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

[BLI snowman]

5 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

I was 9 then and got 5-6 inches in Seattle with that one. Woke up to all that surprise snow but had a 5am taxi to the airport to go to Mexico. My parents had to literally drag me kicking and screaming into the car and said it was the biggest tantrum they remember me ever throwing.

That was right in the middle of a truly awful stretch for Seattle snow so seemed particularly incredible to my little child brain. 

The snow events in that 1999-06 stretch definitely stand out because they were so few and far between.

We had a little surprise snow on St. Patrick's Day morning in 2002 and the 2" we got felt like 10". And was the last time we would see flakes for 20 months. 

[the_convergence_zone]

38 minutes ago, RentonHill said:

going to be quite the thaw for the plains. 

Not a thaw! Still mostly below 32 F in that entire big warm anomaly. The perks of having a normal high of like 5 F in mid-January...

[Rubus Leucodermis]

36 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

I am finally able to message briefly again. My phone signal is extremely poor, because almost no one here downtown has Internet and is relying on cell phone signal. That is bottlenecked like crazy. We are still dealing with a contaminated water issue and no one knows when service will be restored or when the water issue will be resolved. There are so many downed trees that it’s hard to even move around. I am so very grateful for the support that y’all have shown so far. Looking forward to things eventually getting back to normal, but it could legitimately take months for that to happen. That’s how bad things are here.

If anyone else is able to help out, it would be much appreciated as both houses on our property have damage and a lot of stuff got broken, especially outside.

We truly appreciate and are grateful for any support possible at this point. I still can’t believe how truly devastating this event was.

I’ll try to post again if I can. It took forever to be able to even post this.

Venmo to help out if possible

Hang in there! It won't take months. Now that it's melting, things should start getting cleaned up and back to normal within about a week.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

23 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Think that was February 1995. You guys scored with the low dropping south off the coast on the 12th and then scored again with the overrunning a few days later. 

Mason County 14 2000PST 0 0 0 0 Heavy Snow Another 10 or more inches of snow fell around Brinnon brin ging the two day storm total to 32 inches. Schools were closed from Monday to Wednesday. Some residents were without power for two to three days. WAZ001 17 1015PST

Found some info. Brinnon had 32, i lived in port orchard and we only had 7, A friend told me there was 3 feet out near canal and that was the storm that started me educating my self with the area. I can find NO info how it was in 1916 or 1880 but i would imagine in 1880 because of the storm track they were demolished under 6-8 ft.

[ShawniganLake]

9 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Mason County 14 2000PST 0 0 0 0 Heavy Snow Another 10 or more inches of snow fell around Brinnon brin ging the two day storm total to 32 inches. Schools were closed from Monday to Wednesday. Some residents were without power for two to three days. WAZ001 17 1015PST

Found some info. Brinnon had 32, i lived in port orchard and we only had 7, A friend told me there was 3 feet out near canal and that was the storm that started me educating my self with the area. I can find NO info how it was in 1916 or 1880 but i would imagine in 1880 because of the storm track they were demolished under 6-8 ft.

In 1916 Shawnigan Lake had 135” of snow in the first 40 days of the year.  There is no snow depth data back then though. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, ShawniganLake said:

In 1916 Shawnigan Lake had 135” of snow in the first 40 days of the year.  There is no snow depth data back then though. 

Good god that makes what we have had the last 30 years look like a joke

[bainbridgekid]

53 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

The snow events in that 1999-06 stretch definitely stand out because they were so few and far between.

We had a little surprise snow on St. Patrick's Day morning in 2002 and the 2" we got felt like 10". And was the last time we would see flakes for 20 months. 

I think I experienced almost zero snowfall in Seattle my entire childhood till Jan 2004 when I was 12.

I'm not 100% sure but I usually went to Chicago for two weeks around Christmas so I believe I missed the Dec. 1996 and 1998 snows (I have no memory of them) and then I also left for Mexico before I could enjoy the Feb. 2001 snow,  You might know of some exceptions I'm forgetting.

The 8-9" we got in 2004 didn't melt all day and absolutely blew my mind. I had NO idea Seattle was even capable of that at the time and it really setup my love of forecasting weather.

[ShawniganLake]

5 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Good god that makes what we have had the last 30 years look like a joke

There was arctic air at the end of December in 1915 so the ground was frozen solid when the snow started in January.  And in that 40 day stretch the temp only jumped above 35F on 1 day.  

[ShawniganLake]

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

11 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

I am interested in the pattern for that to happen. Must of been perfect alignment of the jet and arctic air.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

WE are due for something big like a 1916, 1880, 1950 type event. I hope i get to see something like that before my time is up. I believe we are still capable of it, feb 2019 and this 2024 event with minor changes to the large scale pattern could of been there like those big years. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Bellingham and north 1996 was big time stuff for sure, that might be the closest Seattle has came to a 20 inch 1 day snowfall in a long time.

[BLI snowman]

38 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

I'm not 100% sure but I usually went to Chicago for two weeks around Christmas so I believe I missed the Dec. 1996 and 1998 snows (I have no memory of them) and since I also left for Mexico before I could enjoy the Feb. 2001 snow, I think I experienced almost zero snowfall in Seattle my entire childhood till Jan 2004 when I was 12. You might know of some exceptions I'm forgetting.

The 8-9" we got in 2004 didn't melt all day and absolutely blew my mind. I had NO idea Seattle was even capable of that at the time and it really setup my love of forecasting weather.

Seattle had a few inches with the November 1996 storm and a few inches with the January 1998 storm. Then there was a pretty gnarly c-zone in early March 2002 that hit Bellevue and south Seattle with a few inches of thundersnow. Might have been a bit in downtown as well but it missed SEA. 

Edited January 19 by BLI snowman

[MossMan]

Took the 30 minute drive to my area winter happy place, Lake Cavanaugh. Was still only 33 degrees up there and absolutely lovely. 
Back here at home it’s 40 degrees and raining. 

[Meatyorologist]

29 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

I was 9 then and got 5-6 inches in Seattle with that one. Woke up to all that surprise snow but had a 5am taxi to the airport to go to Mexico. My parents had to literally drag me kicking and screaming into the car and said it was the biggest tantrum they remember me ever throwing.

That was right in the middle of a truly awful stretch for Seattle snow so seemed particularly incredible to my little child brain. 

Reading this brought back an old memory of mine!

During one of the numerous marginal snow events of 2007-08, my mom and I went to our annual Christmas party, held by our family at a Lutheran church in Buckley, just south of Enumclaw, probably within sniffing distance of Jim.

Leaving Seattle around noon it was lightly drizzling, and an hour later, deep in the foothills, we were greeted to a wintry mix with no accumulation. Throughout the evening as night fell and the intensity of the precipitation increased, temperatures dropped to near freezing, and a wet snow I did not anticipate beforehand now blanketed the roads and grass, dendrites the size of my open palm fluttering to the earth. Needless to say, I was transfixed.

Around 7 or 8 it came time to head back home. Even my six year old self knew we sat perched on a hill, where snow tends to lay roost in these parts of the country; so at one point you could say I did have a chance to prepare myself for the inevitable. But I was so caught up in that moment of innocent snowy bliss that I hardly even thought of those implications. The drive back west to Bonney Lake brought no change. That stretch of HW410 is incredibly flat, so as the precipitation continued, so did the snow, making the roads dicey as we cruised into the core of town.

It took no more than three minutes for the stone cold truth of reality to crush my little heart. Past Bonney Lake, the plateau the town sits on abruptly ends; the terrain unceremoniously crashing right back down to sea level in Sumner. There is a section of HW410 that exacts all five hundred feet of elevation change in a matter of a couple miles. Normally, that drive is a great opportunity to experience a cross section of the sub-BL atmosphere over a sweeping vista. Instead, on that day, it burned into my young mind a very deep, very valuable lesson regarding the cruel indifference of marginal snowfall in the PNW. Around halfway down, the fat clumps of white which graced our headlights seamlessly transitioned to puny little beads of Seattle Drizzle©, taunting me as they plunked headfirst into our windshield, a bare landscape outside now practically laughing in my face.

My parents say I was never a fussy kid. I hardly threw tantrums. That night, I did.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Growing up when a snow storm busted i lost my mind to the point one time i called Steve Pool and called him some terrible names. Bad stuff. I feel bad now especially since he passed away.

[Meatyorologist]

1 minute ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Growing up when a snow storm busted i lost my mind to the point one time i called Steve Pool and called him some terrible names. Bad stuff. I feel bad now especially since he passed away.

Knowing his character, he probably laughed it off and wished you the best. He was a treasure

[RentonHill]

1 hour ago, the_convergence_zone said:

Not a thaw! Still mostly below 32 F in that entire big warm anomaly. The perks of having a normal high of like 5 F in mid-January...

Looks like a decent chunk of >0C areas to me, but yes its probably just some warm daytime temps sandwiches between 18 hours of well below freezing...

[The Blob]

Looks like the Troutdale station was down for a few hours last night when the winds were at their strongest.

[MikeInEverett]

Wife and I have a trip to Whistler planned next weekend and I was really hoping we would see a snowstorm while we’re there but those hopes are fading away. At least I’ll get to see a lot of snow on the ground!

[MossMan]

My youngest daughter (born in the fall of 2018) has no idea that we can go an entire winter without snow…She has been a part of nice to epic snowfalls her entire life! My oldest daughter was born during the chilly dry spell in February 2014 so her first real memories would be of the winter of 2016/17 so really she only knows that we get great snowstorms every winter! I thought this winter might have been the first one where the kids would have been quite disappointed with a snowless winter (among with myself of course) but we luckily had that miracle snowfall this week. 

Edited January 19 by MossMan

[Tenochtitlan]

Here are some pictures I took of the pancake ice in Padden Creek estuary in Bellingham. I took these on the evening of the 12th, the day the weather station right on the water in Fairhaven recorded a high of just 15 degrees. 

I'd never seen this pocket estuary freeze over in previous Arctic events. Yet, the cold was so intense this time that these large circles of ice formed in just one day!

I tried to pick one up--it was heavy and solid. This is the same kind of ice that forms in the Arctic! I believe it's a result of wave action. One of the cooler things I've ever seen.

 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

How rare is it to get 2 arctic events south of the border on a Nino year? Can it happen?

[MossMan]

Ground fog! Lots of it now at home and driving back to work just now. 

[Deweydog]

3 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

How rare is it to get 2 arctic events south of the border on a Nino year? Can it happen?

1968-69

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

February will be interesting. It sure has been magic lately, Maybe it will get there again this year.

[TT-SEA]

41 with a dewpoint of 34 at the station near my house.   Just cleared 3 or 4 inches of absolute concrete paste off the driveway... such a pain.    The trees basically de-iced themselves in the 90 minutes I was out there.   Overall there significantly less ice damage here compared to the 2012 ice storm.   We got lucky yesterday with more snow than rain.

[iFred]

53 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Reading this brought back an old memory of mine!

During one of the numerous marginal snow events of 2007-08, my mom and I went to our annual Christmas party, held by our family at a Lutheran church in Buckley, just south of Enumclaw, probably within sniffing distance of Jim.

Leaving Seattle around noon it was lightly drizzling, and an hour later, deep in the foothills, we were greeted to a wintry mix with no accumulation. Throughout the evening as night fell and the intensity of the precipitation increased, temperatures dropped to near freezing, and a wet snow I did not anticipate beforehand now blanketed the roads and grass, dendrites the size of my open palm fluttering to the earth. Needless to say, I was transfixed.

Around 7 or 8 it came time to head back home. Even my six year old self knew we sat perched on a hill, where snow tends to lay roost in these parts of the country; so at one point you could say I did have a chance to prepare myself for the inevitable. But I was so caught up in that moment of innocent snowy bliss that I hardly even thought of those implications. The drive back west to Bonney Lake brought no change. That stretch of HW410 is incredibly flat, so as the precipitation continued, so did the snow, making the roads dicey as we cruised into the core of town.

It took no more than three minutes for the stone cold truth of reality to crush my little heart. Past Bonney Lake, the plateau the town sits on abruptly ends; the terrain unceremoniously crashing right back down to sea level in Sumner. There is a section of HW410 that exacts all five hundred feet of elevation change in a matter of a couple miles. Normally, that drive is a great opportunity to experience a cross section of the sub-BL atmosphere over a sweeping vista. Instead, on that day, it burned into my young mind a very deep, very valuable lesson regarding the cruel indifference of marginal snowfall in the PNW. Around halfway down, the fat clumps of white which graced our headlights seamlessly transitioned to puny little beads of Seattle Drizzle©, taunting me as they plunked headfirst into our windshield, a bare landscape outside now practically laughing in my face.

My parents say I was never a fussy kid. I hardly threw tantrums. That night, I did.

Ah, the Eli Hill snow line. There many childhood memories of having a family breakfast in Sumner or Puyallup, and trying to pick a seat near the restaurant window so I could see the cloud deck drop close to the valley floor.

I'm wondering if you went to the Grace Lutheran church that was just outside of Buckley. I went to Saint Aloysius and there were more than a few times where the Sunday drive to CCD (Catholic Sunday School) from our family home in Prairie Ridge to Buckley were filled with child like hope as usually snow would start accumulating by the 410 weigh station. When we got to church we would have these amazing winter views of the Cascades and Mt Rainier.

As for the winter of 07-08, particularly that December, I had just received by GED and gotten a job at Office Depot in Bonney Lake. Having invested my money in the brand new iPhone, and to the disappointment of my parents, not a car, I'd walk every day to and from that store down South Prairie Road. I remember that December snow event because it was a very cold and wet walk back, but I was so damn excited about snow getting heavier and heavier. I got home, body and backpack soaked, iPhone dangerously wet, and one big ass smile on my face.

If I recall, we had a brief warm windstorm the next day or so, and then another round of night snow by early January.

A bit rambley on my part, but your story brought back some really good memories.

[bainbridgekid]

36 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

How rare is it to get 2 arctic events south of the border on a Nino year? Can it happen?

Happened in 06-07

[Rubus Leucodermis]

45 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

How rare is it to get 2 arctic events south of the border on a Nino year? Can it happen?

Already has. Had one in October, too.

[Snownerd3000]

1 hour ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

WE are due for something big like a 1916, 1880, 1950 type event. I hope i get to see something like that before my time is up. I believe we are still capable of it, feb 2019 and this 2024 event with minor changes to the large scale pattern could of been there like those big years. 

If it weren't for a pesky butterfly fart in japan, it would have been perfect and would have delivered.

[TT-SEA]

Live view from NB... ice is no longer an issue. 

[Phishy Wx]

24, warmest it's been since early last thursday (1/11) I think

[RentonHill]

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

End of GFS has some potential. Long way out though 

[Phishy Wx]

welp, I guess it's about to get boring until November huh?

 

Hopefully we have a decent Graupel season in the Spring

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

End of GFS has some potential. Long way out though 

Agreed. Even a couple magic 8 balls on the 12z ensembles. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

60 burger at Medford. Meanwhile a 36/32 day here on the home front! 

[MossMan]

15 minutes ago, RentonHill said:

Let’s bring that puppy to either the southern tip of Vancouver Island, or if there is enough cold air to tap into let’s plow that thing into the mouth of the Columbia…With it still straightening. 

Edited January 19 by MossMan

[Andstorm]

1 minute ago, Phishy Wx said:

welp, I guess it's about to get boring until November huh?

I think the winter of 23-24 will go down as pretty weird one. one week of record low temps surrounded by very mild conditions. I don’t recall a winter here in portland at least where the 850 temps have been this high this consistently. Hell, the 850 temps weren’t even very impressive here during the cold stretch. It’s not a dud but i think hindsight will reveal this to be a more trademark nino winter than it feels like in the moment.