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

[Meatyorologist]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

Summer 2021 was the hottest on record for WA and OR statewide unless I’m remembering incorrectly.

That little normal(ish) departure following the heatwave was confined to the Puget Sound region. The east side never stopped roasting.

Yeah everyone's been breaking records. But the urban core has been demolishing them even harder, aside from Summer 2021. which was a freak season east of the Cascades. My relatives in Spokane were hitting nearly 100F everyday with suffocating smoke that year.

Where do you expect ENSO to head this 2024? Just give me a weak guess, I know things are a crapshoot before the 'Spring barrier', whatever that means

[Phil]

7 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

we fry over here most every summer.  I just want to mainly avoid smoke.  last summer surprising decent except the Medical Lake fires, but that smoke only lasted like a week,  nothing smoke wise on a region scale.

At least you cool down at night.  

Remember your trip out here last September, and understand that is only a fraction of how bad it gets in Jul/Aug, when dewpoints are 10°F higher. It can always get worse.

[snow_wizard]

I'm definitely ticked off the ECMWF has completely taken away the chilly interlude for mid week now.

[Meatyorologist]

8 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Makes sense... seems a little disportionate. 

7 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

I tend to agree and think 2016 and 2019 might be good analogs for this summer.     Also 1998.

agree x2

[Phil]

1 minute ago, Meatyorologist said:

Yeah everyone's been breaking records. But the urban core has been demolishing them even harder, aside from Summer 2021. which was a freak season east of the Cascades. My relatives in Spokane were hitting nearly 100F everyday with suffocating smoke that year.

Where do you expect ENSO to head this 2024? Just give me a weak guess, I know things are a crapshoot before the 'Spring barrier', whatever that means

I want to give you a confident answer re: ENSO, but I just don’t know. Some years I can see it coming well in advance, others I see nothing.

What I can say is, it is true that the shorter term fundamentals (+QBO transition, decaying strong niño, residual -PMM, etc) favor a hard crash to La Niña.

However, primal, lower frequency IPWP mode(s) and those off domain such as DMI/etc will work against against that, especially in the EPAC. There is precedent for this, in which cases the EPAC tended to remain warm while the WPAC cooled early and sharply.

[TT-SEA]

15 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I'm definitely ticked off the ECMWF has completely taken away the chilly interlude for mid week now.

You are a very rare breed being angry about 45 vs 48 for stats!    We are in a perpetually rainy pattern... freezing nights are going to be almost impossible.  

[umadbro]

Anyone know where I can find radar loops from the past?

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, umadbro said:

Anyone know where I can find radar loops from the past?

Horrible web site but you can actually get archived radar here going back to 2007.

https://a.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/archive.html

[Meatyorologist]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

I want to give you a confident answer re: ENSO, but I just don’t know. Some years I can see it coming well in advance, others I see nothing.

What I can say is, it is true that the shorter term fundamentals (+QBO transition, decaying strong niño, residual -PMM, etc) favor a hard crash to La Niña.

However, primal, lower frequency IPWP mode(s) and those off domain such as DMI/etc will work against against that, especially in the EPAC. There is precedent for this, in which cases the EPAC tended to remain warm while the WPAC cooled early and sharply.

Thank you, that's some good info. It's almost more fun to play the guessing game... The proficiency of modern weather modeling is convenient, if not a little boring at times

[Doinko]

3 minutes ago, umadbro said:

Anyone know where I can find radar loops from the past?

I use this site:
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/GIS/apps/rview/warnings.phtml?osite=PQR&tzoff=0&layers[]=nexrad&layers[]=warnings&layers[]=cwas&layers[]=uscounties&layers[]=watches&layers[]=blank&site=PQR&tz=PST&archive=yes&year=2017&month=1&day=10&hour=21&minute=15&warngeo=both&zoom=250&imgsize=640x480&loop=0&frames=10&interval=5&filter=0&cu=0&sortcol=fcster&sortdir=DESC&lsrlook=%2B&lsrwindow=0&extents=-125.03%2C43.06%2C-120.03%2C48.06

[TT-SEA]

10 minutes ago, Phil said:

I want to give you a confident answer re: ENSO, but I just don’t know. Some years I can see it coming well in advance, others I see nothing.

What I can say is, it is true that the shorter term fundamentals (+QBO transition, decaying strong niño, residual -PMM, etc) favor a hard crash to La Niña.

However, primal, lower frequency IPWP mode(s) and those off domain such as DMI/etc will work against against that, especially in the EPAC. There is precedent for this, in which cases the EPAC tended to remain warm while the WPAC cooled early and sharply.

Do you have examples of years with what you describe in the last sentence?

[Phishy Wx]

26 minutes ago, MossMan said:

I still have no idea how y’all put up with that extreme humidity over there. 

it blows, I grew up in it in South Carolina.  I only go home to visit family late October-March now.  the weather is usually pretty nice then.  However I do miss massive Thunderstorms and Tropical Cyclones

[Phil]

35 minutes ago, MossMan said:

I still have no idea how y’all put up with that extreme humidity over there. 

Many people simply leave for cooler places. Big upside to that is traffic declines sharply after the 4th of July and stays that way until around Labor Day. Shaves 10-15 minutes off my commute.

Those first couple weeks of humidity are the worst, then you slowly acclimate to it (key word is “slowly”, lol). The summers where it starts suddenly after a relatively cool spring are nauseating.

[Phil]

13 minutes ago, umadbro said:

Anyone know where I can find radar loops from the past?

Radarscope has them back to the 1990s. What dates are you looking for?

[MossMan]

2 minutes ago, Phil said:

Radarscope has them back to the 1990s. What dates are you looking for?

How about 11/26/06 into 11/27/06! One of the best events of my lifetime! 

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

Many people simply leave for cooler places. Big upside to that is traffic declines sharply after the 4th of July and stays that way until around Labor Day. Shaves 10-15 minutes off my commute.

Those first couple weeks of humidity are the worst, then you slowly acclimate to it. The summers where it starts suddenly after a relatively cool spring are nauseating.

Commuting traffic is lighter in the Seattle area in the summer too... always picks up again when school starts.   And we have a large influx of tourists in the summer around here.  

[westiztehbest]

42 minutes ago, Phishy Wx said:

we fry over here most every summer.  I just want to mainly avoid smoke.  last summer surprising decent except the Medical Lake fires, but that smoke only lasted like a week,  nothing smoke wise on a region scale.

the more the fry the warmer the lakes are

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, MossMan said:

How about 11/26/06 into 11/27/06! One of the best events of my lifetime! 

You mean this?

[MossMan]

6 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

You mean this?

Oh yeah! That was about the time my dad had called me saying the power had gone out due to heavy snow. I was still in Olympia just about ready to head home. Had no idea what was going on up north until he had called. It was in the 40’s with a south wind and showers in Olympia. 

Edited January 23 by MossMan

[umadbro]

12 minutes ago, Phil said:

Radarscope has them back to the 1990s. What dates are you looking for?

1/13/24. The snowstorm for here 

[Omegaraptor]

10 minutes ago, westiztehbest said:

the more the fry the warmer the lakes are

Wonder how humid Issaquah is being immediately downwind from Lake Sammamish.

[Phil]

8 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Do you have examples of years with what you describe in the last sentence?

The satellite era examples of such incongruity are volcanic years or wrong QBO, so that is a dead end unfortunately.

One thing that is certain is we’ll be transitioning from - to + QBO (descending westerly shear) which, if we assume a niña transition, rules out hard crash years like 1998 and 2007 altogether.

[Phil]

16 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Commuting traffic is lighter in the Seattle area in the summer too... always picks up again when school starts.   And we have a large influx of tourists in the summer around here.  

I assume you mean heavier not lighter? My family in Everett says traffic is 10X worse during the summer months due to tourists and people fleeing the south.

A portion of my extended family (the ones I visited in FL for New Years) live in Seattle during the summer months, then returns to Florida in the winter months.

[MossMan]

5 minutes ago, Phil said:

I assume you mean heavier? My family says summer traffic is 10X worse than winter traffic up there.

A portion of my extended family (the ones I visited in FL for New Years) live in Seattle during the summer months, then goes back to Florida in the winter months.

During the week traffic isn’t as bad in the summer, but weekend traffic is absolutely horrific!! It’s the reverse in the fall thru spring. At least on I-5 between Lynnwood and Burlington. If I need to travel on I-5 on the weekends in the summer I go either very early or very late. It’s bad. So is HWY 2 on Fridays and Sundays during the warm months. 

Edited January 23 by MossMan

[Phil]

35 minutes ago, MossMan said:

How about 11/26/06 into 11/27/06! One of the best events of my lifetime! 

This one? 1-445pm PST 11/26/06

[Phil]

7 minutes ago, MossMan said:

During the week traffic isn’t as bad in the summer, but weekend traffic is absolutely horrific!!

Funny, exact opposite here. We save errands for the weekends in Jul/Aug because that’s when traffic actually moves.  

[SouthHillFrosty]

3 hours ago, MossMan said:

Seems like everything these days are just made and done cheaply these days unfortunately. Hopefully you have some sort of warranty still? 

The roof was put on a year before we bought it and the warranty doesn't transfer to the new owner apparently. Oh well part of life lol

[Phil]

21 minutes ago, umadbro said:

1/13/24. The snowstorm for here 

This one? Any preferred time?

[MossMan]

11 minutes ago, Phil said:

This one might be better. Starts several hours earlier on 11/26/06 when there is heavier precip.

It was amazing! There was a lull for a few hours that night before it started in again the morning of the 27th and went all day until the arctic front passes through late that afternoon or so. The over 24hrs of wet snow turned into a powdery snow and I was freezing on the tractor at work as we were trying our hardest to keep things somewhat clear. No power, trees and big limbs down everywhere, it was insane! 

[Phil]

1 minute ago, MossMan said:

It was amazing! There was a lull for a few hours that night before it started in again the morning of the 27th and went all day until the arctic front passes through late that afternoon or so. The over 24hrs of wet snow turned into a powdery snow and I was freezing on the tractor at work as we were trying our hardest to keep things somewhat clear. No power, trees and big limbs down everywhere, it was insane! 

What time on the 27th are you most interested in?

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

52 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Horrible Great web site but you can actually get archived radar here going back to 2007.

https://a.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/archive.html

How the hell can you think atmos is a horrible website? 

[Omegaraptor]

Hanoi, Vietnam at 21N latitude and sea level pulled off a 53/46 day today.

Corvallis is running warmer at 54/47!

[MossMan]

3 minutes ago, Phil said:

What time on the 27th are you most interested in?

8am to 8pm!

[SilverFallsAndrew]

If anyone can dig up 1/18/2012 I’d love to see that one! 

[TT-SEA]

30 minutes ago, Phil said:

I assume you mean heavier not lighter? My family in Everett says traffic is 10X worse during the summer months due to tourists and people fleeing the south.

A portion of my extended family (the ones I visited in FL for New Years) live in Seattle during the summer months, then returns to Florida in the winter months.

Commute traffic is lighter in the summer... particularly morning.    The first day of school is very noticeable because everyone is back on the same schedule again.    I am sure there is a cumulative effect of people taking vacations at different times during the summer leads to lighter commuter traffic.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2016 had some pretty big heatwaves in these parts. July was an interlude, but June and August were big and bad.

[TT-SEA]

16 minutes ago, Omegaraptor said:

Hanoi, Vietnam at 21N latitude and sea level pulled off a 53/46 day today.

Corvallis is running warmer at 54/47!

Interestingly... Seattle is significantly more sunny than Hanoi.    Roughly 2,200 hours annually in Seattle compared to 1,500 in Hanoi.  

[Snownerd3000]

Ho Lee shiz. I didn't realize radarscope had historical data. That is neat. 

[Slushy Inch]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

Radarscope has them back to the 1990s. What dates are you looking for?

That’s tier two subscription unfortunately 

[Phil]

16 minutes ago, MossMan said:

8am to 8pm!

Can only do 4hrs at a time so here’s 12-4pm PST 11/26/06