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

[TigerWoodsLibido]

19 minutes ago, ArcticAirmassLover said:

Whew! Finally caught up.

Balmy run-of-the-mill 48F here in West Eugene, slushy mess and broken trees. Could be worse.

Rooting for the folks of northern Washington to get snow. They been screwed quit a while it seems.

Looks like y’all might’ve had less damage than the east side of town. We didn’t have any sleet. Only ZR.

We’ve now had more ice than snow since Dec 2021 and still haven’t had a sub freezing high with snow since Jan 2017.

[Phishy Wx]

yep it's done.  8" ish, blowing around some

another 1" or 2" tomorrow night, then the freezing rain/mix comes in.  warm up and thaw starts saturday.

[Dave]

1 hour ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Grateful for any help y’all have given. Springfield is an absolute disaster right now. Hard to believe how bad it is.

Venmo is @Jerseys4Hope if possible. I can’t believe that we don’t even have water. IMG_3681.MOV 143.42 MB · 10 downloads  

 

 

 

You don't have water? Did a pipe burst? I know you are in a boil zone. Hopefully you have a camp stove or something. In a pinch you might be able to rig something up with candles.

Not sure if this was posted yet. It was from a few miles east of you I believe. Just incredible damage.

 

[MossMan]

5 minutes ago, LowerGarfield said:

Our school district will be on two hour late start tomorrow. I was not expecting that. Looking forward to a slower morning tomorrow though. Unusual to get this info so far in advance. Not complaining about it though.

I just got a text from Mt Vernon schools saying they will also be on a 2hr delay tomorrow! 

[KingstonWX]

Day 731 of waiting for snow:

Today was ok. It warmed to 35 degrees, then snowed for about 2 and a half minutes. That's about the same as I got yesterday, as well as at the beginning of this cold snap. Mom burned the tendies while trying to count the 17 snowflakes we saw. Somehow the convergence zone dissolved and reformed, completely skipping me, as per usual. Tomorrow precip looks like it will start around 8am. Maybe tomorrow is finally the day. Goodnight, Journal. 

[MossMan]

59 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

Do we have high hopes for February to deliver? I know some people have commented on it since we’re off the heels of some historic cold. My guess is February torches hard since it has been below normal every year since 2016. The last snowless one here was also 2016. Seems like we’re due for a sh*t one. 

Yes. Very high hopes. It’s coming. 

[DeepFriedEgg]

It's wild to see the inversion showing up all the way down to the west hills. Looks like widespread 37F up there, but as you go down it's 34F on the west side of them and 32F to the east.

[Doinko]

9 minutes ago, FroYoBro said:

I hit 41 as a high, but was only above 40 for about an hour today. Back down to 37 here. The cold pool is definitely putting up a fight. Very slow thaw all day here. 

Yeah, I remember forecasts even yesterday showing 45+ here. Stayed in the 30s all day, everything is really icy still. The snow has a solid layer of ice on top of it.

[AbbyJr]

8 hours ago, Phil said:

The SSW criteria is probably reached today, but the vortex recovers going forward as we enter a period of wave reflection (augmented by thermal conditions associated with the original SSW, ironically).

Could still have a dynamic final warming in March, though! Those can project similarly to midwinter SSWEs and produce some wild springtime weather extremes.

March 1951 repeat? Probably not but check out the 500mb pattern on March 5th that year:

 

 

[snow_wizard]

Just to demonstrate how impressive this cold snap was for SEA it ranked number 4 for any 3 day period in any January since 1950, and number 10 for any 4 day period in any January since 1950.  Nothing since 1972 has touched it in the month of January.

As an aside I do remember January 1972 and it was incredible for the Seattle area.  A huge snowstorm going into it.

 

[Perturbed Member]

Still 33F here and the snow/ice has barely melted. 

Mark has adjusted his forecast, still in the 30s for the next 2 days. 

The past week has been an incredible stretch around here. The snow, sleet and ZR made for an interesting event, but this was really all about the strength and persistence of the low level cold. The way in which the cold rapidly converged on PDX from the north and east at the same time was pretty epic too. 

[Doinko]

7 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Just to demonstrate how impressive this cold snap was for SEA it ranked number 4 for any 3 day period in any January since 1950, and number 10 for any 4 day period in any January since 1950.  Nothing since 1972 has touched it in the month of January.

As an aside I do remember January 1972 and it was incredible for the Seattle area.  A huge snowstorm going into it.

 

If you go by max temps only, this was the coldest 4 day stretch for max temps at PDX in January aside from January 1950.

And the coldest 3 day stretch since January 1957

[snow_wizard]

17 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Looks like y’all might’ve had less damage than the east side of town. We didn’t have any sleet. Only ZR.

We’ve now had more ice than snow since Dec 2021 and still haven’t had a sub freezing high with snow since Jan 2017.

You kind of moved the goal post here. 

[Cascadia_Wx]

4 minutes ago, Doinko said:

If you go by max temps only, this was the coldest 4 day stretch for max temps at PDX aside from January 1950.

And the coldest 3 day stretch since January 1957

Is that only for January, or for any month period?

[Rubus Leucodermis]

19 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

We’ve now had more ice than snow since Dec 2021 and still haven’t had a sub freezing high with snow since Jan 2017.

[Doinko]

3 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Is that only for January, or for any month period?

Just January, for all months it looks like it was this after removing duplicates. Not as impressive but still some really nice blasts in there

Jan 1950
Dec 1990
Dec 1983
Dec 1968
Dec 1978/Jan 1979
Dec 1964
Feb 1989
Jan 2024

[Mercurial]

Picked up 5" in the last 5 hours.... what a great storm!  13" total so far from this event.

[snow_wizard]

11 minutes ago, Doinko said:

If you go by max temps only, this was the coldest 4 day stretch for max temps at PDX aside from January 1950.

And the coldest 3 day stretch since January 1957

That is really weird.  BLI was just the opposite.  If you look at mins for a 5 day period they came in number one for January since 1950 with a bone chilling 9.4 five day average.

[snow_wizard]

7 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Is that only for January, or for any month period?

Just January for the tables I made.  It demonstrates the epic trouble we have had that month since 1972.

[snow_wizard]

I'm ready to call it tonight on getting snow here this evening.  It got so close but no cigar.

[MossMan]

Deck is turning white again. 
32.0 degrees 

[Skagit Weather]

15 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Just to demonstrate how impressive this cold snap was for SEA it ranked number 4 for any 3 day period in any January since 1950, and number 10 for any 4 day period in any January since 1950.  Nothing since 1972 has touched it in the month of January.

As an aside I do remember January 1972 and it was incredible for the Seattle area.  A huge snowstorm going into it.

 

Some truly amazing stats for the stations to the north. Olga on the southeast corner of Orcas Island had a continuous period of record from 1891-2016. Unfortunately it's no longer in service, but I took stats from the nearest personal weather station which had an average temperature of 10.3 on 1/13/24. That would have been in the top 15 coldest days on record since 1891. 

I also looked at Diablo Dam which has records stretching back to 1914. There's a bunch of data missing from 1950 (and I wouldn't be surprised if it's also missing from some of the other major blasts), but this past week had two of the two 20 coldest days on record, including the coldest day ever recorded! Pretty incredible and makes me a little sad I couldn't do better on my own weather station.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

10 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I'm ready to call it tonight on getting snow here this evening.  It got so close but no cigar.

You, and the entire Puget Sound region in general, are now definitely due.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

I'd like to know what changed to make the typical overrunning event so hard to get now? Freezing rain for years and years was not ever a issue in western Washington and now we get them a bunch.  It's ever gotten harder to get overrunning events out here.

We sure have been able to get arctic air and now I expect 1 every year!

Edited January 18 by MR.SNOWMIZER

[MossMan]

What was the puget sounds most epic February in the last like 80 or so years? 

[LowerGarfield]

.80 on the snowboard tonight. So daily total at 1.20 including the earlier.40.

[T-Town]

2 minutes ago, MossMan said:

What was the puget sounds most epic February in the last like 80 or so years? 

1989. Anything before that I wasn’t alive or just don’t remember so it doesn’t count. 

[ArcticAirmassLover]

55 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Looks like y’all might’ve had less damage than the east side of town. We didn’t have any sleet. Only ZR.

We’ve now had more ice than snow since Dec 2021 and still haven’t had a sub freezing high with snow since Jan 2017.

From my own observations, it looks like we indeed had some less damage than east half of Eugene / Springfield, though not without any damage at all. This was a a very marginal set up. Similar to Jan 2017 when the Western half of the valley of I-5 got hit by the air from the Columbia George.

I agree with you, there's no denying it. I also wish the upper air levels are cold enough so ALL of the south Valley gets it. But we can only take what we can get with these types of set ups

[SnowySeeker50]

36 after a high of 41 earlier. It is quite disappointing the area here got only a trace entering the cold and got nothing out of it. Maybe February can still deliver something..

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

7 minutes ago, MossMan said:

What was the puget sounds most epic February in the last like 80 or so years? 

2019 was my favorite winter ever

[Rubus Leucodermis]

 

[MossMan]

Just now, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

2019 was my favorite winter ever

Mine as well, wasn’t sure if there were any that beat it from way back in the day. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Incredible only 34 here today and a low of 30. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

 

We saw it coming for 2 days, it looked epic and it was!!

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, MossMan said:

Mine as well, wasn’t sure if there were any that beat it from way back in the day. 

There was a 2 day period that I got 26 inches.

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Top tier.

 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Top tier.

 

What are some obs in that area within a few miles? Is there more? That is so close to 2nd place!

[Doinko]

3KM NAM shows another ice storm for Portland with more cold air coming through the Gorge

[Doinko]

2 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Top tier.

 

How did the Surrey/Delta area do?

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

3 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Top tier.

 

Reminds me of the beast 1996 was up there. The stories from Bellingham area are legendary.