally jumped ship out to Forest Grove early today to stay with fam, warm up and get some work done. Just surreal damage in SW Portland Sunday morning when I ventured out, wild shopping in a dark Freddie’s with empty freezers.
 

Storm itself was impressive as hell, just a bit nerve wracking when you live amongst the trees. Never had winds like that before. Only snagged a few pics - this was all within a block of us. Stay safe out there!

[CliffMassYelledAtMe]

50 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I don't remember the wind bust, what happened

Well, local Mets were hyped on a windstorm that busted. And the general public was mad. 

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2016/10/warming-major-storms-threaten-pacific.html?m=1#google_vignette

And https://crosscut.com/2016/10/cliff-mass-stormpocalypse-2016-prediction

 

Mass did address the bust in a post on his blog, but I can't find it right now.

[bainbridgekid]

6 minutes ago, the_convergence_zone said:

After they were slow with the Dec 2022 ice storm there was some chatter about it…I still think they got lucky on that one because of timing.

The current leadership does tend to prefer to communicate directly with stakeholders and is not as keen on issuing headlines or graphics other than the bare minimum. They have very good relationships with stakeholders but are not very interactive with the weather community. So it’s very possible that they briefed everyone tonight even if they didn’t issue any advisories. 

Who are these stakeholders? 
 

The NWS exists to adequately warn the public so they can be prepared for the weather. That isn’t possible if you wait till a storm has already started to put out the warning. For whatever reason that has happened a lot lately with waiting too long to issue any sort of advisories for snow till after the storm has already begun. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Down to 19 at SLE. See if they can get a new low before midnight. Winds are dying off and DP is at 10. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

11 minutes ago, RaleighHillsRunner said:

Woof, crazy not fun weekend. Power out since early Saturday with no estimation on restoration still. Our best guess is Wednesday AM, but with the impending ice who the hell knows. We had fires to keep it livable, but finally jumped ship out to Forest Grove early today to stay with fam, warm up and get some work done. Just surreal damage in SW Portland Sunday morning when I ventured out, wild shopping in a dark Freddie’s with empty freezers.
 

Storm itself was impressive as hell, just a bit nerve wracking when you live amongst the trees. Never had winds like that before. Only snagged a few pics - this was all within a block of us. Stay safe out there!

Glad you are okay. What a winter blast. Seems our winters are regaining teeth! 

[BLI snowman]

17 here already. Tomorrow has nice bonus cold potential with the early morning temps and then clouds capping heating early. Good stat-padding on what has already been a historic event.

Edited January 16 by BLI snowman

[SouthHillFrosty]

37 minutes ago, Randyc321 said:

I don’t remember any ZR map ever verifying in the PS.   I don’t see it getting this bad    I always mix out very early.  Even with weak outflow still happening. 
I believe we will get the ZR but not that much near the water.  

We literally had a huge event last year of freezing rain for the Puget Sound. 

[SouthHillFrosty]

Euro looks good for bham north!

[MossMan]

2 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Euro looks good for bham north!

Looks like another creep south with the snow map? 

[SouthHillFrosty]

1 minute ago, MossMan said:

Looks like another creep south with the snow map? 

Slight pullback. Just a little more phantom snow. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

22 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

Who are these stakeholders? 
 

The NWS exists to adequately warn the public so they can be prepared for the weather. That isn’t possible if you wait till a storm has already started to put out the warning. For whatever reason that has happened a lot lately with waiting too long to issue any sort of advisories for snow till after the storm has already begun. 

Growing up this would of had a watch posted yesterday. Warning or advisory would be up by now for sure.

[SouthHillFrosty]

WOW... GFS showing the foothills of King and Pierce getting hit. This wasn't on the GFS

[Winterdog]

20.8 currently, hoping for a low in the teens after a high of 32.6.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Can someone post a rgem total snow map for the entire run 

[Skagit Weather]

16 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Growing up this would of had a watch posted yesterday. Warning or advisory would be up by now for sure.

They didn't even update their forecast discussion. I guess from my perspective there's still two pretty distinct camps of models. Ones that bury me in snow and ones that give me nothing.

The GFS, GEM, RGEM, and ICON all give me a ton of snow while most of the high resolution models and the Euro/UKMET keep everything Bellingham north. A lot of the models show some freezing rain, but I think it's such a strange set-up that they're waiting to see if any of the details resolve further before calling it. Or, they're using the fact that they've almost never seen ice emerge in a similar setup to say it won't cause issues.

I will be kind of shocked if they don't issue something overnight just conveying that there's the chance for snow/freezing rain further south than Whatcom County.

[HuskyMaestro]

7 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

WOW... GFS showing the foothills of King and Pierce getting hit. This wasn't on the GFS

Whoa.. I'm in the green now

[Perturbed Member]

28 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

17 here already. Tomorrow has nice bonus cold potential with the early morning temps and then clouds capping heating early. Good stat-padding on what has already been a historic event.

Your area must have done incredibly well. How much snow did you end up getting in total?

I ended up around 2.5-3 inches of snow/sleet mix. 

[Meatyorologist]

51 minutes ago, Corncob said:

I had my third kid the night of Oct 12, 2016 at Swedish in Seattle.

The nurses said I could claim to “not feel right” if I wanted to stay at the hospital and miss the storm.

I went home, and was treated to a little breeze. IIRC, coastal areas had 100mph gusts, though, right?

Parts of Vancouver Island gusted well over 120mph. It was a freaky storm for where it did end up impacting.

[SnowWillarrive]

12 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

WOW... GFS showing the foothills of King and Pierce getting hit. This wasn't on the GFS

@snow_wizard it’s on 

[bainbridgekid]

Coincidental but I was looking at old pictures and noticed how eerily similar the snow maps looked for 12/20/23.

That one ended up giving snow accumulations down to Seattle with quite a bit just North of Seattle. 

[Corncob]

1 hour ago, Phishy Wx said:

I guess I'm 'spoiled' by NWS Spokane.  sure they occasionally bust, but are generally good forecasters.  that's a shame for an area as large as Seattle to suffer if that's truly the case?

Spokane has great AFDs- even if they don’t verify, they explain the logic.

Seattle AFDs are barely anything- the only met who posts worthwhile discussion is McMillian… maybe why he always signs his AFDs.