February 2024 Weather in the PNW

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

Yes....some places in OR too.  The thing about the northern part of WA is it holds onto cold way better sometimes, and often has much lower max temps in the winter.

The Wallowa Valley is incredible. They can have some massive snow events with upsloping against the Wallowas when the flow goes northerly. 

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

6 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Pretty much nothing but good parts to a Montana winter.  North Central and NE WA have kind of Montana light, which would be fine too.

Their climate is almost perfect there, probably the best in the lower 48. Only complaints is a bit less snow than preferred, early/mid spring suck a bit, and early and mid October is too cold. A perfect climate is non existent, but I'd say the flathead valley is as close to it as you can get, in the lower 48.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, Sunriver Snow Zone said:

Their climate is almost perfect there, probably the best in the lower 48. Only complaints is a bit less snow than preferred, early/mid spring suck a bit, and early and mid October is too cold. A perfect climate is non existent, but I'd say the flathead valley is as close to it as you can get, in the lower 48.

I really like our climate here. 35-40" of snow a year, tons of rain, very rarely gets above 95F. Wish it was colder in the winter though, we get a lot of snow but it's almost always very wet snow. 

[snow_wizard]

I must say the July extreme min of 22 in Joseph is pretty jaw dropping.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I really like our climate here. 35-40" of snow a year, tons of rain, very rarely gets above 95F. Wish it was colder in the winter though, we get a lot of snow but it's almost always very wet snow. 

I could live with your climate more than here.  Some of the sucky aspects are the same, but you sure get more snow.  I do like the pretty frequent tastes of Arctic air we have gotten in recent years though.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

I must say the July extreme min of 22 in Joseph is pretty jaw dropping.

That would probably be my favorite climate in Oregon. They also get a little more precip than most Eastern Oregon valleys, and they don't have the ridiculous wind the Grand Rhonde and Baker Valleys have. The John Day valley is nice, but a little lower and warmer in the winter, and the John Day Valley can absolutely bake in the summer. 

Edited February 12 by SilverFallsAndrew

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

I could live with your climate more than here.  Some of the sucky aspects are the same, but you sure get more snow.  I do like the pretty frequent tastes of Arctic air we have gotten in recent years though.

I can't even explain how good the middle of last February through mid April was. We had around 75" of snow in that stretch. It can be big time feast or famine here. This winter has been pretty lame, 10" of snow and the cold snap, could have been worse. At the end of the day it's very tough not to go through a winter without at least a little snow here. 

[Cascadia_Wx]

7 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I must say the July extreme min of 22 in Joseph is pretty jaw dropping.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon
 

No time like the present to put the learning cap on!

[SilverFallsAndrew]

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Fields, Oregon is in the rain shadow of Steens Mountain and averages about 6.5" of rain a year. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields,_Oregon

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Won't, CANT, happen.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Won't, CANT, happen.

Nope, it's Nino year. There's more than that driving this train and much more we haven't discovered yet.

[snow_wizard]

Don't look now, but the ECMWF is certainly better than the 12z and 18z run.  850s about 2C colder and still a lot precip Wednesday night.  More snow.  In this case the baroclinicity of the pattern makes east wind a good thing here.

[Weiner Warrior]

[Slushy Inch]

5 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Don't look now, but the ECMWF is certainly better than the 12z and 18z run.  850s about 2C colder and still a lot precip Wednesday night.  More snow.  In this case the baroclinicity of the pattern makes east wind a good thing here.

Now the difference is trough is a little too far west compared to gfs.

[TT-SEA]

[Slushy Inch]

I’m in the blue!

[SnowWillarrive]

5 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

I’m in the blue!

Looks nice for EPSL 

[Slushy Inch]

1 minute ago, SnowWillarrive said:

Looks nice for EPSL 

I will absolutely go driving late at night to a 500ft hill to witness a snow event if I have too.

[Cascadia_Wx]

1 minute ago, SnowWillarrive said:

Looks nice for EPSL 

I see it a lot here. What area exactly is considered the EPSL? I know it stands for East Puget Sound Lowlands. Does it pretty much just mean the I-5 corridor between Tacoma and Everett, then points eastward to the foothills?

[Slushy Inch]

The bigger difference with gfs is the strength of precipitation.

[Cascadia_Wx]

Just now, Slushy Inch said:

I will absolutely go driving late at night to a 500ft hill to witness a snow event if I have too.

We live very close to the road up Larch Mountain, in the western Cascades, and do that often. You can be at 2,000ft or higher in about 20-25 minutes from here.

[Slushy Inch]

1 minute ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

We live very close to the road up Larch Mountain, in the western Cascades, and do that often. You can be at 2,000ft or higher in about 20-25 minutes from here.

Highest I can get in about 30 minutes is about 1500 feet. 

[Slushy Inch]

Going to be a juicy looking meteogram.

[Cascadia_Wx]

5 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

Highest I can get in about 30 minutes is about 1500 feet. 

Sounds like you’ve never tried Rick Simpson oil.

[SnowWillarrive]

13 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

I see it a lot here. What area exactly is considered the EPSL? I know it stands for East Puget Sound Lowlands. Does it pretty much just mean the I-5 corridor between Tacoma and Everett, then points eastward to the foothills?

I always consider it to be east of Highway 18 in King County.
 

Pretty much the foothill communities like Monroe, Sultan, Gold Bar, Fall City, North Bend, Maple Valley, Black Diamond and Enumclaw, Buckley  etc…

 

 

[DeepFriedEgg]

ed in

[TT-SEA]

ECMWF was a little colder with a little more snow on Wednesday night and then quite a bit warmer with temps getting close to 60 from Friday - Sunday.    Interesting week.    No idea if it will be warmer or colder than normal overall and no idea how much snow will fall.    Could be a warmer than normal week with lowland snow in western WA.  

[SnowWillarrive]

2 minutes ago, DeepFriedEgg said:

ed in

What app do you use to make those? 

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, SnowWillarrive said:

I always consider it to be east of Highway 18 in King County.
 

Pretty much the foothill communities like Monroe, Sultan, Gold Bar, Fall City, North Bend, Maple Valley, Black Diamond and Enumclaw, Buckley  etc…

 

 

I think its anywhere east of Lake Washington to the foothills in King County.

[SnowWillarrive]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

I think its anywhere east of Lake Washington to the foothills in King County.

Yea basically east of 405/167 is the traditional definition. 

[DeepFriedEgg]

3 minutes ago, SnowWillarrive said:

What app do you use to make those? 

Microsoft copilot, just tell it "create image of ___". Totally free with windows. Uses Chat GPT API. It's scary how quickly it generates the images. Generative AI is really good now. Glad I bought Nvidia at $200. 

[DeepFriedEgg]

Shut down the Columbia!

[Slushy Inch]

4 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

I think its anywhere east of Lake Washington to the foothills in King County.

There is a boarder.

[SnowWillarrive]

19 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

We live very close to the road up Larch Mountain, in the western Cascades, and do that often. You can be at 2,000ft or higher in about 20-25 minutes from here.

That is similar to me. Cedar river water shed is right behind my house. There are logging roads going up to around 3,000 feet 15 mins from me. 

[DeepFriedEgg]

Regional.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, DeepFriedEgg said:

Regional.

Bring it

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

44 minutes ago, Cascadia_Wx said:

We live very close to the road up Larch Mountain, in the western Cascades, and do that often. You can be at 2,000ft or higher in about 20-25 minutes from here.

Highest I can get is about 6k feet in 25 minutes. I win!

[LowerGarfield]

50 minutes ago, Slushy Inch said:

Going to be a juicy looking meteogram.

How is a meteogram different from other models? 

[TT-SEA]

Control run shows much more snow than operational run... and lots of EPS members show snow as well.