November 2020 Weather Observations for the PNW

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Some decent banding giving us some much-needed rain. 

 

 

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

9 minutes ago, GeorgeWx said:

It will be a wet winter with above average mountain snow but below average at the lower elevations, even foothills. I predict 3,000 feet and higher will see above average snow while 2,000 feet and lower sees below average snow. 2,000 to 3,000 around normal. The pattern is way too progressive and no real blocking in the long range. If we are lucky we will get to see an Arctic Blast in February, maybe. If I had to bet, we don’t see an Arctic Blast this winter.

The long range only goes out to at most 15 days.  Except the ECMWF weeklies, which goes out 46 days.  And it shows blocking and potential cold in mid December.  Too early to rely on models.  FWIW the CFS shows a lot of blocking all winter.  Guessing Eastern WA and Oregon get above average snow.  I am actually way above average snow for this time of year.

[Dave]

5 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Yeah it’s pouring here and has been for hours. The PWS around town are picking up the totals so far. Average is around 0.75” for  Springfield so far today.

I just checked the Wundermap for some stations near my house. Obviously unreliable, but they do show the type of precip that I have been suspecting:

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KOREUGEN122 1.5" today.

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KOREUGEN268 1.9" today.

It has been the wettest day of the fall season for sure. The NWS forecast for today was poor.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

I haven’t checked since mid afternoon, but we were at about an inch then... I should go out and dump the gauge. 

[Omegaraptor]

Looks like about 0.76” for HIO today. Not bad but not the 1” or more I was hoping for. We’ll get it soon.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Thinking I am going to wait until morning to walk 500' out into a dark field in the rain to check the manual gauge...There are wild beasts afoot. 

[Gradient Keeper]

5 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Thinking I am going to wait until morning to walk 500' out into a dark field in the rain to check the manual gauge...There are wild beasts afoot. 

It's just a sleep deprived squirrel or two. The bears don't bite. Right?

6z GFS in 49 minutes Let's kick that Aleutian vortex out of there. C'MON Block!!!!

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Patience, it's coming. In prime-time.

[jakerepp]

9 hours ago, GHweatherChris said:

Or just from eyes from people that actually live here.

Lot's of crossover amongst those two groups

[jakerepp]

Going back to the idea that the Stevens Pass temperature readings are wonky...

35 right now and compact snow and ice. 

Seeing 32 at Snoqualmie right now.

[MossMan]

11 minutes ago, jakerepp said:

Going back to the idea that the Stevens Pass temperature readings are wonky...

35 right now and compact snow and ice. 

Seeing 32 at Snoqualmie right now.

Yeah it looks like they need to send a tech up. 

[MossMan]

Currently 39 degrees and cloudy. 
.09” so far on the day, 3.96” for the month, 52.39” for the year. 

[Chewbacca Defense]

38 so far this morning, we ended up picking up .68” yesterday, .03” since midnight, 6.17” for the month.

 

Weather station question....anybody use the weatherflow tempest station? A buddy of mine is looking to get a station and was looking at that one.  He lives in Skagit County, near Cook Rd west of I-5 so he gets good winds at his location.  He wants to be able to see how high the winds actually get at his house (and just geek out on the weather stats in general).

 

 

[snow_wizard]

28 minutes ago, jakerepp said:

Going back to the idea that the Stevens Pass temperature readings are wonky...

35 right now and compact snow and ice. 

Seeing 32 at Snoqualmie right now.

Agreed.  No way it's 35 looking like that.  Besides that the freezing level is quite low right now.

[snow_wizard]

12 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

38 so far this morning, we ended up picking up .68” yesterday, .03” since midnight, 6.17” for the month.

 

Weather station question....anybody use the weatherflow tempest station? A buddy of mine is looking to get a station and was looking at that one.  He lives in Skagit County, near Cook Rd west of I-5 so he gets good winds at his location.  He wants to be able to see how high the winds actually get at his house (and just geek out on the weather stats in general).

 

 

As I've mentioned before on here.  If you are buying a station mainly for wind I recommend a wired station.  That way you get instantaneous updates on the windspeed.  With wireless it usually samples every two or three seconds.  Watching the gusts is more fun with the constant update.

[snow_wizard]

I'm not sure what the models are catching onto, but I'm seeing a good indication on a wide variety of models for a cold pattern the final week of December.  The 6z CFS run showed a monthly average 8C below normal (surface temps) for the month of January in Seattle.  Would love to see that verify.

[Timmy Supercell]

Only 1/10" snow this morning. That makes a total of 0.20" so far this November.

But with 11 days left in the month I can see a little potential there. Just probably not 2010 type potential.

[snow_wizard]

23 minutes ago, Timmy_Supercell said:

Only 1/10" snow this morning. That makes a total of 0.20" so far this November.

But with 11 days left in the month I can see a little potential there. Just probably not 2010 type potential.

2010 was a top tier anomaly.  While not as long lived as 1955 or 1985 it was right up there for an intense Arctic blast...at least up here.  At one point I had heavy snow coming down on brisk NW winds with a temp of 22 degrees on that one.  Certainly one of my favorites of the 21st century.

[seattleweatherguy]

34 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I'm not sure what the models are catching onto, but I'm seeing a good indication on a wide variety of models for a cold pattern the final week of December.  The 6z CFS run showed a monthly average 8C below normal (surface temps) for the month of January in Seattle.  Would love to see that verify.

Me too but does that mean highs below freezing?

[TT-SEA]

Pretty morning...

[TacomaWaWx]

Low of 40 this morning. Picked up 0.25” since midnight to hit 5.66” on the month. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

GFS now seems on board with a nice little mountain snow producer the middle of next week. 

[Timmy Supercell]

7 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

2010 was a top tier anomaly.  While not as long lived as 1955 or 1985 it was right up there for an intense Arctic blast...at least up here.  At one point I had heavy snow coming down on brisk NW winds with a temp of 22 degrees on that one.  Certainly one of my favorites of the 21st century.

The further south you go the bigger the blast was in 2010. It's not every year we get over a foot of snow and below zero temperatures around Thanksgiving in K-Falls. That had to have been a once in a generation type November blast. I missed the whole thing, but it did continue snowing more inches into early December. From 11/20 > 12/03 we had like 2/3rd's of my seasonal average in those two weeks. Dried out a bit towards mid December and it got snowy again 2nd half of the month. Had a nice little blizzard event day before my birthday on 12/29/2010.

January was bone dry, but February brought more goods.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

We had about 3/4" of snow in Silverton with the November 2010 blast. I was living down in town at the time. It was fairly similar to the November 1993 blast. A little snow, a couple days of 30/16 type weather. 

The February event gave us about an 1" of snow. Both events were really good up here, I was driving up to Silver Falls daily to get my snow fix. 

[snow_wizard]

10 minutes ago, seattleweatherguy said:

Me too but does that mean highs below freezing?

8C below normal for a monthly average would be one of the coldest Januaries on record.  That would mean Arctic air much of the month.  Probably at least 8 to 10 highs below freezing.  A good percentage of the recent CFS runs have indicated a very cold January.  The CANSIPS has looked good for that month as well.  The ECMWF looks more impressive for Feb, but still has a chilly look for Jan.

[Jesse]

Looks like the models are converging upon the idea of the next week drying out a little, but staying relatively cool with clipper like systems brushing us every couple days.

Should continue to add to the mountain snowpack and give us some cooler anomalies down here at the surface.

[snow_wizard]

7 minutes ago, Timmy_Supercell said:

The further south you go the bigger the blast was in 2010. It's not every year we get over a foot of snow and below zero temperatures around Thanksgiving in K-Falls. That had to have been a once in a generation type November blast. I missed the whole thing, but it did continue snowing more inches into early December. From 11/20 > 12/03 we had like 2/3rd's of my seasonal average in those two weeks. Dried out a bit towards mid December and it got snowy again 2nd half of the month. Had a nice little blizzard event day before my birthday on 12/29/2010.

January was bone dry, but February brought more goods.

For the lowlands 2010 was much bigger in WA than OR.  Probably a question of low level cold vs mid level.

[Jesse]

Mostly sunny and 45 this morning, after a low of 43.

Ended up getting close to an inch of rain yesterday. Donned some rain gear and took a walk last night, it was wet and raw out there. Enjoyed the sound of the rain hitting the fallen leaves though.

[snow_wizard]

Just now, Jesse said:

Looks like the models are converging upon the idea of the next week drying out a little, but staying relatively cool with clipper like systems brushing us every couple days. 

It appears there could be a shot at getting a chilly air mass in here and then a ridge moving in over it.  May get a decent chill out of that.  Right now it appears we may be waiting until the second half of December for the real fun to begin.  We'll have to watch the MJO after this trade wind blast is over.  The cold in late October began after the trades let up.

[Weather1011]

Nice to see the sun this morning even tho it will be short lived 

[Weather1011]

Honestly this winter, As long as everyone sees at least a couple good snowfalls I think we would all be happy.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, Weather1011 said:

Honestly this winter, As long as everyone sees at least a couple good snowfalls I think we would all be happy.

I actually have a sense of peace about this winter.  That's a real rarity for me.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Just now, Weather1011 said:

Honestly this winter, As long as everyone sees at least a couple good snowfalls I think we would all be happy.

That’s about what I’ve been expecting in the lowlands: close to climo averages for snow. The mountains should do really well, though.

Can’t understand all the upset over a snow-free November. That’s quite often the case. Dec, Jan, and Feb historically are when most lowland snow events happen.

[TacomaWaWx]

5 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

It appears there could be a shot at getting a chilly air mass in here and then a ridge moving in over it.  May get a decent chill out of that.  Right now it appears we may be waiting until the second half of December for the real fun to begin.  We'll have to watch the MJO after this trade wind blast is over.  The cold in late October began after the trades let up.

I get the feeling we wait until late December or January at the earliest for any snow or legit cold as well. 

[Weather1011]

Just now, Rubus Leucodermis said:

That’s about what I’ve been expecting in the lowlands: close to climo averages for snow. The mountains should do really well, though.

Can’t understand all the upset over a snow-free November. That’s quite often the case. Dec, Jan, and Feb historically are when most lowland snow events happen.

That's what I've expected as well, Best not to have super high expectations because we all know this climate.

The mountains will do great this year and hopefully we can score a couple events.

[snow_wizard]

Looks like a really nice -PDO signal is carving out over the N Pacific.  Cooling along the coastlines and warming over the GOA  According to the NOAA site the PDO has already been pretty negative, but this looks a lot better.  Too bad the UW doesn't seem to be doing PDO updates any longer.  Their numbers seemed to be more germaine in some way.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, Weather1011 said:

That's what I've expected as well, Best not to have super high expectations because we all know this climate.

The mountains will do great this year and hopefully we can score a couple events.

All I'm going to say is we have plenty of extra aces in the deck this winter.  A better chance of something good than an average season.

[TacomaWaWx]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

That’s about what I’ve been expecting in the lowlands: close to climo averages for snow. The mountains should do really well, though.

Can’t understand all the upset over a snow-free November. That’s quite often the case. Dec, Jan, and Feb historically are when most lowland snow events happen.

Over the last 15 years we’ve had measurable snowfall 4 times in November. 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2017. 14 and 17 were only 1/2” accumulations though so haven’t had a legit November snowfall in 10 years. Really the best time for snow is mid December through mid February. 

[Weather1011]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

All I'm going to say is we have plenty of extra aces in the deck this winter.  A better chance of something good than an average season.

I agree

[Weather1011]

Imagine downvoting a post that has to do with everyone getting snow