February 2024 Weather in the PNW

[TT-SEA]

Just now, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Except Seattle isn’t PSE. Seattle City Light… a completely different, municipally-owned utility.

Ahhh... but maybe the same staffing issues which has been problematic since COVID.

[Cloud]

Just now, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Still a surprise. Lived near High Point in West Seattle for a year or so once. That area really got hammered by winds due to elevation. Never had an outage.

Yah definitely a surprise and a bit of a hinderance too. At the old place, where we lived for 20+ years… I’ve only experienced handful of outages. The most memorable one was the Hanukkah eve wind storm outage that lasted 3 days. Definitely more frequent as of late which sucks. Tim brought up the PSE staffing issue, maybe that’s it. 

[Cloud]

5 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Except Seattle isn’t PSE. Seattle City Light… a completely different, municipally-owned utility.

You’re actually exactly right here. The utility here are handled by SCL. 

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

HRRR pretty bullish for me after the front on Thursday 

[MossMan]

Well the snowing is more of a mix now. 34.3

So let’s bring on the wind now!! Yahoooo!! 
Speaking of power outages… A co worker of mine lives right in town in the Shoreline area, power hardly goes out there from the sounds of it. He was telling me they lost power on Sunday during the big winds and it was out for nearly two hours! They were getting quite concerned. 
I then told him that we lose power all the time at my place and a short outage for us is 8 hours, and longest so far in the 6 yrs of being at our current location is 5 days. His jaw dropped and was in shock. He then asked what we do with our food since it would all go bad…I told him our generator is wonderful lol. 

[SnowWillarrive]

18 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Outages are increasingly becoming a more frequent occurrence here too... not sure why.     I wonder if it has to do with PSE staffing issues.  

The great reset 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

It’s really slacked off out there and now starting to melt .

[seattleweatherguy]

Seattle wind advisory starts at 4am wed 

[Slushy Inch]

Ok NAM let’s do this.

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

Ok NAM let’s do this.

That is a huge increase from the 12Z run.

[RCola]

8 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

Ok NAM let’s do this.

Precip rates bringing down the temperatures? Shocked to see it snowing in the central sound with rain to the north and south.

[bainbridgekid]

3km NAM flips King County to heavy wet snow tomorrow night with decent accumulations South of I-90 and East of 405.

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

35 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

It’s really slacked off out there and now starting to melt .

Picking up again.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, TT-SEA said:

It drops the temp into the mid to upper 20s in Seattle overnight tomorrow.   That seems a little aggressive. 

It's not Tim, this is a dangerous situation the public needs to be warned. 

[Port Angeles Foothiller]

I prefer the HRRR

[bainbridgekid]

Just now, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

It's not Tim, this is a dangerous situation the public needs to be warned. 

He must have been looking at an old run or different night.

This is lows tomorrow night when the snow supposedly falls.

 

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

It's not Tim, this is a dangerous situation the public needs to be warned. 

I deleted the post... I was on apparent temp map.   Actual temp gets down to about 33 or 34 in Seattle on the NAM.

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

He must have been looking at an old run or different night.

This is lows tomorrow night when the snow supposedly falls.

 

I clicked on this map by accident.   

[SnowWillarrive]

17 minutes ago, bainbridgekid said:

3km NAM flips King County to heavy wet snow tomorrow night with decent accumulations South of I-90 and East of 405.

 

Best snow storm of the season if it happens. 

[MossMan]

10 minutes ago, Port Angeles Foothiller said:

I prefer the HRRR

Me too

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

All kidding aside I believe the area will see the most widespread snowfall of the season this week into the weekend sometime.  

[TT-SEA]

The high res RGEM does not update lately as @Rubus Leucodermis mentioned earlier.    Quite frustrating.

But the 10km version has been updating.   The new 00Z run keeps temps just a little warmer on Thursday morning.   Going to come down to a couple degrees as most of our snow events seem to do.  

 

[Snowlova]

Power just came back after NINE full hours. Hoping this won’t repeat tomorrow with the wind 

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, Snowlova said:

Power just came back after NINE full hours. Hoping this won’t repeat tomorrow with the wind 

Wow... is that PSE there?   What was the cause?

[Snowlova]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Wow... is that PSE there?   What was the cause?

Yep PSE. Reported as equipment failure. No idea why it took so long when original est time of restoration was for 12:30pm but powers back so it’s ok now!

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Just now, Snowlova said:

Yep PSE. Reported as equipment failure. No idea why it took so long when original est time of restoration was for 12:30pm but powers back so it’s ok now!

Probably didn’t have some needed replacement items on hand and had to scramble to find them.

[TT-SEA]

00Z GFS appears to be slightly warmer early Thursday morning compared to the last couple of runs. 

 

[Snowlova]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Probably didn’t have some needed replacement items on hand and had to scramble to find them.

You would think they do though

[Meatyorologist]

NAM is biased to overdo evaporative cooling... Likely stems from the same internal flaw which causes an underestimation of stratoform precip. Hopefully it's right though and I eat crow!

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, Snowlova said:

Yep PSE. Reported as equipment failure. No idea why it took so long when original est time of restoration was for 12:30pm but powers back so it’s ok now!

Same thing happened out here two weeks ago.   And they used to be very accurate with restoration times and estimate longer than it would actually take so it was a pleasant surprise when it came on.    But the last couple times they have just strung it out forever and kept updating farther out as each promised time got close.    I can understand that with an ice storm but equipment failure should be fairly easy to estimate.    The North Bend facebook page was on fire with the last outage and their false promises.   PSE never used to be like that.   

[Weiner Warrior]

That's a beauty

[bainbridgekid]

Fun little guy Friday night on the 00z GFS brings some bands of moderate to heavy snow through especially in the South Sound.

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

Amazing 00z run so far!

 

 

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, Weiner Warrior said:

That's a beauty

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 minutes ago, Snowlova said:

You would think they do though

One would, unless it's something unusual like an entire substation burning down.* But who knows, perhaps some post-COVID lingering shortages or maybe just plain incompetence in the inventory department.

 * Which actually happened in the town I lived in in NM as a teen. A powerful lightning bolt scored a direct hit on the town’s one substation, it caught fire, and burned completely. Took most of a week to locate a suitable portable temporary substation and truck it in.

About a decade prior lightning had done a similar number on the phone network. It didn't totally fry the central office, they were able to repair it, but the voltage surges cruised through entire wire plant. There were recurring phone service outages for the next three or four years as latent damage kept manifesting itself, and eventually a good chunk of the wire plant ended up getting dug up and replaced.

Lots of minor outages, too. Basically every time there was a strong thunderstorm the power WOULD go out (and that part of the world gets lots of thunderstorms in the summer). If a thunderstorm came through in the evening after dark, everyone in the house would get up and get a flashlight or candle and matches ready. It was the standard nocturnal thunderstorm ritual.

[RCola]

8 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

 

 

I lurk on the forums enough to know that it's a good snow run when Tim posts a kuchera map like this without saying anything. It's as much a harbinger of a snowy afternoon as when NWS Seattle downplays an event or Phil disappears from the forum with his maps of unfavorable trade winds and Pacific sea surface temps. 

[TT-SEA]

My son left work early to go skiing at Snoqualmie Summit to take advantage of the good snow.    He was there for about 3 hours and said he has 5 inches of snow on his car.  

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, RCola said:

 

I lurk on the forums enough to know that it's a good snow run when Tim posts a kuchera map like this without saying anything. It's as much a harbinger of a snowy afternoon as when NWS Seattle downplays an event or Phil disappears from the forum with his map of unfavorable trade winds and Pacific sea surface temps. 

I have no idea how it will play out over the weekend.   Lots of opportunities and time of day is critical.   The system on the 00Z GFS looks like a good one.    

[MossMan]

10 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

 

My area is definitely being snow phobic this season. 

[Snowlova]

3 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

One would, unless it's something unusual like an entire substation burning down.* But who knows, perhaps some post-COVID lingering shortages or maybe just plain incompetence in the inventory department.

 * Which actually happened in the town I lived in in NM as a teen. A powerful lightning bolt scored a direct hit on the town’s one substation, it caught fire, and burned completely. Took most of a week to locate a suitable portable temporary substation and truck it in.

About a decade prior lightning had done a similar number on the phone network. It didn't totally fry the central office, they were able to repair it, but the voltage surges cruised through entire wire plant. There were recurring phone service outages for the next three or four years as latent damage kept manifesting itself, and eventually a good chunk of the wire plant ended up getting dug up and replaced.

Lots of minor outages, too. Basically every time there was a strong thunderstorm the power WOULD go out (and that part of the world gets lots of thunderstorms in the summer). If a thunderstorm came through in the evening after dark, everyone in the house would get up and get a flashlight or candle and matches ready. It was the standard nocturnal thunderstorm ritual.

Wow, must’ve been fun