February 2024 Weather in the PNW

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

Snow depth is down to 3.5 inches now ☹, currently 33 degrees. Lost 6.25 inches in just a day, even though our high temp was only 42. Was a pretty great day up at bachelor, although the base surprisingly got a high temp in the upper 30s which made the conditions pretty sucky, higher elevations were amazing though 

Edited February 19 by Sunriver Snow Zone

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Whet!

[TT-SEA]

And then you have the suddenly ridge happy GFS.

[TT-SEA]

12 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

We had one in Northridge park a couple of months ago, which as you can see is completely surrounded by neighborhoods.  It is the green patch near the center of the picture.  Lots of folks caught pictures on trail cams and security cameras.  I'm pretty sure it (or one of its friends) was in the woods behind my house last winter.  Went through a period where I could not get the dog to go out in the back yard.  She would absolutely panic and try and wiggle out of her collar and drag me back to the house.  About 2 weeks later, someone caught it on a trail camera about a mile from my house (down in the valley I live above).

Wow... dogs are so intuitive.   I will have to tell my mom about this as her house is in that aerial view.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

And then you have the suddenly ridge happy GFS.

GFS is really lost right now. 

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

GFS is really lost right now. 

I have to agree.   

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

16 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

GEM looks really nice. 

Meh, not really. Snow totals are weak AF, even here too. 

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, Sunriver Snow Zone said:

Meh, not really. Snow totals are weak AF, even here too. 

Andrew might be in his rain phase tonight.  We never quite know why runs are good or bad to him but it seems to change every few hours.

[DareDuck]

18 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

We had one in Northridge park a couple of months ago, which as you can see is completely surrounded by neighborhoods.  It is the green patch near the center of the picture.  Lots of folks caught pictures on trail cams and security cameras.  I'm pretty sure it (or one of its friends) was in the woods behind my house last winter.  Went through a period where I could not get the dog to go out in the back yard.  She would absolutely panic and try and wiggle out of her collar and drag me back to the house.  About 2 weeks later, someone caught it on a trail camera about a mile from my house (down in the valley I live above).

I’m convinced my dog alerted me to a bear several years back. She and I were out west of South Sister and suddenly she was rigid and pointing off towards the trees. She’s a cattle dog so she’s not usually spooked my large animals. I heard what sounded like a bear grunt, but I dismissed it because I had only seen bears down in the Eastern Sierra. The next day we were hiking a couple miles east and rangers were at the trailhead telling us there was a bear spotting the day before and to be careful. 

[Chewbacca Defense]

4 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Aren't wolves more dangerous? Not trying to bag on wolves, I love them, though they are hated on so much by ranchers who live on corporate welfare. 

Not sure what ranchers you know, but having married into a ranching family, I have yet to see a "corporate welfare recipient" rancher.

I do see the meat packing companies consolidating and using their near monopoly status to drive down the price they have to pay ranchers for their cattle, meanwhile the cost of everything the rancher needs goes up.  Not every ranch is like what you see on the show Yellowstone, in fact it's quite the opposite.  My wife's family ranch has 1 full time employee, and he will probably be retiring soon.  They do have 1 nice truck, but its an hour drive to get anywhere to get anything.  They have a "grocery store" that is smaller than most convenience stores out here.  To do any real shopping, home supplies, farm supplies etc, its an hour drive to Missoula.  The other trucks and tractors are quite old.  The cousin that has taken over the ranch from my wife's uncle is married to a gal that works remotely as a HR executive for a high end resort company, so they don't have to depend on the ranch to put food on their table.  Pretty much all the other ranches in the valley have the same story (except for the wife with a fat salary part).

When it comes time to brand or move cattle, all the ranchers in the valley help each other out.  I have even helped out on cattle drives.  We have often talked about whether or not the ranch will survive to the next generation.  They have already had to fend off attempts to develop the area and someone even tried to build an airport (ok so that part is like the show Yellowstone).  It wasn't tied to any sort of resort or ski resort, so it was pretty easy to shut down.

That said, the bench across from the ranch house that was completely bare except for grass and scrub brush when my wife's grandfather gazed on it when he took his last breath now has houses on it.  They butt right up against the property line of the ranch.

Not sure where the corporate welfare fits in all that...

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, Chewbacca Defense said:

Not sure what ranchers you know, but having married into a ranching family, I have yet to see a "corporate welfare recipient" rancher.

I do see the meat packing companies consolidating and using their near monopoly status to drive down the price they have to pay ranchers for their cattle, meanwhile the cost of everything the rancher needs goes up.  Not every ranch is like what you see on the show Yellowstone, in fact it's quite the opposite.  My wife's family ranch has 1 full time employee, and he will probably be retiring soon.  They do have 1 nice truck, but its an hour drive to get anywhere to get anything.  They have a "grocery store" that is smaller than most convenience stores out here.  To do any real shopping, home supplies, farm supplies etc, its an hour drive to Missoula.  The other trucks and tractors are quite old.  The cousin that has taken over the ranch from my wife's uncle is married to a gal that works remotely as a HR executive for a high end resort company, so they don't have to depend on the ranch to put food on their table.  Pretty much all the other ranches in the valley have the same story (except for the wife with a fat salary part).

When it comes time to brand or move cattle, all the ranchers in the valley help each other out.  I have even helped out on cattle drives.  We have often talked about whether or not the ranch will survive to the next generation.  They have already had to fend off attempts to develop the area and someone even tried to build an airport (ok so that part is like the show Yellowstone).  It wasn't tied to any sort of resort or ski resort, so it was pretty easy to shut down.

That said, the bench across from the ranch house that was completely bare except for grass and scrub brush when my wife's grandfather gazed on it when he took his last breath now has houses on it.  They butt right up against the property line of the ranch.

Not sure where the corporate welfare fits in all that...

Don't they get sweet federal grazing leases for pennies on the dollar? 

[Chewbacca Defense]

3 hours ago, TacomaWx said:

Most people way out in the wilderness are friendly. Almost every encounter I’ve had with hikers and campers has always been friendly. Most people way out in the sticks are genuinely nice friendly outdoors people. I don’t know what the deal was with those guys. I didn’t do anything to them I was just on a morning hike. I wasn’t on private property…so maybe they thought that area was “theirs” somehow and thought I was killing their privacy. It does freak me out that maybe if they thought I wasn’t armed that they intended to rob me. 

Any chance they had a mine near by that they were super paranoid/protective over?  I've had a couple of friends who had mines up in the cascades, and they got pretty weird if the topic was ever broached with them.

[snow_wizard]

That first shot of cold air on the GFS and GEFS is rock solid.  The big question is how the transition from the first to second trough will actually unfold.  The ECMWF suite of models has a much cleaner progression.  One trend I really like is the first trough digs a tad further east than earlier runs had shown.

[snow_wizard]

53 minutes ago, Sunriver Snow Zone said:

Snow depth is down to 3.5 inches now ☹, currently 33 degrees. Lost 6.25 inches in just a day, even though our high temp was only 42. Was a pretty great day up at bachelor, although the base surprisingly got a high temp in the upper 30s which made the conditions pretty sucky, higher elevations were amazing though 

 

Must have been very high snow to water ratio.  That stuff just disappears.

[snow_wizard]

51 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

GFS is really lost right now. 

Certainly lost after the first trough digs down.  That thing is nice on every model now.

[ShawniganLake]

We have quite a few bear passing through here.  My neighbor catches one on his game cam once or twice a week.  They don’t really seem to bother people too often but one ripped the door off my moms shed last summer to get to the garbage can.  

[Chewbacca Defense]

16 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Don't they get sweet federal grazing leases for pennies on the dollar? 

Grazing on federal lands is something that has been a thing for generations of ranchers, so it's not like it is some recent boondoggle for ranchers.  Like I said, a vast majority of ranchers are not rolling in the cash.

So yes, they have access to them but its so bloody expensive to get the cattle there, there's a lot of calculus involved to figure out if its even worth it.  And besides, what else would be done with the land if it wasn't being grazed?  Government can't make any money off it just sitting there, so why not set up the leases? Pennies on the dollars is better than nothing, especially if it doesn't require much if any cost to make it happen.

Back to using the land....to move the herd on "hoof" is a 6 day drive (which they did every year back when they actually had hands on the ranch), or its loading them on semis and driving them up there.  And with that its constant trips up there to check the herd. 

There is a lot of risk with the heard being 40-50 miles away.  They almost lost the herd to a forest fire one year.  They inevitably lose some cattle to cattle rustlers (yes that is a thing).  My wife's cousin has really dialed in their irrigation system and has been producing record hay crops in recent years, but that is dependent on having the rain/snow to feed the irrigation system, which is a system of canals with gates to control water flow, they basically selectively flood the pastures.

[snow_wizard]

We have a fair number of rogue GEFS members that show the cold from the first trough being deeper and more sustained than what is currently being advertised.  Hopefully we will see that theme built upon over the next couple of days.

[ShawniganLake]

Fairly noticeable move towards late month ridging on the GEFS.  Trough before is looking like a lock. 
 

 

[snow_wizard]

2 hours ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

Portland, OR will reach 130 F and Eureka, CA will reach 90 F for the first time in history.

Eureka has never reached 90?  Not sure how that's possible.  They've had to have had offshore flow at some point in their history.

[snow_wizard]

9 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

Fairly noticeable move towards late month ridging on the GEFS.  Trough before is looking like a lock. 
 

 

The spaghetti has some very interesting outliers holding onto cold for a few extra days with that first trough.

[snow_wizard]

The GEFS has the trough axis way further west than what the EPS has been showing as we get toward early March.

[snow_wizard]

Talk about some cold air to work with at the end of the ECMWF run.  Tons of potential if the upstream block moves closer.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

Talk about some cold air to work with at the end of the ECMWF run.  Tons of potential if the upstream block moves closer.

None of the stupid ridging in sight that the GFS shows either.

[snow_wizard]

6 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

None of the stupid ridging in sight that the GFS shows either.

This shows a relatively rare opportunity to get lowland snow with SW or WSW flow at the 850mb level.  That is one of the scenarios that my area can do pretty well.

[snow_wizard]

Could be fun to see how the EPS control progresses if it looks like the OP at day 10.

[snow_wizard]

EPS continues to shows the eastward trend with the first trough.  Quite favorable.

[snow_wizard]

Wowzers!

[Slushy Inch]

EPS looking better 

[snow_wizard]

Day-um!

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, Slushy Inch said:

EPS looking better 

Oh yeah!  There are going to be some dawgs on this run.

[Slushy Inch]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

Day-um!

Dam beat me to it!

[Slushy Inch]

Nice!

[Slushy Inch]

More goodness.

[snow_wizard]

This EPS run is fantastic!

[snow_wizard]

This run certainly suggests some continental cold may come into the picture.  The control goes kind of wonky, but the mean is great.

[Slushy Inch]

Run comparison 

[snow_wizard]

Snowier than the 12z by a fair margin and it was snowier than last night's run.

[TT-SEA]

31 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

This shows a relatively rare opportunity to get lowland snow with SW or WSW flow at the 850mb level.  That is one of the scenarios that my area can do pretty well.

ECMWF is too warm for lowland snow.  Probably wouldn't even be sticking snow here with strong S and SW wind starting Sunday through the end of the run.  Would also make it impossible to go below freezing. 

[Deweydog]

Wind is BACK!