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

[MossMan]

Several school issues this morning mostly due to busted pipes. 

[BLI snowman]

Down to 10 degrees, a new low for the event. 

[TT-SEA]

12Z ICON is south... less snow for SW BC and more snow for NW WA and shows some snow in King County on the back side of the precip shield tomorrow afternoon. 

[TT-SEA]

Here is high resolution 12Z NAM.   

[TT-SEA]

Up to 28 at SEA... 25 here this morning with a decent east wind.

[TT-SEA]

Low resolution 12Z RGEM

[Everleigh]

13.8* currently in Yelm. We got above freezing yesterday, for about 3 hours. Schools are 2 hours late, but I am kinda hoping they weenie out and just close em again. Not likely, but one can hope. We still have quite a bit of snow on the ground, so things thawed a bit yesterday then froze hard again....

 

Edit: HA! Ask and ye shall receive! 

[Andstorm]

4 hours ago, Tanis Leach said:

The transition event: 

 

 

Technical info: wider margin of error and higher high end totals than local TV stations is due to me showing a late rise above freezing (1 pm median estimate at PDX) The models are notoriously bad scouring out cold air too quickly. Also see description for 2nd disclaimer. 

Oh and that scenario where the east wind gradient doesn't get killed, in case it didn't get drilled in, it's unlikely, but non-zero. If it happens only small patches of freezing rain would remain since the cold pool would still retreat east of the Cascades.

Good stuff! Will the snow cover in the Columbia Basin impact the cold pool at all. I’m seeing temps Thursday hovering relatively close to freezing so just curious what sort of risk there is for a mini reload. 

[MossMan]

Low was 20.2.

Currently 22.8

[Roman-Dallas Snow-Zone]

Low 16F and DP 10 nice and dry. Let’s see how increasing cloud cover goes for temps today and how long the central WV holds onto the gorge influence 

[MossMan]

Clouds.

It’s coming. 
Also explains my temp increase from 20 to now 23

[Phishy Wx]

[Phishy Wx]

per NWS Spokane:   I like the sound of this

 

There are three big factors that make 
this a whopper of a winter storm for Wednesday: (1) strong 
frontogenesis and moist isentropic ascent, (2) cold temperatures and 
moderate to strong lift within the dendritic growth zone resulting 
in climatologically high snow ratios (13-18 to 1 across a large 
portion of the region), and (3) back to back upper level 
disturbances that will string the snow out over a long duration 
(i.e. late tonight through Wednesday night).

 

The ECMWF Extreme Forecast Index 
indicates snow amounts that are anomalous for this region and time 
of year. The main area for this anomaly stretches across the Upper 
Columbia Basin into the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene areas. This is quite 
impressive considering that we are in the heart of the winter season 
and anomalously high snowfall amounts will mean some big snow totals 
when all is said and done.

[MossMan]

Temp is exploding this morning, 25 now!

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

42 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Up to 28 at SEA... 25 here this morning with a decent east wind.

Second coldest morning Here of the event at 15! 16 in bremerton.  Crazy. This is going to be dynamic couple days coming up, especially with how much cold air gets pulled in behind this system tomorrow night. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Hmmmm... I see the GFS is now keeping the ZR threat around PDX into the weekend. Has it below freezing in most of the North valley and even parts of the west central valley on Thursday night.... 

[Hawksfan2008]

Wild couple of days 

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

SPECTACULAR Sunrise!

[SilverFallsAndrew]

As Jim pointed out, last nights CFS was interesting. Basically a two week period of chilly to cold weather at the end of January to about February 10th. Then everything shifts east late in February. 

[Skagit Weather]

Dropped to 19F this morning making this 5 days with lows in the teens. I still have no idea what is going to happen here over the next few days. Models range from 0-15" but maybe the NWS refusing to issue any sort of warning or advisory for Skagit is a good sign.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Excited to start seeing ENSO tank. 

[Phishy Wx]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Excited to start seeing ENSO tank. 

Strong Nino > Strong Nina

 

I can get behind that

[MossMan]

6 minutes ago, Hawksfan2008 said:

Wild couple of days 

Snow map is a shift south from the 6z! Yay! 

[Blizzard777]

Good morning all ! 
Pipe in garage gave way! Double insulated pipe and it still froze . So now I’m an official victim of this event.  18* this morning 
dp is 7 so this ice won’t be going anywhere for a bit

Good luck to those in the north and south on the incoming ! 
God Speed and I’m sitting this one out

[Andstorm]

10 minutes ago, Hawksfan2008 said:

Wild couple of days 

This suggests a reload of freezing rain for portland area Thursday. Very unlikely but would be a nightmare scenario. 

[LowerGarfield]

NWS bumped up my totals to 6-8 inches. Still thinking 3-5 might be more reasonable but still looks good. Son now has a 5 day weekend because his bed is covered in a yucky mess and he never came to find me. If school is cancelled tomorrow, it will probably be a remote learning day.

[iFred]

11 minutes ago, Hawksfan2008 said:

Wild couple of days 

Ice taking down those transmission lines like Quebec in 98, would mean a regional power crisis.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

• Just now, Blizzard777 said:

  Good morning all ! 
  Pipe in garage gave way! Double insulated pipe and it still froze . So now I’m an official victim of this event.  18* this morning 
  dp is 7 so this ice won’t be going anywhere for a bit

  Good luck to those in the north and south on the incoming ! 
  God Speed and I’m sitting this one out

  

  

  

  Sorry about the pipe! I'm with you on this one, sitting out until at least the end of the month, or whenever, always on standby. Going anywhere warm soon? 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Tim what do the dewpoints look like tonight when precip arrives?

[MossMan]

4 minutes ago, Blizzard777 said:

Good morning all ! 
Pipe in garage gave way! Double insulated pipe and it still froze . So now I’m an official victim of this event.  18* this morning 
dp is 7 so this ice won’t be going anywhere for a bit

Good luck to those in the north and south on the incoming ! 
God Speed and I’m sitting this one out

Argh. That sounds fun. The pipe that runs from the house to the hose bib at the front of the garage was my biggest worry so I put one of those radiator heaters in the garage to keep that wall warmish, otherwise I’m almost certain it would have popped. 

[LowerGarfield]

10 hours ago, MossMan said:

I was really looking forward to that beast…That never came.

Meanwhile there was that freak storm in August on a Saturday that knocked out power to almost everywhere south of Mt Vernon and north of about Lynnwood. Was that the same year? A lady I worked with in our Tulalip cafe had their daughter's bday party planned but no one showed up.

For the windstorm that everyone missed, it was funny. The day before, a beggar near EVCC was asking for money to take the train to 'escape the storm.' I was waiting to catch the Camano Express. Only problem was it was after the last connection to Everett Station (to catch the Empire Builder which I think had already left). I was like lol no.

[ArcticAirmassLover]

20F and cloudy right right now at Eugene. Have a dewpoint of 15F (!), biggest dewpoint to temp gap of this whole event.

[LowerGarfield]

11 hours 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. 

They were hyping it as the storm of the century if I recall correctly. Was living on Camano at the time.

[MossMan]

1 minute ago, LowerGarfield said:

Meanwhile there was that freak storm in August on a Saturday that knocked out power to almost everywhere south of Mt Vernon and north of about Lynnwood. Was that the same year? A lady I worked with in our Tulalip cafe had their daughter's bday party planned but no one showed up.

For the windstorm that everyone missed, it was funny. The day before, a beggar near EVCC was asking for money to take the train to 'escape the storm.' I was waiting to catch the Camano Express. Only problem was it was after the last connection to Everett Station (to catch the Empire Builder which I think had already left). I was like lol no.

That was the biggest off season windstorm I can ever remember! Was in Sun Lakes taking advantage of the big rollers that day, came home the next day to a mess and no power. 

[ShawniganLake]

I’m a bit surprised at how many issues there have been with frozen and broken pipes.  I can’t imagine how bad it would be with a 1950 or 1969 type event. With singles digit or even negative lows for 7-10 days at a time. 

[LowerGarfield]

10 hours 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?

As I mentioned in the other thread. NWS Seattle doesn't have a winter weather page with advance snow maps/ice forecasts despite them being responsible for the west slopes of the cascades and coast range. All the other NWS offices in Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho have one. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Pretty crazy to see some models showing .5 inch of freezing rain over here. Thursday afternoon and evening looking like another event possible again depending how much cold air get pulled in behind this trough tomorrow.

[Hawksfan2008]

12z GEM 

[Frontal Snowsquall]

The latest HRRR has the ice storm arriving in the Southern Willamette Valley by 2pm, PDX Metro by 4pm and Puget Sound by 7pm. Stay off the roads if you can guys. Going to be a wild and crazy afternoon/night!

[Hawksfan2008]

Excruciatingly close track for a puget sound snowstorm. Instead likely to be a mixed mess.