February 2024 Weather in the PNW

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

43 for a high after a low of 27. Low humidity is keeping the snow good. Still 2.5 inches on ground.

[snow_wizard]

1 hour ago, MossMan said:

That next fall I got my license…Was the perfect winter to learn how to not wreck my car in icy snowy conditions! 

I still remember the October cold wave before that winter.  It was really impressive and had snow in a number of places.  That's before I knew that an October blast in a Nino year is the kiss of death for the winter.

We did have one little bit of localized snow that winter that I actually called accurately.  Not even sure how I did that being in the pre model watching days.

[MossMan]

 

That was such a fun 2 day event 3yrs ago! 

[snow_wizard]

The Nino is about to crash hard.  Check out that cold bubble JUST below the surface now.  Nino 1+2 could go minus almost instantly when that surfaces.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Ended up with a chilly and breezy 42/36 spread here today. Wind gusts in the 45+ range at points. Clouds were high enough where the Cascade peaks looked really great with their fresh coat of snow, bright white against a steely gray backdrop.

Even though we didn’t get snow, I’m grateful for this wintery interlude in an otherwise mild month. This, the above average rainfall Dec/Jan, and of course the epic airmass in mid-January have made this winter a lot more tolerable than a typical Niño splitty wall to wall torch.

[Christensen87]

I’m in Enumclaw. It’s a little breezy, definitely not windy really though. Another bust, maybe? 

[The Blob]

Another OHSU view.

[Cascadia_Wx]

4 minutes ago, The Blob said:

Another OHSU view.

They should just call it OHSView

[Anti Marine Layer]

1 hour ago, snow_wizard said:

The Nino is about to crash hard.  Check out that cold bubble JUST below the surface now.  Nino 1+2 could go minus almost instantly when that surfaces.

Too much upwelling. 

[Snoqualmoo]

I'm in North Bend and tonight is the windiest I've ever seen in the 4+ years I've lived the Snoqualmie Valley. Our power typically goes out from way less than this. Fingers crossed

[The Blob]

8 hours ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

Ugh. Tomatoes are just so….temperate. I wanna grow guavas and passion fruit  

I have a pineapple guava, and a neighbor has a loquat tree that did well during the storm.

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

21 degrees currently, with a midnight high temp of 28 and a daytime high temp of 24. Kinda like an arctic outbreak in Central oregon this weekend, it's not very common here to get multiple subfreezing highs in a row.  Snow depth of 5", 3" fell last night, the night before that we got 5" but it melted into 2". We could get a few more inches tommorow, maybe even more if we're lucky.

[Phil]

OT but holy virga batman. Must be a crazy dry layer just below 2kft.

[TT-SEA]

50 minutes ago, Snoqualmoo said:

I'm in North Bend and tonight is the windiest I've ever seen in the 4+ years I've lived the Snoqualmie Valley. Our power typically goes out from way less than this. Fingers crossed

Are you on the east side of town?   The North Bend weather site shows a peak gust of 39 mph for the day and it's not that crazy windy up here.   Getting tired of the power issues lately!   Are you on Tanner or PSE?    

[Phil]

Andrew is gonna love the 00z CMC.

[Doinko]

Power just went off for like 10 seconds and came back. Surprisingly that didn't happen in the January snow/wind storm, we were lucky to keep power throughout. Really windy today though, lots of fallen trash cans

[snow_wizard]

Decently chilly GEFS.  Sustained 850s around -5 on the mean with the control dropping to -8.  Good number of members below -6.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

31 minutes ago, Doinko said:

Power just went off for like 10 seconds and came back. Surprisingly that didn't happen in the January snow/wind storm, we were lucky to keep power throughout. Really windy today though, lots of fallen trash cans

Losing power and having the indoor temp fall into the 30s with trees falling outside is pretty wild NGL.

[snow_wizard]

3 hours ago, Christensen87 said:

I’m in Enumclaw. It’s a little breezy, definitely not windy really though. Another bust, maybe? 

We've had PLENTY of wind here the past few days.  Messed up the snow and a freezing min thus far.  The ECMWF shows flat calm later tonight.

[snow_wizard]

Just now, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Losing power and having the indoor temp fall into the 30s with trees falling outside is pretty wild NGL.

Ice storms are scary when you have trees around.  No two ways about that.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Decently chilly GEFS.  Sustained 850s around -5 on the mean with the control dropping to -8.  Good number of members below -6.

Some members even get close to the magic -8 ball even this far south.

[snow_wizard]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

Andrew is gonna love the 00z CMC.

That's a good solid cold shot for all of WA and OR.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

Ice storms are scary when you have trees around.  No two ways about that.

Hearing and feeling the thuds of large trees hitting the ground is surreal also. And then we have widowmakers still hanging down all over the place.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Some members even get close to the magic -8 ball even this far south.

Some places could end up below normal this month.  Hard to pull off with this ENSO state.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

That's a good solid cold shot for all of WA and OR.

Maybe some onshore flow snow at night here with that setup.

[snow_wizard]

I was wrong.  The ECMWF is showing the wind dropping tomorrow night.

[Meatyorologist]

Feeling the east winds here in Lake City... Pretty rare.

[Phil]

The sky is puking frozen H2O. Legit rates.

 

 

[iFred]

Trying to fix a storage issue. Script is running in the background, so things might be weird with attachments.

[Christensen87]

Still pretty calm in Enumclaw. I guess I’ll head back home lol oh well. 

[Front Ranger]

1 hour ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Hearing and feeling the thuds of large trees hitting the ground is surreal also. And then we have widowmakers still hanging down all over the place.

Even as a kid, I remember thinking: "Man, that's dark".

[Front Ranger]

53 minutes ago, Phil said:

The sky is puking frozen H2O. Legit rates.

IMG_0437.mov 91.62 MB · 2 downloads  

 

Obviously not over, but how does this winter so far compare to other mega Ninos like 1997-98, 1991-92, and 1982-83 for you?

[Phil]

17 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

Obviously not over, but how does this winter so far compare to other mega Ninos like 1997-98, 1991-92, and 1982-83 for you?

Much better than 97/98 and 91/92, but definitely not as good as 82/83 (so far, at least).  Thing is, all 3 of those niño winters had nearly the same pattern. The differences in snowfall mostly came down pure luck w/rt timing of waves/jet dynamics.

As for this winter, I grade it a solid B already, despite the 2 periods of huge torching. I’ve had accumulating snow every month this winter, including a full week of subfreezing temps with 3 snow events in that stretch alone (ended up with 11” depth).

Only thing missing is the multifoot blockbuster blizzard, but you never expect one of those. And I have a feeling the next one will happen in a neutral/weak ENSO winter.

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

20 degrees, the temperature is sllllooowwwwly going down. Quite a bit cooler than forecast which is always a good sign, and it just started to snow. Some models are calling for freezing rain tonight and tommorow instead of snow, but it's still possible for it to be all snow. Personally I'm forecasting snow, but time will tell.

 

Heres a pic of the snow falling in the streetlight, looking good so far! Good night. 

[snow_wizard]

A lot more dawgs in the EPS mix.

[snow_wizard]

WTF?

[snow_wizard]

I suppose I should mention that two analogs from the last half of Feb 1951 showed up tonight as well.  It also appears we will have a second SSW in early March that appears to be the big one.

[snow_wizard]

2 hours ago, Christensen87 said:

Still pretty calm in Enumclaw. I guess I’ll head back home lol oh well. 

North Bend just had a gust to 52.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

39F with some showers.

[Hawksfan2008]