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

[Phishy Wx]

dry cold lower layer is evaporating any snow trying to make it the surface this evening. pressure gradient from large high in MT and low in OR is ripping a dry wind down the Purcell Trench,  doubt we'll see much snow tonight, just continued blowing and drifting

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Cold air still hanging in at the cabin. 9 degrees there. Was only 12 today.

[OysterPrintout]

Good deal of ice and roads freezing again - forecasters in shambles

[snow_wizard]

Looks like 35/31 here today.  Decently cold day, but nothing to show for it.  Hard to believe it's already been a week since the cold weather began.

[snow_wizard]

11 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Cold air still hanging in at the cabin. 9 degrees there. Was only 12 today.

Very epic cold wave for Whatcom County and most of Central and Eastern WA.

[snow_wizard]

13 minutes ago, OysterPrintout said:

Good deal of ice and roads freezing again - forecasters in shambles

Kind of surprising.  I was going to comment on one of the biggest surprises for me today is how "warm" PDX has been.

[snow_wizard]

In other news the 30 day SOI is positive for the first time in months and the subsurface profile suggests the Nino is about collapse.  Incredible luck for us that the Nino was so strong it shot its wad in one winter, and we still managed to score a big cold wave.  Even the big Nino in the 1950s didn't pull that off.

[Tanis Leach]

1 hour ago, Snownerd3000 said:

Word 

I didn't realize 1.6 inches of mostly sleet is considered decent.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

6 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Very epic cold wave for Whatcom County and most of Central and Eastern WA.

I can't believe I got crapped on again today, had snow this morning and maybe 1/4 inch and it turned to rain and had been mixed all day and 33 34. This had been the most frustrating cold wave I can ever remember

[OysterPrintout]

6 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Kind of surprising.  I was going to comment on one of the biggest surprises for me today is how "warm" PDX has been.

The story for today was supposed to be zr east of 205 with roads staying mostly wet west of that but hasn't really been the case. Some folks in Washington county have seen some more ice this evening.

[LowerGarfield]

Now at 1.5 inches for the evening.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

5 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I can't believe I got crapped on again today, had snow this morning and maybe 1/4 inch and it turned to rain and had been mixed all day and 33 34. This had been the most frustrating cold wave I can ever remember

Hopefully one of these years we can get an upper level Arctic airmass that isn’t a border hugger and can make it all the way down here again. I feel like it’s been quite some time since we last had one.

[LowerGarfield]

22F outside but will still get the warm nose mixing. Hoping the ice is less than expected but could get up to 1/4.

[snow_wizard]

This just blows my mind.  Bellingham had it's lowest average min for any 6 day period in the month of January since 1950 with this event.  Wow!

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Hopefully one of these years we can get an upper level Arctic airmass that isn’t a border hugger and can make it all the way down here again. I feel like it’s been quite some time since we last had one.

I don't know how long it's been. I'm not sure if the really cold ones like this make it much further sw than this one did. 

[MikeInEverett]

Visiting friends in Monroe. Quite a bit of snow and lots of freezing rain. Seeing lots of damage to trees.

[snow_wizard]

9 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I can't believe I got crapped on again today, had snow this morning and maybe 1/4 inch and it turned to rain and had been mixed all day and 33 34. This had been the most frustrating cold wave I can ever remember

I wasn't good feeling about your chances last night.  Mid levels were just too warm.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

When was the last time we went from a strong Nino to a strong nina?

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Just now, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I don't know how long it's been. I'm not sure if the really cold ones like this make it much further sw than this one did. 

Was the one in Jan 2017 pretty good down this way? I feel like the one in Dec 2013 probly was too.

[snow_wizard]

Just now, MikeInEverett said:

Visiting friends in Monroe. Quite a bit of snow and lots of freezing rain. Seeing lots of damage to trees.

ZR can sure be impressive in its own way.  I'm surprised the snow made it so far down the valley.

[DeepFriedEgg]

8 minutes ago, Tanis Leach said:

I didn't realize 1.6 inches of mostly sleet is considered decent.

Exactly. Everyone is trying to paint the Saturday event as a great snow event when it was not. The cold and wind were FAR more impressive (and destructive).

And don’t get me started on the absolutely destructive ice storm in the south valley. There’s nothing fun or great about that.

All in all, it’s a shame the block didn’t hold and it got undercut so quickly by that Saturday system. It didn’t do anyone any good.

[Tanis Leach]

27 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Was the one in Jan 2017 pretty good down this way? I feel like the one in Dec 2013 probly was too.

2017 850s were -9.3C

2013 850s were -14.1C

 

As a note for the last -10C, that was Feb 2022, with a -10.1C

[snow_wizard]

9 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

When was the last time we went from a strong Nino to a strong nina?

Probably 1998-99.  Big blast that winter although the details sucked on that one.  2009-10 had a pretty decent Nino followed by a strong Nina.  Once again major blast in Nov 2010 and very decent in Feb 2011.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 hour 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.

Many lakes up here have been like that the past several days!

And Gazzam Lake on Bainbridge Island was skateable in Feb 2017.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I wasn't good feeling about your chances last night.  Mid levels were just too warm.

That's why I'm mad because I've had snow here with the same temps. At 850 and 925 when there was strong offshore flow. What happened was precip arrived before the offshore got cranking. The air was moist still when it got here.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, DeepFriedEgg said:

Exactly. Everyone is trying to paint the Saturday event as a great snow event when it was not. The cold and wind were FAR more impressive (and destructive).

And don’t get me started on the absolutely destructive ice storm in the south valley. There’s nothing fun or great about that.

All in all, it’s a shame the block didn’t hold and it got undercut so quickly by that Saturday system. It didn’t do anyone any good.

I would want NO part of that ice storm EUG had.  Yuck!

[Cascadia_Wx]

5 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I don't know how long it's been. I'm not sure if the really cold ones like this make it much further sw than this one did. 

As far as low levels go I think it would be hard to get much colder than what we saw this past week, in the modern age. Then what places do or don’t get snow/sleet/freezing rain etc comes down more to luck and individual surface feature placement.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

That's why I'm mad because I've had snow here with the same temps. At 850 and 925 when there was strong offshore flow. What happened was precip arrived before the offshore got cranking. The air was moist still when it got here.

I was really surprised when I walked outside and it was raining this morning.  I had it in my mind that wasn't supposed to start until much later in the day.

[snow_wizard]

3 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Many lakes up here have been like that the past several days!

And Gazzam Lake on Bainbridge Island was skateable in Feb 2017.

I love how that pic Tim posted is B&W to make it seem like it was so long ago.  Pretty much everything was color many years before that!

[ShawniganLake]

22 minutes ago, Tanis Leach said:

I didn't realize 1.6 inches of mostly sleet is considered decent.

That’s a decent amount of sleet.   

[Rubus Leucodermis]

5 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

As far as low levels go I think it would be hard to get much colder than what we saw this past week, in the modern age. Then what places do or don’t get snow/sleet/freezing rain etc comes down more to luck and individual surface feature placement.

Would have been significantly colder at the surface if only the arctic front had been juicier and laid down a good blanket of snow as it came in. If that had happened, @snow_wizard's wish of seeing a 1950 redux would have been reality, at least for a few days.

[snow_wizard]

12 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I don't know how long it's been. I'm not sure if the really cold ones like this make it much further sw than this one did. 

Dec 1990 and Feb 1989 come to mind but those were absolute top tier.  Interestingly this recent blast seemed more beastly than Dec 1990, and a tad less than Feb 1989.  Those two blast are the only times I've seen temps below 15 with howling winds.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

3 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I love how that pic Tim posted is B&W to make it seem like it was so long ago.  Pretty much everything was color many years before that!

Or maybe it was just taken in B&W. You can still buy B&W film, and newspapers in particular were big users of it because it is cheaper to process than color film, can more easily be processed in house, and newspapers were B&W anyhow.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

3 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Probably 1997-98.  Big blast that winter although the details sucked on that one.  2009-10 had a pretty decent Nino followed by a strong Nina.  Once again major blast in Nov 2010 and very decent in Feb 2011.

Nov 2010 was fun. The most powerful arctic front since 1990 for sure. Just a good event.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

That’s a decent amount of sleet.   

Indeed.  Sleet is hard to come by most times.  The most I've personally seen is like a quarter inch.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Or maybe it was just taken in B&W. You can still buy B&W film, and newspapers in particular were big users of it because it is cheaper to process than color film, can more easily be processed in house, and newspapers were B&W anyhow.

Good points.

[LowerGarfield]

Okay so Lewiston does have six plows. They confirmed it on their FB page. Not sure where the rumor that they were sold came from.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

5 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

That’s a decent amount of sleet.   

It just goes to show how winter storms are wasted on Oregon. They just end up being sleet and ice. Both storms should have gone north, then both would have been snow and we would have been spared all the complaining about ice.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

8 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

As far as low levels go I think it would be hard to get much colder than what we saw this past week, in the modern age. Then what places do or don’t get snow/sleet/freezing rain etc comes down more to luck and individual surface feature placement.

The trough has to come down enough to grab moisture but to much can cas issues also. 

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Nov 2010 was fun. The most powerful arctic front since 1990 for sure. Just a good event.

That one had the same issue of getting hung up not too far south of us though. 1990 went way south.

As an aside...the shallow penetrating (not going very far south) extreme cold waves like this one usually bring a lot of snow for the Seattle area.  This one was odd in that regard.