February 2024 Weather in the PNW

[AbbyJr]

20 hours ago, Phil said:

The upcoming +PNA will attack the PV and possibly force an early/dynamic final warming.

It might be too little too late, but if we do pull off a top-tier dynamic final warming, the niño tendency towards warm/dry springs in the NW US could be muted to some extent.

That said, it didn’t work out that way in 2016 (which was the last such occurrence). Niño might be too strong/stubborn. 

The two cases where I recall March performing exceptionally well in the PNW were 1951 and 2002. Both were cold neutral. I'd be very surprised to see a cold March in the PNW during a strong El Niño even with a SSW/PV split.

[ShawniganLake]

3 hours ago, Slushy Inch said:

Even deep troughs that go right over us in model runs have lacked any actual cold

No northern jet 

[TT-SEA]

48 minutes ago, MossMan said:

False spring that happens every year. I will have accumulating snow again at some point in the next 5 weeks. 

Yep... spring is never a linear line around here.   Seems like that can happen on the  other side in fall... but literally never in spring.   

[SouthHillFrosty]

Already have flowers blooming in the yard.... can't remember the last time that happened this earlier. Will provide photo proof tomorrow.

[ShawniganLake]

3 hours ago, Phishy Wx said:

so how's the next arctic blast looking?

Late November and early December are looking very interesting  

[ShawniganLake]

2 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

Basically normal for this time of year.

He lives in BC now. 50s are well above normal up here this time of year.  Hit 53F here today. Average for the date is only 44F.  

[snow_wizard]

Already some 30 burgers out there tonight.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, ShawniganLake said:

He lives in BC now. 50s are well above normal up here this time of year.  Hit 53F here today. Average for the date is only 44F.  

I doubt that in Vancouver.  Bellingham's normal is 48 now and they are about like Vancouver.

[snow_wizard]

41 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Already have flowers blooming in the yard.... can't remember the last time that happened this earlier. Will provide photo proof tomorrow.

I'm sure it has happened.  This January was a lot colder than many this century.  I guarantee years like 2010 were well ahead of this.

[snow_wizard]

29 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

Late November and early December are looking very interesting  

Already given up on this month in spite of the SSW coming up?

[ShawniganLake]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I doubt that in Vancouver.  Bellingham's normal is 48 now and they are about like Vancouver.

Averages for YVR today are 45/34. (7.1C/0.9C) on Environment Canada data. 

[ShawniganLake]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

Already given up on this month in spite of the SSW coming up?

I’d say we might see some passing lowland snow showers at some point in the next 10 days or so.  I’d bet mid to late month is +PNA with chilly nights.  Arctic air goes east. 

[Slushy Inch]

Chilly gfs run. Even some what looks like phantom snow 

[MossMan]

15 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Already given up on this month in spite of the SSW coming up?

The Canadian is not onboard 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

35 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

He lives in BC now. 50s are well above normal up here this time of year.  Hit 53F here today. Average for the date is only 44F.  

44.7˚F per the daily Environment Canada summary for YVR.

[Matt in Salem]

On 2/1/2024 at 10:22 AM, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Alaska is getting a brutal cold wave again. -50 or colder again in spots. some places have not been warmer than -10 for almost 2 weeks. 

I was reading the posts from the last couple of days and saw this so I checked in on my birthplace of Fairbanks:  current Temp. is -44 after a low of -49 this am and a high of -38 this pm.  I was born in late Sept. and my Mother told me it was 0* that morning in Fairbanks which she said was a bit unusual---She said they normally don't get their 1st 0* until sometime in Oct. I like snow and cold but Fairbanks is a little extreme cold wise. I'm glad she moved to Oregon when I was a little tyke!

[Chewbacca Defense]

11 hours ago, MossMan said:

The grass by the deck got nuked when a friends puppy came over to play with my dogs and kids when it was bare ground and 19 degrees. I knew it was toast when I said sure come on over, but that area really grows well so as soon as we are into about May you won’t even notice it. My unmolested grass already needs mowing however. 

My backyard got completely destroyed this winter.  Not sure how I am going to bring it back.  The pictures from the other day don't quite do it justice, but I was walking on it today and water is still squeezing out of the soil around my feet.  It's just matted down clumps of grass like substance.

 

 

[Phil]

8 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

12Z EPS shows the same thing... that trough doesn't really have a chance to establish itself.   But hopefully it can bring a good period of mountain snow later next week.  

 

With almost no northern jet to speak of, I have hard time believing there’ll be much precip with the early month stuff.

[Phishy Wx]

was 48 here. average high is 38

[Phishy Wx]

10 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

My backyard got completely destroyed this winter.  Not sure how I am going to bring it back.  The pictures from the other day don't quite do it justice, but I was walking on it today and water is still squeezing out of the soil around my feet.  It's just matted down clumps of grass like substance.

 

 

mine is hosed too in the back, going to have to reseed or sod in spring, it's nothing but mud now

[Phil]

8 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

Just keeps getting better.  We're going to have another shot at it I think.  Keep in mind the models usually don't react as far as the sensible weather is concerned until the SSW is actually happening.

Verbatim that’s not nearly enough. Late winter/spring is when middle latitude response to ENSO forcing is the most stable.

It will take a record breaking SSW, with exceptional coupling on a relatively short lag to overwhelm the niño base state.

That kind of top-tier event has never happened within 6 weeks of a previous SSW.

[Phil]

7 hours ago, BLI snowman said:

 

In some cases it seems like the final warming can effectively just mean the cold air vanishing right along with the PV. That was certainly the case in 2016, when that PV split pretty much just rang in spring for everybody.

We did switch to a stormier, windier pattern with snow squalls during the first half of April, but you’re correct that it didn’t really get cold. Even by April standards.

[seattleweatherguy]

5 minutes ago, Phil said:

Verbatim that’s not nearly enough. Late winter/spring is when middle latitude response to ENSO forcing is the most stable.

It will take a record breaking SSW, with exceptional coupling on a relatively short lag to overwhelm the niño base state.

That kind of top-tier event has never happened within 6 weeks of a previous SSW.

So I can get my snow tires off and it probably won’t snow again.

[Phil]

6 hours ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

I’m making peace with it. Seeing lots of buds on the trees after yesterday. And today is once again wildly overachieving temp wise. Let’s just get the torching out of the way the next couple months and maybe we can have a more reasonable mid-spring thru summer for once.

I’m happy that we at least had a very solid cold spell (our best in decades by many measures) to bookend the early winter torching from the late winter torching. And many places scored a below average Jan when all was said and done. About the most we could hope for given the circumstances.

Was about to say, I’m seeing a lot of buds on trees and hints of greening grass.

The mid-month flip back to colder weather can’t happen soon enough.

[ShawniganLake]

17 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

My backyard got completely destroyed this winter.  Not sure how I am going to bring it back.  The pictures from the other day don't quite do it justice, but I was walking on it today and water is still squeezing out of the soil around my feet.  It's just matted down clumps of grass like substance.

 

 

Aerate. Top dress with sand or a very sandy lawn mix.  Overseed.  

[Phil]

5 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Normal high in Seattle is basically 80 now in the heart of the summer... same out here in the Snoqualmie Valley.    And close to the mid 80s in Portland.     

Upper 70s and only for ~ 3 weeks.

If this interdecadal regime reverses (anyone’s guess when that will happen) there’s a decent chance those mid/late summer averages could come down a degree or two.

[Phil]

5 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

That will change by mid month I'm thinking.  The supply of cold has been all or nothing this winter for the entire county.  We will probably see another attempt at a major nationwide cold wave later on.

Just looking at our recent Februarys again and it's mind blowing.  Out of the last 7 we have had significant cold and or significant snow in all but one.

The second half of February could be wall-to-wall ridging up there. Given the snails pace this MJO/ER is moving, there might not be another troughy pattern until the second week of March.

Probably the most +PNA-heavy system state since 2015 coming up.

[Phil]

3 hours ago, Front Ranger said:

Didn't work like that in January. I'm kinda skeptical of any hard and fast rules to how SSWs affect the weather, personally.

January was a bottom-up, reflective SSW. Almost no lag whatsoever.

You are correct that the “lag time” can vary wildly. It can be up to 2+ months in poorly coupled years!

On the other hand, there can be *negative* lags in hyper-extreme, stacked wave breaking regimes. Late Jan/early Feb 1989 is one example of that, where the tropospheric pattern actually led the stratosphere (that was the strongest SSW in history too). That was such an unbelievable pattern..one that probably won’t be replicated for a long time.

[Mercurial]

Summers here in the NW are so good... even the hottest ones are easy, due to crisp nights and lack of humidity.  I'm ignoring the August smoke here.

[Mercurial]

Average July low temp at KGPI since 1990: 48.3.  Lol 

[Cascadia_Wx]

1 minute ago, Mercurial said:

Average July low temp at KGPI since 1990: 48.3.  Lol 

Sounds wonderful. Our average mid summer lows in the Portland urban core are pretty much 60 or better now. At least mid July through mid August.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

6 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

Normal high in Seattle is basically 80 now in the heart of the summer... same out here in the Snoqualmie Valley.    And close to the mid 80s in Portland.     

And it sucks.

[Mercurial]

2 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Sounds wonderful. Our average mid summer lows in the Portland urban core are pretty much 60 or better now. At least mid July through mid August.

Unfortunately, summer smoke really does muck things up around here.  But yeah, temp wise, the Flathead in summer is great. 

Many parts of MT really do get legitimately hot in summer, though.  Probably not much different from PDX.  Billings is a freaking furnace.  Helena, Missoula, and all of eastern Montana are too hot as well.

[Phil]

2 hours ago, MossMan said:

False spring that happens every year. I will have accumulating snow again at some point in the next 5 weeks. 

Usually when niños flip warm/+TNH in February it’s there to stay. Some niño years that lose the STJ early (such as 2010) can return to troughing (-PNA/+NPO variety) earlier in the spring, but this year’s STJ is the strongest since 1998, and likely won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

[Phishy Wx]

5.1 quake east of Oklahoma City

[Cascadia_Wx]

Just now, Phishy Wx said:

5.1 quake east of Oklahoma City

Thank you Twitter man.

[Phishy Wx]

1 minute ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Thank you Twitter man.

Any time brah

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Honestly, had a kinda shitty day with a lot of anxiety. Drives me crazy.

[Cascadia_Wx]

2 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Honestly, had a kinda shitty day with a lot of anxiety. Drives me crazy.

Weren’t you up in the Portland area?

[snow_wizard]

I must say I was not expecting this.  I used the 1950-95 normal so it's pretty impressive to see how decent our winters have actually been lately.  Broken down by month December is just slightly cool for WA, Jan is terrible, and Feb very chilly.