March 2024 Weather in the PNW

[ShawniganLake]

39 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

lol, I’ve seen that movie where the “really good looking blob on radar” dies before it gets here…or immediately overhead many many times before. I think we all have. 

Yea. Been like that for 3 days here. Just 0.25” of precip over the last few days.  Can’t get anything meaningful with this marginal airmass unless you get some persistent precip intensity.  

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Clearing out. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

8 minutes ago, TacomaWx said:

Your wife must think you’re a dork standing outside in the snow taking pictures all the time  

 I know my girlfriend thinks im a dork when I do! 

My wife passed in 2016. I just have a girlfriend,  but we've been together for 6 years. She loves the snow too. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Phil was a last minute invite to spring training with the Baltimore Orioles. He’s been tearing up the men’s league baseball circuit the past few years and finally got an invite to Florida, his least favorite place in the world, to live his dream. Congrats Phil. 

[MossMan]

Every single possible shower has missed me by just a mile or so today! 

[TacomaWx]

2 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

My wife passed in 2016. I just have a girlfriend,  but we've been together for 6 years. She loves the snow too. 

Should’ve just said “partner” my bad. I’m glad she enjoys snow too! 

[TacomaWx]

9 minutes ago, ShawniganLake said:

Yea. Been like that for 3 days here. Just 0.25” of precip over the last few days.  Can’t get anything meaningful with this marginal airmass unless you get some persistent precip intensity.  

Looks like the exact same thing is happening right now to our south on radar. 

[ShawniganLake]

With the sunshine this afternoon we ended up with a pretty seasonal 46/33 today.  Average is 48/33 this time of year here.  

[Weiner Warrior]

It's heading to my house.

[Randyc321]

36 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Looks like it's losing its punch on the radar.

For some, not so much for others.  
still very wet but temp down to 34:7. Falling steadily.  Fast at times.  
 

[the_convergence_zone]

Busy day, but we did get a 36 degree snow shower in West Seattle around 2:30. It was a white out of all snow for 20 or 30 glorious seconds. My kid was happy. Sun was out and back to 40 about 10 minutes later. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Temp holding at 32 even with no precip.  Tonight is the night here, finally cold enough for some real snow, just need 2 hrs of steady snow and that should give me a couple inches 

[TacomaWx]

10 minutes ago, Randyc321 said:

For some, not so much for others.  
still very wet but temp down to 34:7. Falling steadily.  Fast at times.  
 

Starting to seem like atleast early in the evening that the models were onto something showing the best stuff being west of the sound. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

After midnight things might get a little interesting in the SOUTH valley. 

[Perturbed Member]

Spent most of the day in the Coast Range between 1000-1500 ft. I never quite get used to how drastically different the microclimates in our region can be. Completely different world today once you get to even about 700 ft there. Absolute winter wonderland with on and off snow all day and awesome orographic enhancement of these showers.

I've grown pretty tired of the ultra marginal climate down at the lowest elevations and now days I just drive up a bit in elevation to find more interesting weather. Next time I move I'm really going to try to get up to at least 500 ft if not 1000 ft+. The Coast Range or SW WA Cascade foothills still at the top of my list I think. 

[TacomaWx]

Snowing at OLM! 38 and light rain to start out here.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

9 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

After midnight things might get a little interesting in the SOUTH valley. 

It’ll trend…?

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Coast Range is going to get hammered the next few hours. 

[seattleweatherguy]

Sleet here back to rain 36 degrees 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Just now, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Coast Range is going to get hammered the next few hours. 

Just like me right now!!

[TT-SEA]

OK ICON... sure.  

60-hour snow totals are silly low and already wrong based on @MR.SNOWMIZER reports.  And the Monday/Tuesday system goes way south.

[TacomaWx]

Mostly snow here at the moment. Wish we had a bit better precip rates to work with. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, TT-SEA said:

OK ICON... sure.  

60-hour snow totals are silly low and already wrong based on @MR.SNOWMIZER reports.  And the Monday/Tuesday system goes way south.

Wow what a fail, no snow in the black hills??? Hahahah and nothing in the Oregon coast range. This areas will get 3-6 easy

[Meatyorologist]

13 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

It’ll trend…?

That wasn't a downvote. It simply means...

[TT-SEA]

00Z RGEM 

[Perturbed Member]

1 minute ago, TT-SEA said:

OK ICON... sure.  

60-hour snow totals are silly low and already wrong based on @MR.SNOWMIZER reports.  And the Monday/Tuesday system goes way south.

It shows basically zero snow in the OR Coast Range.

It is currently vomiting snow there and piling up really quick, I was just there a moment ago. The ICON snow maps really are absurd in the opposite direction of the GFS. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

3 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

OK ICON... sure.  

60-hour snow totals are silly low and already wrong based on @MR.SNOWMIZER reports.  And the Monday/Tuesday system goes way south.

If it looks at current sat pics how the heck can it be so wrong??

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

If it looks at current sat pics how the heck can it be so wrong??

Interestingly... last night it showed lots of lowland snow south of Seattle down to about Kelso.   So it can do it.  

[GHweatherChris]

I don't think any of the models really handle these showery patterns when it comes to snow very well at all, of course they struggle with snow in general but moreso in this type of situation, especially at night.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

I've been thinking about all the talk about how terrible certain people's locations are for snow/cold, etc... 

At the end of the day, nowhere west of the Cascades and south of Seattle is going to be that great for winter weather below 500-1000'. It seems like you can do pretty well in the Hood Canal area below 500, and places out toward North Bend or Bellevue below 1000' seem to do really well, at least judging from posters on here. South of Portland you really have to be above 1000' to get much snow. Places between 500-1000' can do really well with events like December 2021, but for a lot of these cold onshore flow type of events you really have to get up above 1000' to score much when the valley is seeing cold rain. 

Part of the reason I moved up here was because I wanted to live somewhere with more snow, but I also wanted to be near the state park, and in a more remote area. You give up a lot living this far out though. The weather can be a pain in the a** in a way it rarely is down on the valley floor. I would guess 90% of the snow that falls here accumulates with temps at 30 or higher. It's almost always complete slop. Mossman definitely gets more high quality snow than we do here. 

Anyway, in short I like the climate where I live, there are some things I would change about it, but it's probably as good as I can do if I'm going to be living in W. Oregon. The folks who complain a lot probably don't have it comparatively as bad as they think they do... If you are experiencing genuine unhappiness because it doesn't snow enough, you probably have much bigger problems. 

Edited March 3 by SilverFallsAndrew

[TacomaWx]

Precip is just too light to really bring the temp down effectively. Hopefully at some point tonight or Sunday night we get something a bit better to work with. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

3K NAM has a pretty much perfect track for folx south of Salem. We score 6" on the northern edge in this scenario. Wouldn't mind if it trended a little further north. 

Edited March 3 by SilverFallsAndrew

[SnowySeeker50]

Moisture is just too far west and any that actually makes it here has been shredded to nothing. Unfortunate that this has been the case for every snow chance these last few days.

[Meatyorologist]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I've been thinking about all the talk about how terrible certain people's locations are for snow/cold, etc... 

At the end of the day, nowhere west of the Cascades and south of Seattle is going to be that great for winter weather below 500-1000'. It seems like you can do pretty well in the Hood Canal area below 500, and places out toward North Bend or Bellevue below 1000' seem to do really well, at least judging from posters on here. South of Portland you really have to be above 1000' to get much snow. Places between 500-1000' can do really well with events like December 2021, but for a lot of these cold onshore flow type of events you really have to get up above 1000' to score much when the valley is seeing cold rain. 

Part of the reason I moved up here was because I wanted to live somewhere with more snow, but I also wanted to be near the state park, and in a more remote area. You give up a lot living this far out though. The weather can be a pain in the a** in a way it rarely is down on the valley floor. I would guess 90% of the snow that falls here accumulates with temps at 30 or higher. It's almost always complete slop. Mossman definitely gets more high quality snow than we do here. 

Anyway, in short I like the climate where I live, there are some things I would change about it, but it's probably as good as I can do if I'm going to be living in W. Oregon. The folks who complain a lot probably don't have it comparatively as bad as they think they do... If you are experiencing genuine unhappiness because it doesn't snow enough, you probably have much bigger problems. 

There's a nugget of truth in there, but the reality is that the good majority of us are weather lifer's whether we like it that way or not, and our temperate climate is pretty unforgiving for even the most patient of diehard cloud fanboys. It's hard *not* to be disappointed unless you live in one of the rare, specialized microclimates that try their hardest to be a little more "fair" to us nerds.

That all being said, you need more than one reason to live.

[umadbro]

9 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

3K NAM has a pretty much perfect track for folx south of Salem. We score 6" on the northern edge in this scenario. Wouldn't mind if it trended a little further north. 

Gonna need that to shift North by about 50 miles please and thank you.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Just dumping here

[Frontal Snowsquall]

10 hours ago, Sunriver Snow Zone said:

I could end up with single digits!

If you have solid snow cover then you have a great chance. 

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

[GHweatherChris]

lame

[SnowWillarrive]

27 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I've been thinking about all the talk about how terrible certain people's locations are for snow/cold, etc... 

At the end of the day, nowhere west of the Cascades and south of Seattle is going to be that great for winter weather below 500-1000'. It seems like you can do pretty well in the Hood Canal area below 500, and places out toward North Bend or Bellevue below 1000' seem to do really well, at least judging from posters on here. South of Portland you really have to be above 1000' to get much snow. Places between 500-1000' can do really well with events like December 2021, but for a lot of these cold onshore flow type of events you really have to get up above 1000' to score much when the valley is seeing cold rain. 

Part of the reason I moved up here was because I wanted to live somewhere with more snow, but I also wanted to be near the state park, and in a more remote area. You give up a lot living this far out though. The weather can be a pain in the a** in a way it rarely is down on the valley floor. I would guess 90% of the snow that falls here accumulates with temps at 30 or higher. It's almost always complete slop. Mossman definitely gets more high quality snow than we do here. 

Anyway, in short I like the climate where I live, there are some things I would change about it, but it's probably as good as I can do if I'm going to be living in W. Oregon. The folks who complain a lot probably don't have it comparatively as bad as they think they do... If you are experiencing genuine unhappiness because it doesn't snow enough, you probably have much bigger problems. 

Just for the record Bellevue sucks for snow. Better than Seattle but it still sucks. The only good spot in Bellevue is in the Newport hills above 800 feet. 

As we have seen in recent years even Whatcom county doesn’t do all that great. Often times it is dry during arctic blasts. Usually does better on the back end. 

The CZ is a favored spot. But East King county near the foot hills is not bad either in certain situations. As a general rule places above 500 feet near the foothills anywhere in Western WA is much better than directly along I-5 corridor. Hood Canal is great too. 

Personally I love the Puget Sound area. Good access to some of the best outdoors in the lower 48 and close in driving distance to visit snow. Just wish we got a few more good snow storms below 1,000 feet.  These are 1st world problems that are fun to complain about.