January 2021 weather observations for the PNW

[TT-SEA]

Just noticed that 18Z ECMWF was also pretty snowy for King County with that c-zone on Sunday night into early Monday morning.

 

[AlTahoe]

So there is .00001" chance this verifies but I am saving this image as it is the most crazy model output I have ever seen. 244" for South lake Tahoe. LOL 

[FroYoBro]

1 minute ago, AlTahoe said:

So there is .00001" chance this verifies but I am saving this image as it is the most crazy model output I have ever seen. 244" for South lake Tahoe. LOL 

I imagine that you are crying right now. 

[AlTahoe]

2 minutes ago, FroYoBro said:

I imagine that you are crying right now. 

It happened in Jan 1916 so it could theoretically happen again which is why I gave it a slight chance. LOL. But yeah I am gassing everything up tomorrow and getting groceries before the news starts talking about it. 

[wxmet]

21 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

00z 3km NAM looked quite nice for the Central Sound. Most of this falls Sunday night. 

3 in. here. The only map I need to see.

[Gummy]

Unfortunately this is probably closer to reality. I will still take it though!

[High Desert Mat?]

2 minutes ago, Gummy said:

Unfortunately this is probably closer to reality. I will still take it though!

Uh oh, he’s made it over from the “blog”. 

[Gradient Keeper]

00z GFS Day 1

(Past 4 runs)

[Meatyorologist]

19 minutes ago, AlTahoe said:

So there is .00001" chance this verifies but I am saving this image as it is the most crazy model output I have ever seen. 244" for South lake Tahoe. LOL 

Over twenty feet of snow. How would you be able to function?? I get that you could gradually shovel it, but at some point, even as the snow settles, you'd run out of room for the snow.

Sacrifice the backyard for a godzilla snowpile? Accept your homebound fate and pray your roof doesn't collapse?

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 2

(Past 4 runs)

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 3

(Past 4 runs)

[FroYoBro]

Holy ****. I’m in the blue! Snowstorm!!!!!

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Prediction. This run will not be as good as the fabulous 18z. 

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 4

(Past 4 runs)

[MossMan]

17 minutes ago, Gummy said:

Unfortunately this is probably closer to reality. I will still take it though!

I’m under a dot of blue! 

[Cloud]

Don’t discount the NAM snow totals... it did pretty well the last wind event we have here. 
 

I can’t believe I just said that about the NAM.

[Gradient Keeper]

5 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Prediction. This run will not be as good as the fabulous 18z. 

Yeah through Day 5 it's a step back in my opinion. It kind of sucks.

[AlTahoe]

12 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Over twenty feet of snow. How would you be able to function?? I get that you could gradually shovel it, but at some point, even as the snow settles, you'd run out of room for the snow.

Sacrifice the backyard for a godzilla snowpile? Accept your homebound fate and pray your roof doesn't collapse?

Whats even crazier is that our town has grown to 40k full time residents from a normal of about 23k because of covid. These people have no idea what they are in for. In Jan 2017 I had to bring my snow blower onto the roof by building a snow ramp the final 3' to reach my roof. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

Yeah through Day 5 it's a step back in my opinion. It kind of sucks.

We live in a climate where the weather sucks 99.9% of the time. 

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 5 If the ridge Day 3.5 to 5 could just slide east.. ugh

(Past 4 runs)

[Meatyorologist]

Just now, AlTahoe said:

Whats even crazier is that our town has grown to 40k full time residents from a normal of about 23k because of covid. These people have no idea what they are in for. In Jan 2017 I had to bring my snow blower onto the roof by building a snow ramp the final 3' to reach my roof. 

If you have any new neighbors, I don't know how comfortable you are with talking to them, but I'd recommend striking up a conversation about it. You could very well be saving a valley transplant from a lot of hassle, if not a lot of money and insurance BS from a collapsed roof.

[Cloud]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

That stretch of I-5 has been under construction for what seems like more than a decade.

I believe the actual construction itself is over 20 years now dating back to 2000 and the planning and whatnot is over 30 years if not more. Kinda ridiculous. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 minute ago, Cloud said:

I believe the actual construction itself is over 20 years now dating back to 2000 and the planning and whatnot is over 30 years if not more. Kinda ridiculous. 

Infrastructure in the PNW and our nation overall is kind of a joke. They probably will never build a 2nd bridge over the Willamette in Salem, and probably will not replace the Interstate Bridge in Portland until it collapses. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

00z is much warmer for next week. 

[Gradient Keeper]

I try to remain cautiously optimistic, but runs like this make that difficult.

[FroYoBro]

Get out your sad faces everyone. Andrew is here! 

[SouthHillFrosty]

1 hour ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I thought all of tacoma was a slag pile?

I love Tacoma. My favorite city in Washington hands down 

[Art_Digbee]

Down to 29.8 degrees here in Deer Harbor.

Being just off the water it's tough to get below freezing, and being right off a tidal lagoon, it helps considerably when the tide is out - like right now. I'll see the temp increase tonight as the tide comes in.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, FroYoBro said:

Get out your sad faces everyone. Andrew is here! 

Even DJ is recognizing there are no redeeming qualities to this run. Perhaps hour 384 will blast us. 

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 6

(Past 4 runs)

[Phil]

If this gfs run verifies, I promise to never call it goofus again.

[Cloud]

7 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Infrastructure in the PNW and our nation overall is kind of a joke. They probably will never build a 2nd bridge over the Willamette in Salem, and probably will not replace the Interstate Bridge in Portland until it collapses. 

But if there are tolls involved they have no problem finishing it in a jiffy. Take the 405 toll stretch up here for example from Bellevue. The 15-mile toll corridor was finished in an instant. 
 

edit: idk why I said 40. It’s 15.

[BLI snowman]

Looks like I might make it through the end of January without seeing a flake.

That is of course completely unprecedented for a La Nina winter here. 

[TacomaWaWx]

1 hour ago, T-Town said:

38 degrees currently on the west end of the slag pile. 

Lol not sure why Tacoma’s getting all of this negativity all the sudden! Some parts of town are kinda shady but quite beautiful on this side of town from downtown northward. 

[Jesse]

As hurt as I am by PDX's unforeseen journey to 50+ degrees today, it still was a nice once. Wintery with an east wind developing in the afternoon and low dps. Peaked at 50 here, already down to 38 this evening. Skies have cleared and the wind has died, so could be down to freezing by midnight.

[Meatyorologist]

Direct 850mb temp outputs are highly dependent on small-scale features, and as such are prone to "wobbling". It's more useful to look at upstream differences.

Meanwhile, nice improvements in that building ridge at hour 130-170, both in intensity and in placement.

[TacomaWaWx]

1 hour ago, Jginmartini said:

When I was a kid it was still going on! I even remember the dome going up as well....thought that was cool. So many trips and I’m still doing it.  Just the opposite way now.  

The construction on I-5 near the Tacoma dome is a massive pain in the a**. Always has been in my lifetime and don’t know when they’ll fix it. 

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 7

(Past runs)

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Direct 850mb temp outputs are highly dependent on small-scale features, and as such are prone to "wobbling". It's more useful to look at upstream differences.

Meanwhile, nice improvements in that building ridge at hour 130-170, both in intensity and in placement.

You are always so positive. I admire it. 

[TacomaWaWx]

I still have hope things will work out and we see some snow Tuesday night/Wednesday morning but we will see. Hoping that February can come through for us. Still over a week until February starts so who knows what’ll happen the remainder of this winter.