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

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

I love how cold the tap water is. Mine is 43.2 just checked it. Normally about 55 in summer 

[TT-SEA]

Just now, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I love how cold the tap water is. Mine is 43.2 just checked it. Normally about 55 in summer 

We were noticing the same this week... its just ice cold right out of the faucet.  

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

We were noticing the same this week... its just ice cold right out of the faucet.  

I always have a yeti cup with ice water near me and I haven't needed ice!

[Darrington Troll]

So who has eyes on the next system we are tracking? 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Major temp drop along the lower foothills, but we are still in the warm layer. One map is highs the other is current temps. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Manual gauge melted out. 4.45” of precip since last Friday. 10.74” on the month. Average for January is about 10.5” so we will have our second straight wet month. 

[NorthBend RainEnthusiast]

8 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Nah... needed to work and couldn't count on power or internet at home so me and daughter went to hotel in Bellevue.    My wife is in MN this week taking care of her dad... she traded an ice storm for even colder temps! 

Probably smart, it was freezing rain and quite windy last I looked outside. Beautiful though. North Bend roads still a mess, and even windier down there. 
 

 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

32.6, this is crazy! Temps all over the kitsap peninsula have dropped to around 34.

[TT-SEA]

9 minutes ago, NorthBend RainEnthusiast said:

Probably smart, it was freezing rain and quite windy last I looked outside. Beautiful though. North Bend roads still a mess, and even windier down there. 
 

 

Precip looked fairly light all day which had to help.   Are the trees in worse shape than this morning?

[Ken in Wood Village]

The numbers keep going up

[MossMan]

18 minutes ago, Darrington Troll said:

So who has eyes on the next system we are tracking? 

Heard there could be an AR in a week or so? 

[NorthBend RainEnthusiast]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Precip looked fairly light all day which had to help.   Are the trees in worse shape than this morning?

Not really but they’re not better either. 30°F.

[MossMan]

11 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

32.6, this is crazy! Temps all over the kitsap peninsula have dropped to around 34.

Been stuck at 34.1 here for hours now. 

[TT-SEA]

6 minutes ago, NorthBend RainEnthusiast said:

Not really but they’re not better either. 30°F.

That's good... might have dodged a bullet today.    ECMWF shows temps in the foothills rising to around 40 by morning and in the mid 40s tomorrow afternoon and maybe 50 in North Bend by Saturday.   That will take the weight off all the trees.  I was hearing those gunshot type sounds last night of branches breaking and trees falling in the woods behind the house.  A sound that was even more crazy in the 2012 ice storm... it was constant.   Sort of eerie in the the calm quiet of the middle of the night when there was no power.  

[MikeInEverett]

1 hour ago, Skagit Weather said:

Here's a higher resolution version: Seasonal Snowfall

And specifically for the Puget Sound

I’m in the bullseye right over Everett! I wish that was right!

[RaleighHillsRunner]

1 hour ago, Ken in Wood Village said:

We have been have major fluctuations with our power. In the past hour our power has gone off and on 10 times. I was outside and a big chunk of ice fell off the fir tree. My sister took the picture. This is what we have been dealing with all day today. If you like, you can pin this so everyone can see it 🌧

Feel ya buddy, power restored this afternoon after 5+ days and staying with two different family members - headed back after we slowly warmed the house up with our Nest app. Turned the water back on, cleared out the fridge. Lost power again for a solid 35 mins after several flickers. Back now but fully expect more (hopefully shorter) breaks. It’s like a slow form of torture. ‘Will it stay on this time?’

[RaleighHillsRunner]

Anyone have a Generac or similar standby system that can attest to its awesomeness? Definitely going to be prepared for arctic blast 24-25 and beyond. We’ve also been getting more outages in the summer during heat waves last few years. Lost all confidence in the grid down here!

[MossMan]

6 minutes ago, RaleighHillsRunner said:

Anyone have a Generac or similar standby system that can attest to its awesomeness? Definitely going to be prepared for arctic blast 24-25 and beyond. We’ve also been getting more outages in the summer during heat waves last few years. Lost all confidence in the grid down here!

I don’t but my work does, works great! Has an auto transfer switch so you don’t have to do anything. If we had a spare $10 or $15k (not sure exactly what they cost) I would totally do it, I would have it rigged to run off our big house propane tank. 

[North_County]

It's been a nice run, but finally getting out of the icebox tonight after give-or-take 180 straight hours below freezing. Will be interesting to see how quickly this disappears.

[GHweatherChris]

All you keyboard warriors must be afraid to say something on Cliff's blog hmmmmm................ he is wrong, you guys should go let him have it!!

[TT-SEA]

Saw this pic online today from another cold blast... this was Pine Lake in Sammamish in Feb 1989.   Pretty impressive to have that level of trust in the ice on a lake in western WA.

[North_County]

1 hour ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I love how cold the tap water is. Mine is 43.2 just checked it. Normally about 55 in summer 

I call it "Tapwater Without Ice Season" and celebrate its arrival every year.

And since we're talking about tapwater, peep the blue signs, cuz every place needs to be known for something.

[North_County]

54 minutes ago, MossMan said:

Heard there could be an AR in a week or so? 

Hard pass.

[LowerGarfield]

2 hours ago, Skagit Weather said:

Here's a higher resolution version: Seasonal Snowfall

And specifically for the Puget Sound

Holy cow it's pretty dead on. My town is in 12-24 range but just about 10 miles to my west it is 6-12. Pretty accurate! I'm at 12.7 as of my last read. If I can get another 1.2 inches or so this season at some point, I'll pass my total for last year. 2021 I was probably in the 21-25 inch range (but the December month was mostly missing).

[North_County]

Whatcom Transit Authority fully shut down bus service during the storm on Wednesday. The last time they did so was in.....1996.

Cascadia Daily

[MossMan]

30 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Saw this pic online today from another cold blast... this was Pine Lake in Sammamish in Feb 1989.   Pretty impressive to have that level of trust in the ice on a lake in western WA.

My friend and I rode our bikes across Lake Goodwin that month! We did fine, but the guy that tried to drive his Suzuki Samurai on it did not. 
 

Edited January 19 by MossMan

[CliffMassYelledAtMe]

35 minutes ago, GHweatherChris said:

All you keyboard warriors must be afraid to say something on Cliff's blog hmmmmm................ he is wrong, you guys should go let him have it!!

Lol. It's his blog. He can delete comments he doesn't like. (Or decline to approve them.) I have seen comments deleted before. 

 

He know HIS stuff. The thing I don't like is his attitude that he knows more than everyone else including other mets. Maybe he often does know more, but he's not an expert in all meteorological specialties, let alone climatology. He's human and can be wrong. I'd respect him a lot more if he admitted that occasionally. It's hard to take an expert seriously when they present themselves as infallible.

[Slushy Inch]

6 hours ago, SnowySeeker50 said:

Cliff will say anything to not admit he's wrong. Hard for him to say the roads were warm this time around so he went with the warm rain argument instead.

He actually did mention warm roads as well.

[Front Ranger]

19 minutes ago, MossMan said:

My friend and I rode our bikes across Lake Goodwin that month! We did fine, but the guy that tried to drive his Suzuki Samurai did not. 
 

Those belonged on the bottom of a lake anyway.

[Front Ranger]

4 minutes ago, CliffMassYelledAtMe said:

Lol. It's his blog. He can delete comments he doesn't like. (Or decline to approve them.) I have seen comments deleted before. 

He know HIS stuff. The thing I don't like is his attitude that he knows more than everyone else including other mets. Maybe he often does know more, but he's not an expert in all meteorological specialties, let alone climatology. He's human and can be wrong. I'd respect him a lot more if he admitted that occasionally. It's hard to take an expert seriously when they present themselves as infallible.

Did he actually yell at you?

[ShawniganLake]

Nice snow day here.  Rates never really got going too much but 4.25” on the day.  Still sitting at 30.9F.  Light snow pellets last I checked.  

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

22 minutes ago, MossMan said:

My friend and I rode our bikes across Lake Goodwin that month! We did fine, but the guy that tried to drive his Suzuki Samurai on it did not. 
 

I drove my truck on a lake up by my cabin.  Ice was 18 inches thick. Totally safe.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

4 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

Those belonged on the bottom of a lake anyway.

No way!!!! Best little 4x4 ever built.  My geo tracker I built will just about go anywhere in the snow.  

[CliffMassYelledAtMe]

1 minute ago, Front Ranger said:

Did he actually yell at you?

Many years ago, when I was a dumb, naive college student, yes. It was over email. I was not his student. I was not an Atmospheric Sciences major. I did take ATMS 101, but not from him. I probably deserved to be corrected for my ignorant email (nothing offensive, was asking a question actually), but did not deserve his response. 

 

Side note: He was not the only prof I emailed with my question, but the others simply ignored my dumb question. 

[Slushy Inch]

3 hours ago, Phil said:

Hope this helps re: freezing rain. Cliff Mass is either misinformed or making stuff up.

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/210/

“The rain drops could be well above freezing before striking a freezing surface. The warmth of the rain drops could even be enough to warm the temperature above freezing and end the freezing rain event. The depth and maximum warmth of the elevated warm layer aloft and the depth and minimum chill of the low level PBL determine the temperature of a rain drop just before it strikes the surface. A warm and deep EWL and a shallow layer of lower PBL temperatures below freezing will allow raindrops to fall that may be well above freezing. These "warm" raindrops will take much longer to freeze than the "supercooled" raindrops. The warm raindrops must be both cooled to the freezing point and crystallized to ice.”

To be somewhat fair to Cliff. The rain that was too warm to freeze instantly never froze at all at my locale in Bothell except a few areas.

[Snownerd3000]

Word 

[Front Ranger]

5 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

No way!!!! Best little 4x4 ever built.  My geo tracker I built will just about go anywhere in the snow.  

Great offroader. Not so great if you had to make a sudden change of direction at highway speeds.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

It's starting to ice up here again, the ground. Crazy.

[Slushy Inch]

7 minutes ago, CliffMassYelledAtMe said:

Many years ago, when I was a dumb, naive college student, yes. It was over email. I was not his student. I was not an Atmospheric Sciences major. I did take ATMS 101, but not from him. I probably deserved to be corrected for my ignorant email (nothing offensive, was asking a question actually), but did not deserve his response. 

 

Side note: He was not the only prof I emailed with my question, but the others simply ignored my dumb question. 

Should probably save this response for the next time someone asks 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

3 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

Great offroader. Not so great if you had to make a sudden change of direction at highway speeds.

Yes they should of sold them with a helmet! Hahaha