February 2021 PacNW Weather Discussion

[TacomaWaWx]

6 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Happened from 1996-2003. The warming and drying trend is a disaster here.

Only dud years in the last 15 years were 12-13 and 15-16. If we end up with a dud this year it’ll be the first in 5 years. Even last winter wasn’t a total failure.

[paulb/eugene]

2 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Only dud years in the last 15 years were 12-13 and 15-16. If we end up with a dud this year it’ll be the first in 5 years. Even last winter wasn’t a total failure.

The tomatoes have been great here in Eugene, big ones actually ripening unlike those jolly green giants in Whatcom County

[paulb/eugene]

1 minute ago, paulb/eugene said:

The tomatoes have been great here in Eugene, big ones actually ripening unlike those jolly green giants in Whatcom County

[TacomaWaWx]

1 minute ago, paulb/eugene said:

The tomatoes have been great here in Eugene, big ones actually ripening unlike those jolly green giants in Whatcom County

Eugene is turning into more of a Northern California climate it seems. 

[Deweydog]

7 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Watching those loops above... its like that main trough is giving birth to a baby and which way it shoots out means everything in terms of our weather! 

Kind of ironic given the fact our winter was aborted long ago.  

[paulb/eugene]

Just now, TacomaWaWx said:

Eugene is turning into more of a Northern California climate it seems. 

San Eugeñio.  Cities with Spanish names have done better lately for snow as well as heat.  Heck look what the Juan de Fuca does for port angeles.

[Skagit Weather]

5 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Only dud years in the last 15 years were 12-13 and 15-16. If we end up with a dud this year it’ll be the first in 5 years. Even last winter wasn’t a total failure.

I guess it kind of depends on what you consider a dud. Obviously my backyard isn't indicative of the region as a whole, but in the last 15 years I had less than an inch of snow in '09-10, '12-13, '14-15, '15-16, '17-18, and so far '20-21. I would consider those years pretty big duds here even if they featured some rather cold (or even "arctic") air at times.

[jakerepp]

5 minutes ago, paulb/eugene said:

Look at the rich guy with his $50...

[snow_wizard]

So...it looks like the 0z was the warmest run of the day.  6z was better, but still warmer than yesterday's 18z, 12z was a bit milder, and now the 18z is notably colder (at least for WA).  With GENUINE COLD in play over southern BC even tiny moves in the right direction in the home stretch could pay big dividends.

[wxmet]

This will likely be the opposite on the next run but regardless, heavy snow sounding next Friday on the GFS 18z

 

[TacomaWaWx]

2 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

I guess it kind of depends on what you consider a dud. Obviously my backyard isn't indicative of the region as a whole, but in the last 15 years I had less than an inch of snow in '09-10, '12-13, '14-15, '15-16, '17-18, and so far '20-21. I would consider those years pretty big duds here even if they featured some rather cold (or even "arctic") air at times.

A couple of those years actually produced here. Particularly 17-18 which is a very underrated winter IMO. 0.5” in early November, 2.0” on Christmas morning and 3.0” in late February. 14-15 had a nice late November cold spell and 0.5” of snow too but nothing after that. 

[paulb/eugene]

San Francisco got more snow than PDX in 1976

sheiß happens

[Fircrest]

54 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

I am also looking at coastal NH (or Maine.)  The Californication of Washington/Oregon plays a big role in it.  Also, I got laid off from my job of 17 years, and am at the age that I need to find a place where I can settle in another 17 years to retirement, so its kind of a now or never kind of thing...

 

Also figured out this morning that flying out of Boston to see my family in Atlanta is crazy cheap, and curiously enough, it costs about the same to fly from Boston to Great Falls (to see my Mother in Law) as it does to fly from Bellingham to GF....about $300-350.  Boston-Logan is a 1 hr drive from Portsmouth NH on the NH ME border.

I went to Boston for the first time a year and a half ago and drove as far north as Portland, ME. Really loved the coastal area and liked Boston too, except for crazy traffic and parking rates! One issue is all our family is nearby here, so hard to go east.

[TT-SEA]

7 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

So...it looks like the 0z was the warmest run of the day.  6z was better, but still warmer than yesterday's 18z, 12z was a bit milder, and now the 18z is notably colder (at least for WA).  With GENUINE COLD in play over southern BC even tiny moves in the right direction in the home stretch could pay big dividends.

Are we also discussing the ECMWF/EPS suite?

[snow_wizard]

Wow!  6 sub -15 ensemble members on the 18z GEFS with a mean of -10.6.  Pretty legit cold.

[Skagit Weather]

7 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

A couple of those years actually produced here. Particularly 17-18 which is a very underrated winter IMO. 0.5” in early November, 2.0” on Christmas morning and 3.0” in late February. 14-15 had a nice late November cold spell and 0.5” of snow too but nothing after that. 

Yeah, '17-18 was one I was sad to miss out on. Mostly because a lot of places around the Sound ended up with a white Christmas and we couldn't even scrape enough snow to make it look like it was frosty.

Based on this graph it's pretty easy to identify the SEA great years, the good, and the trash.

 

[snow_wizard]

6 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

A couple of those years actually produced here. Particularly 17-18 which is a very underrated winter IMO. 0.5” in early November, 2.0” on Christmas morning and 3.0” in late February. 14-15 had a nice late November cold spell and 0.5” of snow too but nothing after that. 

I had over 4 inches in 17-18 with the Christmas snow.  That was a sweet one.

[paulb/eugene]

That would be a legit ice storm.  Lots of overtime pay for the linemen

[TT-SEA]

18Z GEFS sends that ULL farther north into Alaska later next week... more in line with the EPS.

 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

12 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

I guess it kind of depends on what you consider a dud. Obviously my backyard isn't indicative of the region as a whole, but in the last 15 years I had less than an inch of snow in '09-10, '12-13, '14-15, '15-16, '17-18, and so far '20-21. I would consider those years pretty big duds here even if they featured some rather cold (or even "arctic") air at times.

Yes I was speaking about the south Willamette Valley not the whole region. Things have been different up your way.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, Skagit Weather said:

Yeah, '17-18 was one I was sad to miss out on. Mostly because a lot of places around the sound ended up with a white Christmas and we couldn't even scrape enough snow to make it look like it was frosty.

Based on this graph it's pretty easy to identify the SEA great years, the good, and the trash.

 

Seattle has a rich history of extremely variable snowfall, although the 1880s and 1890s were consistently snowy.

[Chewbacca Defense]

1 minute ago, Fircrest said:

I went to Boston for the first time a year and a half ago and drove as far north as Portland, ME. Really loved the coastal area and liked Boston too, except for crazy traffic and parking rates! One issue is all our family is nearby here, so hard to go east.

My wife's family is in Montana, and my family is in the Atlanta area and Charleston, so we really don't have anything keeping us here.  I grew up in Georgia and that's too hot and humid.  We looked into moving to Montana, but real estate has exploded there (even in comparison to here) with Covid, so that's off the list. So basically its a matter of opening up an atlas and looking at where we might want to live.  TBH my wife wants to immigrate to Scotland (I wouldn't mind it either), I can get over there on a heritage visa (grandmother was English) but I don't think its practical at this point in our lives.

[TacomaWaWx]

1 minute ago, Skagit Weather said:

Yeah, '17-18 was one I was sad to miss out on. Mostly because a lot of places around the Sound ended up with a white Christmas and we couldn't even scrape enough snow to make it look like it was frosty.

Based on this graph it's pretty easy to identify the SEA great years, the good, and the trash.

 

You scored in 19-20 though so that makes up for 17-18. I have pretty low standards for constitutes a dud. I’m usually satisfied if we can get atleast 0.5-1.0” of snow that sticks around for a day or two. Only years to not do atleast that here were 12-13 and 15-16. 

[BLI snowman]

Probably overdue for an ice storm here. 

[TigerWoodsLibido]

3 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

Yeah, '17-18 was one I was sad to miss out on. Mostly because a lot of places around the Sound ended up with a white Christmas and we couldn't even scrape enough snow to make it look like it was frosty.

Based on this graph it's pretty easy to identify the SEA great years, the good, and the trash.

 

Bruh, hold my beer...

[wxmet]

The GEFS 18z 500mb 510 and 552 dm spaghetti plot. You can make out the negative NAO block and the TPV over Canada but the Pacific is an absolute mess. Lots to work out between now and next week.

[TacomaWaWx]

3 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I had over 4 inches in 17-18 with the Christmas snow.  That was a sweet one.

That one was one of my favorite snow events of all time. Only time I’ve seen it snow here on Christmas morning like that. We had snow on the ground in December 2008 but it wasn’t fresh snow. 

[BLI snowman]

1 minute ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

My wife's family is in Montana, and my family is in the Atlanta area and Charleston, so we really don't have anything keeping us here.  I grew up in Georgia and that's too hot and humid.  We looked into moving to Montana, but real estate has exploded there (even in comparison to here) with Covid, so that's off the list. So basically its a matter of opening up an atlas and looking at where we might want to live.  TBH my wife wants to immigrate to Scotland (I wouldn't mind it either), I can get over there on a heritage visa (grandmother was English) but I don't think its practical at this point in our lives.

The UK is staring down a pretty fun looking weekend. Strong easterlies and copious moisture. Kind of a dream setup for them.

Their version of us is getting pretty excited.

https://www.netweather.tv/forum/forum/1-weather-discussion-winter/

[TacomaWaWx]

1 minute ago, BLI snowman said:

Probably overdue for an ice storm here. 

Been 9 years here. You guys do tend to get them a bit more than us though. January 2012 was a bad one. 

[Skagit Weather]

2 minutes ago, paulb/eugene said:

That would be a legit ice storm.  Lots of overtime pay for the linemen

Another thing we don't get up here. In the last 20 years we've only had ice twice 2008 and 2004? (maybe) with never more than 0.1". This map would seem to suggest that trend continues.

[snow_wizard]

Looks like the parallel may not finish this run.  It got to hour 12 and quit.

[Slushy Inch]

GEFS is not the ridge fest that you see in the OP.

[BLI snowman]

2 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Been 9 years here. You guys do tend to get them a bit more than us though. January 2012 was a bad one. 

February 2014 was the last noteworthy icing (.25"+) here. I'm far enough from the gorge that my area needs deeper cold pools in the gorge than what we've been working with lately.

[snow_wizard]

4 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

Another thing we don't get up here. In the last 20 years we've only had ice twice 2008 and 2004? (maybe) with never more than 0.1". This map would seem to suggest that trend continues.

Covington does ice storms well.  Too bad I'm not wild about them  I got rid of the two trees that really made me nervous last year so I'll be more open to it.

[Skagit Weather]

4 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

You scored in 19-20 though so that makes up for 17-18. I have pretty low standards for constitutes a dud. I’m usually satisfied if we can get atleast 0.5-1.0” of snow that sticks around for a day or two. Only years to not do atleast that here were 12-13 and 15-16. 

I agree. I was stoked last year. Even though it only lasted a couple days it was wonderful! It's one of the reasons I won't mind if we don't end up getting any snow because of that. However, 0.5" of snow is pretty minimal to not be considered a dud. You can't even make a snowman . I think 1.0" that lasts a day or so is the bare minimum to elevate a winter from a dud to just plain bad.

[SnarkyGoblin]

45 minutes ago, wxmet said:

Hopefully this year back to the east coast. Virginia is furthest south i'm willing to go. Obviously inland.

You will be missed on this forum.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, 12345WeatherNerd said:

GEFS is not the ridge fest that you see in the OP.

The parallel liked the idea of an offshore ridge in the 6 to 10 day period on last night's 0z and the 12z today.

[TT-SEA]

1 minute ago, 12345WeatherNerd said:

GEFS is not the ridge fest that you see in the OP.

Its a blended mean... but you clearly see the strong signals for troughing in the central Pacific and in the central/eastern US so that usually means some sort of ridging across the western US.

[TacomaWaWx]

1 minute ago, BLI snowman said:

February 2014 was the last noteworthy icing (.25"+) here. I'm far enough from the gorge that my area needs deeper cold pools in the gorge than what we've been working with lately.

We had almost 1” of ice in 2012. I think we had some minor ice events in 2008 and 2004 but nothing more than 0.1-0.2”

[TT-SEA]

3 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Covington does ice storms well.  Too bad I'm not wild about them  I got rid of the two trees that really made me nervous last year so I'll be more open to it.

There was an ice storm a few years back (after 2012) that was extremely destructive to the trees between North Bend and Snoqualmie Pass.     Much worse than any "drought" we have had in this area in the last decade.