February 2021 PacNW Weather Discussion

[Christensen87]

Holy...this could be epic. 

[snow_wizard]

Thankfully it appears a lot of the snow will be pretty dry so tree damage should be fairly limited.

[TT-SEA]

For those tracking... the snow tomorrow with the "arctic front" has been greatly reduced on recent ECMWF runs.   It still shows a SW wind in Seattle on Wednesday evening.     

The snow then just blossoms along that weak boundary on Thursday morning right over the Seattle area.    

 

[jakerepp]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

For those tracking... the snow tomorrow with the "arctic front" has been greatly reduced on recent ECMWF runs.   It still shows a SW wind in Seattle on Wednesday evening.     

The snow then just blossoms along that weak boundary on Thursday morning right over the Seattle area.    

 

Bummer...was hoping for an appetizer.

[joelgombiner]

Seattle NWS is forecasting "less than a half inch possible" on Thursday 

I get not wanting to create a panic, but at the same time the public should maybe know that there's a chance of a foot of snow falling in two days? 

[SouthHillFrosty]

Just now, joelgombiner said:

Seattle NWS is forecasting "less than a half inch possible" on Thursday 

I get not wanting to create a panic, but at the same time the public should maybe know that there's a chance of a foot of snow falling in two days? 

Nws waits until the storm is over to issue one

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, Christensen87 said:

Holy...this could be epic. 

I think it will be now that the GFS is fairly similar to the ECMWF.  Pretty unreal so soon after 2019.  You would have to go back to the 1880s to find two epic Febs so close together.

[TT-SEA]

Just now, jakerepp said:

Bummer...was hoping for an appetizer.

Yeah... over the last we got so used to talking about arctic air roaring southward and now it barely limps to the border.     

The palm trees in Santa Barbara are safe! 

[Esquimalt]

UKMET coming in SOUTH

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

I just can't buy into the Seattle area getting hammered again in mid Feb 2 years later the same day pretty much. 

[awright-31]

1 minute ago, joelgombiner said:

Seattle NWS is forecasting "less than a half inch possible" on Thursday 

I get not wanting to create a panic, but at the same time the public should maybe know that there's a chance of a foot of snow falling in two days? 

They did the same thing in February 2019 up until about 36 to 48 hours out. Then suddenly it was like a switch flipped and warnings were everywhere. i’m expecting that switch to flip at some point today.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 minute ago, Esquimalt said:

UKMET coming in SOUTH

South of what?

[TT-SEA]

Just now, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

South of what?

Exactly.   No idea what that means.   Post a map! 

[Skier B]

1 minute ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I just can't buy into the Seattle area getting hammered again in mid Feb 2 years later the same day pretty much. 

Time to get the plow?

[Andrew M]

1 minute ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

South of what?

UKMET is a Tillamook, Oregon landfall

[Andrew M]

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I just can't buy into the Seattle area getting hammered again in mid Feb 2 years later the same day pretty much. 

It would be pretty hard for it to fail now that it's this close on nearly every model, but it could happen of course.

[wxmet]

Pretty sizable shift south on the UKMET which hopefully means the northern trend is coming to a stop

[Jbolin]

2 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I just can't buy into the Seattle area getting hammered again in mid Feb 2 years later the same day pretty much. 

Why not? 

 

Mother nature doesn't follow calendars or specific dates, if it's in the cards, then deal 'em out. 

[Perturbed Member]

5 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

FWIW, per the 12z GFS 850s don't go above freezing for PDX until Monday. Same with the 925s. Surface temps are shown to be in the 20s the entire time with highs on Thursday of 27, 24 on Friday, and 24 on Saturday. Winds stay ENE the entire time through PDX metro.

That cold pool in Eastern WA and the Gorge will be making all the difference this go around. Obviously you don't want it to keep trending north (neither do us Puget Sounders) and get that SW wind going but all hope is not lost for down there, contrary to Jesse's weenieism.

The warm nose is around 925mb to just below 850mb. Certainly a pretty minor warm nose at the moment but there is no more room for error here.

It does eventually improves as the gorge drags in more cold air. Even though the GFS calls that sleet, it pretty much looks like a snow sounding to me. 

 

I don't really blame Jesse though, we've been screwed over pretty relentlessly down here for years. It just gets frustrating. Hopefully we can all score this time.

[Blizzard777]

9 minutes ago, Christensen87 said:

Holy...this could be epic. 

I’m going to quietly go into the garage and grab my HUGE snow shovel I used in 2019 and the measuring stick 

[wxmet]

Substantially less snow for Seattle and points northward on the UKMET 12z while PDX cashes in about the same.

[Perturbed Member]

12z UKMET. Yeah further south. 

[seattleweatherguy]

2 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

It would be pretty hard for it to fail now that it's this close on nearly every model, but it could happen of course.

For some reason north seattle seems to be less than other places. Hope its underdone

[Timmy]

1 minute ago, hawkstwelve said:

Total snow on the 12z UKMET through Saturday morning.

Very nice to see the northward trend stop.

2” or 20”

[wxmet]

2 minutes ago, seattleweatherguy said:

For some reason north seattle seems to be less than other places. Hope its underdone

Low position just south of the mouth of the Columbia River climatologically speaking should allow areas north of the Seattle metro to cash in too similar to what the GFS12z is showing.

[snow_wizard]

Good grief.  A -36 reading in southern BC this morning.  Very rare indeed.

[Andrew M]

NBM gives PDX to Olympia 10-12 inches of snow

[snow_wizard]

4 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

Total snow on the 12z UKMET through Saturday morning.

Very nice to see the northward trend stop.

I think it's overdoing the precip inhibition in King County.  I'm glad the ECMWF has been much less emphatic on that.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Throw out the UKMET!

[TT-SEA]

12 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

I just can't buy into the Seattle area getting hammered again in mid Feb 2 years later the same day pretty much. 

My son can't believe it either... he is supposed to be leaving for Cozumel on Friday morning.   Exactly 2 years to the day when we barely made our escape out of here to Hawaii.   

The difference this time is that it's not going to turn to rain in Seattle.   Back in 2019... we just had to get through 4 feet of snow here to a rainy Sea-Tac.     He might not have as much luck this time if it's dumping snow at SEA too.

Either way... it is almost surreal that this is happening again on the same day.

[Deweydog]

2 minutes ago, Andrew M said:

NBM gives PDX to Olympia 10-12 inches of snow

National Basketball Model?

[paulb/eugene]

Still very worrisome for high impact ice storm throughout the Willamette Valley.  9-12 km resolution models do not sufficiently account for the gorge.  
Unreal snow amounts for WA, and perhaps unreal amounts of ice in the Willamette Valley.  If this materializes it will be the most costly weather event for Oregon since 1996 floods

[Deweydog]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Throw out the UKMET!

More like YUKMET...

[Skagit Weather]

Don't worry! The UKMET gives the North Sound an inch of snow before immediately transitioning to rain at the end of the run! The idea I get from the models this morning is they still have no idea. Euro probably won't help clarify much either although I hope it doesn't take away all the snowfall up here.

[Christensen87]

I’ll wait to see what Euro says before jumping the gun. 

[paulb/eugene]

1 minute ago, Deweydog said:

More like YUKMET...

[snow_wizard]

Looks like N winds an cold air have engulfed all of WA and northern OR now.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

UKMET IS TO FAR SOUTH!

[Perturbed Member]

GEM looks similar to UKMET but more snow north.