December 2020 Weather Observations for the PNW

[paulb/eugene]

If I were a giddy Puget Sounder excited about the snowstorm next week, I’d be more realistic with prospects for snow.

To basically manufacture a column of near freezing air down to the surface from a starting temp in low 40s requires sustained precipitation rates of at least 0.1-0.2in/hr, and the precipitation band needs to stick around for a few hours.

The low approaching a cool air mass from the SW is one of those classic snowstorm patterns but these cannot be forecast reliably 5-7 days out.  
 

The late March snowstorm about 8 years ago in Eugene was a perfect example.

the late February 2019 snowstorm was also similar (except much colder to the NE), with the forecast dumping ground drifting from SW Oregon up to SW Washington and back down to Eugene in the last 48-72hours

 

[SouthHillFrosty]

4 minutes ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

Here is a GIF of the possible snow storm for Puget Sound

 

Wow. That would be right on the line

[AlTahoe]

41 minutes ago, Jbolin said:

I am a bit shocked actually, over the least 30 hours I have improved dramatically. The most severe symptoms have waned considerably, I am still a bit weak but overall I feel great compared to 9 days ago. 

The main issue I'm "dealing" with is the lethargy and constant fatigue, I am so tired and want nothing more than to sleep but in lieu of the other major symptoms I had been dealing with, this pales in comparison. 

My Dr. has given me three different inhalers to help with the issues related to my asthma and the associated COVID related complications but according to him, I have the worst of it behind me but a long road to full recovery. My Dr. also indicated to me that my COVID exposure "may" push me into a more severe category of asthma but only time will tell. 

Other than that I find myself to be very lucky considering how bad it has been for others, I do not wish this type of illness, and pain on anyone. 

I am thankful to be on the "mend" and hope that I have no long lasting effects as a result. 

Stay safe guys, please.

 

I had it along with about 30 other people I know here in town (All got it at the same time) right before Thanksgiving. It sucked big time. Took me about 10 days to get right. Most of us still have lingering effects such as random waves of extreme Fatigue, random headaches, random arthritis like pain. I am still coughing up weird stuff with chest tightness. 

Everyone lost their sense of smell and it went off and came back like a switch was flipped. Average duration was around 4 days. Nobody had a fever which is odd since that is all they were using to check for it originally. I also had extreme kidney and lower back pain. We had a massive wave of it roll through town in the last month after avoiding it all year. Now 1 in 15 locals have had it.

Forgot to add that you will know when you have it when the extreme body chills kick in. It was very apparent that it was something different than the flu. The body shakes were out of control. 

Weather related I picked up 6" of snow in 3 hours today which was nice. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

22 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Wow Tim is right, the NWS radar page is total garbage. Seems like whenever they an "update" it is far worse than the previous incarnation. 

Depressingly typical for most user interfaces these days.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

42 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

As Bainbridge said, this event would require fairly intense precip to bring about an fairly isothermal column.  Threading the needle...

One thing that is on our side is the time of year. Pretty much the shortest daylight of the year.

[SouthHillFrosty]

When the snowstorm comes Monday, wouldn't 10:1 ratio be wrong? Wouldn't it be more like 5:1 or 6:1 since it will be so heavy and wet?

[TT-SEA]

2 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

One thing that is on our side is the time of year. Pretty much the shortest daylight of the year.

I think this is slated to happen on the shortest day of the year!  

[MossMan]

Looks like Winthrop picked up some snow yesterday as well.
How much snow did you end up with in Leavenworth, Brian? 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

6 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Potential for some lowland snow somewhere on the I5 corridor Monday night. Can’t ask for much more than that. 

I could ask for it to trend north…

[SouthHillFrosty]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

I could ask for it to trend north…

Well the "new gfs" hammers your area. 8-10 inches for Bellingham 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

From the Canadian forum. GFSv16 for the win!

[Rubus Leucodermis]

8 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Well the "new gfs" hammers your area. 8-10 inches for Bellingham 

If the lowland snow verifies, someone’s gonna get the goods and most of us will get the shaft. As is often the case. I would expect the favored areas to do some flopping around in the model runs.

[SouthHillFrosty]

5 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

From the Canadian forum. GFSv16 for the win!

This is almost the cutoff line from last winter!!

[Timmy Supercell]

In case there's a few folks that need to bookmark these. Very useful for long duration events and the links can be adjusted to say 24 hours, 48 hours, or even days in a row. But don't go longer than 10 days as that can take a while to load the images.

https://a.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.old.cgi?rtx_ncr+/6h/+-noauto

https://a.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.old.cgi?max_ncr+/6h/+-noauto

https://a.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.old.cgi?lgx_ncr+/6h/+-noauto

[Esquimalt]

Keep in mind that new gfs was run last night not this morning. So new data could have come in overnight that makes it no longer accurate (if it was ever accurate to begin with lol).

But with a total of 14 inches shown on that map over my house, bring it on!! 

[Bonovox]

 

Monday's potential snow for the region as per the 12z GFS from 1500z to 0600z.

[Skagit Weather]

28 minutes ago, AlTahoe said:

I had it along with about 30 other people I know here in town (All got it at the same time) right before Thanksgiving. It sucked big time. Took me about 10 days to get right. Most of us still have lingering effects such as random waves of extreme Fatigue, random headaches, random arthritis like pain. I am still coughing up weird stuff with chest tightness. 

Everyone lost their sense of smell and it went off and came back like a switch was flipped. Average duration was around 4 days. Nobody had a fever which is odd since that is all they were using to check for it originally. I also had extreme kidney and lower back pain. We had a massive wave of it roll through town in the last month after avoiding it all year. Now 1 in 15 locals have had it.

Forgot to add that you will know when you have it when the extreme body chills kick in. It was very apparent that it was something different than the flu. The body shakes were out of control. 

Weather related I picked up 6" of snow in 3 hours today which was nice. 

I had it at the beginning of November. It took 3 weeks for smell or taste to return at all and 5 weeks later they're still only about 40-50%. Basically I can smell most things if I stick my nose in them, but still missing most aromatics. It still feels like I'm congested, but other than that the worst symptoms were one day of mild chills and a mild fever that lasted for about a week. Good news was that I'm sure I didn't pass it on to anyone else which I'm happy about.

[Bonovox]

 

Total snow for Monday. Potentially.

[TT-SEA]

12Z EPS...

[Deweydog]

That’s a whole lotta warm.

[Timmy Supercell]

Just now, Deweydog said:

That’s a whole lotta warm.

I like my pineapples warm. 

[Timmy Supercell]

Binghamton, NY. lol

[Cloud]

2 minutes ago, Timmy_Supercell said:

Binghamton, NY. lol

I’ve always dreamt of experiencing something like this. Window deep in snow. 

[The Swamp]

24 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

12z EPS looks to move the ridge over us in the LR.

It moves the ridge over us because the Pacific is too active.  Hopefully it gets bound up and one of those blocks just sits out there.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

7 minutes ago, Timmy_Supercell said:

Binghamton, NY. lol

Time to move...ugh this climate wears on me more year after year after year.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Got down to 38F last night. Up to 48F now.

[Timmy Supercell]

A warm low of 33, now 38 ish.

Sunny skies. I wouldn't have minded another overcast day, but beggars can't be choosers.

Yesterday's rain was awesome. Hope there's more where that came from this weekend with the atmospheric river.

[Gradient Keeper]

It's a bummer models right now just show no real tangible hope for lowland Cold and SNOW. Far too progressive. The promise and hope I had for models by late week is slipping away unfortunately. We'll always keep an eye for that as thing can change very quickly in January. Bring back our Neutral ENSO. La Nina's kind of suck unless they're really strong (ONI -2 or greater)

[OysterPrintout]

1 hour ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

I could ask for it to trend north…

the north trend is SO 2016. South is the new north.

[kokaneekidz]

1 hour ago, hawkstwelve said:

More in-depth look at parameters for snow from the 12z Euro.

Surface temps look to be the biggest issue. Other aspects look OK for the specific time period we are watching (Monday 1-10PMish), but of course still borderline.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the 1000-850mb thickness being below 1300 a good sign? For some reason I remember NWS Seattle mentioning that in prior AFDs for borderline setups. Not positive though.

Yes NWS likes to see sub 1300 thickness values in all snow scenarios for Seattle area.

[wxmet]

GFS 12z KSEA Skew-T looks decent for snow on Monday. CAA with a saturated column and good forcing above the DGZ.

 

 

[weatherwonder]

12 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

It's a bummer models right now just show no real tangible hope for lowland Cold and SNOW. Far too progressive. The promise and hope I had for models by late week is slipping away unfortunately. We'll always keep an eye for that as thing can change very quickly in January. Bring back our Neutral ENSO. La Nina's kind of suck unless they're really strong (ONI -2 or greater)

Don’t lose all hope yet DJ!

This mini snow / cold event in the coming  days has some good potential for a good portion of the PNW 

As for the long term forecasting past the 7 day period the models are a mess  at the moment 

When we do switch to the real true arctic cold/ snow pattern in January it’s going to catch many of you weather weenies by surprise as I am thinking the models are going to do one of those quick  rare warm to cold and snow pattern/ model flips that we have seen in the PNW in a number of winters

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

Weeklies out.  This is the 5 day 500mb height anomaly ending on the day shown, as opposed to a day by day anomaly.

 

 

[Gradient Keeper]

The trick is to completely write off the models feeling as if a rug has been pulled out from us, and then things turn favorably. I've seen this dance and song many times before.

18z GFS in 15 minutes.

Root for a less progressive pattern! C'MON!!!!

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

Weeklies PNA

From WXrisk.com:

"When the EPO is Positive and the PNA is Negative... the result is likely to feature a deep trough over the West Coast and/ or Western of the CONUS with Below/ Much Below temps and Above Normal Precipitation. However the Eastern third of the CONUS will see mild/ warm temperatures along with dry conditions. During the cold season months (October to March) +EPO/ -PNA often result in large scale cold / arctic air outbreaks for the Pacific Northwest/ Great Basin/ Rockies and significant or heavy precipitation The AO"

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Brian_in_Leavenworth
added more info

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

I added a bit more to my previous teleconnections post.

[SouthHillFrosty]

4 minutes ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

Weeklies PNA

You have to believe we will have some snow chances somewhere in there

[paulb/eugene]

jamstec 

[kokaneekidz]

2 minutes ago, paulb/eugene said:

jamstec 

That BLOB just won't go away off the west coast. This is a huge barrier to getting us down a few clicks in the temperature department.

[Gradient Keeper]

23 minutes ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

Weeklies PNA

From WXrisk.com:

"When the EPO is Positive and the PNA is Negative... the result is likely to feature a deep trough over the West Coast and/ or Western of the CONUS with Below/ Much Below temps and Above Normal Precipitation. However the Eastern third of the CONUS will see mild/ warm temperatures along with dry conditions. During the cold season months (October to March) +EPO/ -PNA often result in large scale cold / arctic air outbreaks for the Pacific Northwest/ Great Basin/ Rockies and significant or heavy precipitation The AO"

 

Well that's encouraging. Mid January then? Okay. I'll take a break until then.

00z ECMWF in 8 hours