Part III: February 2021 PacNW

[Jesse 9251]

45 minutes ago, T-Town said:

Meanwhile back in the pnw...

[MossMan 10747]

Sprinkles and 44 here. 

[GHweatherChris 3650]

13 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Hale!

 

[T-Town 285]

3 minutes ago, Jesse said:

Awesome. Where is that?

 

[MWG 210]

And just like that we are back to 50 degrees and partly sunny. 

 

 

[MossMan 10747]

16 minutes ago, GHweatherChris said:

 

Has he been hit by lightning as many times as Lee Trevino? 

[TT-SEA 4239]

Transition season... spring growth next to the last remnant of the huge pile of snow next to our driveway from the snowblower.  

[bainbridgekid 3944]

There are two types of people.

Those who build their snow pile in the shade, and those who build it in the sun.

[snow_wizard 12228]

2 hours ago, Jesse said:

We hit 67 last March. Which is pretty typical for a high temp for the month.

Looks like the gorge could save us from anything too balmy later next week.  

Even the coldest years have warm blasts here and there.  Even the infamous 1955 did.  Looks pretty cold overall for a long time ight now.  Quite frankly a couple of warm days with frosty nights sounds nice right now.

The million dollar question is will we be able to shake the hot summer curse.  We have had lesser runs of hot summers in the past and they always came to an end pretty abruptly. 

[TacomaWaWx 4623]

53/38 0.01” of rain. Warmest day of the month. 

[snow_wizard 12228]

BTW...A couple of metrics I normally use to judge where we are at in relation to normal says the first sings of spring are behind schedule.  No dandelions flowering yet and almost zero lawn growth so far.  Not hearing a whole lot of birds yet either.

[snow_wizard 12228]

5 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

53/38 0.01” of rain. Warmest day of the month. 

And with cold 850s.  I hate onshore with a cold air mass overhead. Looks like it may an even 50 here today.

[TacomaWaWx 4623]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

And with cold 850s.  I hate onshore with a cold air mass overhead. Looks like it may an even 50 here today.

Atleast the weathers been fairly interesting here in the second half of the month too. Had a few days upper 40s to low 50s...then had a little snow Tuesday night then back up to the upper 40s low 50s. 

[TacomaWaWx 4623]

Looking at winter 20-21...should finish about 0.5 degrees cooler than last winter...and about 0.5” more precipitation than last DJF. 16 freezes last year and only 13 this winter. However we do have a couple subfreezing high temps...which we didn’t have last winter and a lot more snowfall this winter as well. 

[TT-SEA 4239]

Cool view from North Bend right now...

 

[Jesse 9251]

1 hour ago, T-Town said:

Awesome. Where is that?

 

Thunderhead sno-park on the west side of Government Camp. Snowshoed the Enid Lake loop.

It’s been DUMPING today. The Hoodland corridor lost power earlier.

[SilverFallsAndrew 15379]

1 hour ago, MWG said:

And just like that we are back to 50 degrees and partly sunny. 

 

 

This map looks March 2012ish. 

[Jesse 9251]

43 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

And with cold 850s.  I hate onshore with a cold air mass overhead. Looks like it may an even 50 here today.

These patterns are fantastic for the mountains though. Orographic snow machine at full tilt today.

[SilverFallsAndrew 15379]

20 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Looking at winter 20-21...should finish about 0.5 degrees cooler than last winter...and about 0.5” more precipitation than last DJF. 16 freezes last year and only 13 this winter. However we do have a couple subfreezing high temps...which we didn’t have last winter and a lot more snowfall this winter as well. 

Unless we really blow the doors off March, this winter will end up a lot worse than last. I would say D/J were about as bad this year, but February and March were absolutely fantastic last year. The perfect mix of sun, cold, snow. With COVID and everything this winter was going to suck no matter what though and it wasn't as bad as 2014-15. 

[Jesse 9251]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Unless we really blow the doors off March, this winter will end up a lot worse than last. I would say D/J were about as bad this year, but February and March were absolutely fantastic last year. The perfect mix of sun, cold, snow. With COVID and everything this winter was going to suck no matter what though and it wasn't as bad as 2014-15. 

I think this winter would actually be getting a higher grade from you if the lowlands from PDX to BLI hadn’t seen a big snow event.

[SilverFallsAndrew 15379]

1 minute ago, Jesse said:

I think this winter would actually be getting a higher grade from you if the lowlands from PDX to BLI hadn’t seen a big snow event.

This is a pretty dumb comment even for you. I always like to see the PNW score, it's great there was a 4-day winter for many. And I was directly impacted by the most notable/historic part of the whole event. 

But IMBY we had like 15 freezes in DJF, pretty incredible when our average low during that time frame is 29-31. It was just a pretty lame winter overall. The GFS could verify and we could get a 10" snow storm with that big trough next weekend and it would still be a lame winter. Grading on a different scale then someone who lives in lowland Clark County. one big snow pretty much automatically bumps it to an A+ there. 

Overall it has been fine. Since January 20th or so things have been fairly active and coolish overall. We have had mild lows but we have only had 1-2 highs above 45 in the past 30-40 days. It has felt like winter, we had a big ice storm which was unique, but last year was just a lot better here. Just how it goes sometimes. We kind of lucked out last year, it was an extremely lame winter regionally and we probably did about as well as anyone could have done south of Everett. 

[SilverFallsAndrew 15379]

Wife says the power is out again at home... womp womp...

[TacomaWaWx 4623]

27 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Unless we really blow the doors off March, this winter will end up a lot worse than last. I would say D/J were about as bad this year, but February and March were absolutely fantastic last year. The perfect mix of sun, cold, snow. With COVID and everything this winter was going to suck no matter what though and it wasn't as bad as 2014-15. 

I definitely understand that. Your location definitely underperformed this winter...I can definitely see having a different standard for what’s impressive at your location versus most of the lowlands. We definitely lacked anomalous cold this winter...not too many freezes or sub 40 days. Big snowstorm made up for it though. 

[Dan the Weatherman 388]

2 hours ago, MWG said:

And just like that we are back to 50 degrees and partly sunny. 

 

 

I hope that pattern can bring some beneficial storms into California where the rain and snow are badly needed!

[SilverFallsAndrew 15379]

Just now, TacomaWaWx said:

I definitely understand that. Your location definitely underperformed this winter...I can definitely see having a different standard for what’s impressive at your location versus most of the lowlands. We definitely lacked anomalous cold this winter...not too many freezes or sub 40 days. Big snowstorm definitely made up for it though. 

Yeah, my comment was exclusively for my backyard. The top 3 winters up here in the past 10 years were clearly 2016-17, 2018-19, and 2011-12. I would say 2016-17 was easily #1 because of the combination of cold and snow, 2011-12 is behind 2018-19 because even though there was tons of snow, it melted almost immediately each time, and our low for the entire winter was 23 and occurred in March. 

2013-14 was a great winter in the south WV, but outside of those two arctic blasts we had nothing, which is why for me it's kind of a tossup between it and 2017-18 for #4. 

[TheNewCulverJosh 412]

What an eventful morning over here.  About 8 am or so I took off south towards Juniper Butte and it was a complete blizzard.  Probably the heaviest snow I have seen in 5 years!!  Picked up a quick 2" in about an hour around Culver.  Looks like Bend got around 3-4" very quickly.  All melted now, 40 degrees with a light snow shower currently.

[iFred 5228]

Anyone having problems accessing the site by phone should be fine now. If anyone else had errors or issues, please try again and let me know how it turns out.

[TacomaWaWx 4623]

23 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Yeah, my comment was exclusively for my backyard. The top 3 winters up here in the past 10 years were clearly 2016-17, 2018-19, and 2011-12. I would say 2016-17 was easily #1 because of the combination of cold and snow, 2011-12 is behind 2018-19 because even though there was tons of snow, it melted almost immediately each time, and our low for the entire winter was 23 and occurred in March. 

2013-14 was a great winter in the south WV, but outside of those two arctic blasts we had nothing, which is why for me it's kind of a tossup between it and 2017-18 for #4. 

One winter you mentioned was 17-18...probably one of the most underrated winters recently IMO. 11-12 16-17 and 18-19 were all great too here as well. 

[SouthHillFrosty 1482]

Nice to see long range snow still showing up. Would be nice for March to deliver!!

[SilverFallsAndrew 15379]

4 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

One winter you mentioned was 17-18...probably one of the most underrated winters recently IMO. 11-12 16-17 and 18-19 were all great too here as well. 

January 2018 was horrible, but December was pretty chilly regionally. Then mid February through March was pretty good up here.

[TheNewCulverJosh 412]

Crazy to think that Mt. Baker is over 600" this year and that is still only half of the record....incredible!!

[TacomaWaWx 4623]

17 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

January 2018 was horrible, but December was pretty chilly regionally. Then mid February through March was pretty good up here.

Had one of the earliest snow events on record here 11/3-11/5...a couple inches Christmas morning and then a few inches in late February here. January did suck though. 

[TigerWoodsLibido 5758]

What’s everybody’s favorite flight radar app? Been using Flightradar24 and it seems good. Is the premium content worth it? I know weather radar and such are on there for more $.

Or is there a better app?

[snow_wizard 12228]

Another day the C-Zone is south of its normal location.  SEA went from brisk SW to brisk NE winds in a matter of minutes.  Just had a dramatic wind shift here as well in the past 5 minutes.  Too bad the SW wind had to cause a small part of the day to be so "warm".

[snow_wizard 12228]

1 hour ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

This is a pretty dumb comment even for you. I always like to see the PNW score, it's great there was a 4-day winter for many. And I was directly impacted by the most notable/historic part of the whole event. 

But IMBY we had like 15 freezes in DJF, pretty incredible when our average low during that time frame is 29-31. It was just a pretty lame winter overall. The GFS could verify and we could get a 10" snow storm with that big trough next weekend and it would still be a lame winter. Grading on a different scale then someone who lives in lowland Clark County. one big snow pretty much automatically bumps it to an A+ there. 

Overall it has been fine. Since January 20th or so things have been fairly active and coolish overall. We have had mild lows but we have only had 1-2 highs above 45 in the past 30-40 days. It has felt like winter, we had a big ice storm which was unique, but last year was just a lot better here. Just how it goes sometimes. We kind of lucked out last year, it was an extremely lame winter regionally and we probably did about as well as anyone could have done south of Everett. 

Truly amazing you only had 15 freezes during the main three months of winter.  I've had way more than that here.  I'm still pretty MEH about this winter though.  Certainly not horrible, but way too little cold weather.

If the cold ENSO continues into next winter we should be poised for a decent one.

[snow_wizard 12228]

24 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Had one of the earliest snow events on record here 11/3-11/5...a couple inches Christmas morning and then a few inches in late February here. January did suck though. 

I agree that 2017-18 was pretty decent here.  The way that Christmas snow threaded the needle and made the absolute most out of what was available was quite something.

[SouthHillFrosty 1482]

5 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

I agree that 2017-18 was pretty decent here.  The way that Christmas snow threaded the needle and made the absolute most out of what was available was quite something.

An all-time Christmas. Everything worked out perfect. 

[snow_wizard 12228]

It's pretty remarkable how fast the c-zone can plunge the temperature.  It went from near 50 to 40 in about an hour.  Some of the chilly weather the models are showing in March will be without onshore flow so we shouldn't see the stupid afternoon temperature spikes like we did today.

[snow_wizard 12228]

54 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

An all-time Christmas. Everything worked out perfect. 

I actually liked that one better (on Christmas day) than 2008.  The snow was fresh and fairly dry.

[SilverFallsAndrew 15379]

41/34 today. Currently 36 and cloudy. 

[Omegaraptor 2440]

57 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

It's pretty remarkable how fast the c-zone can plunge the temperature.  It went from near 50 to 40 in about an hour.  Some of the chilly weather the models are showing in March will be without onshore flow so we shouldn't see the stupid afternoon temperature spikes like we did today.

A simple convective shower can do it. Hillsboro got taken from 48 to 41 in 10 minutes earlier today.

[Phil 12092]

9 hours ago, Jesse said:

I hope I am able to bump this post in a non-ironic way on 8/31/21

Me too! One of these years we’ll see a summer like 1964. Cool and wet coast to coast.

[MossMan 10747]

Just had some mixed precip falling. 
36 degrees.

.15” so far on the day. 

[Phil 12092]

Some legit constructive interference w/ niña base state gets going Mid-March. Not even a hint of WWB activity with this evolution, during one of the most crucial times of year for ENSO transitions.

[TacomaWaWx 4623]

Epic sunset and moonrise combo tonight. 

 

[TT-SEA 4239]

7 minutes ago, Phil said:

Some legit constructive interference w/ niña base state gets going Mid-March. Not even a hint of WWB activity with this evolution, during one of the most crucial times of year for ENSO transitions.

Meaning?

 

[BLI snowman 6877]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

Meaning?

 

Strong Nina next winter. Strengthening Nina over the spring and summer e.g. 1955 and 1999.

This was July 2, 1999. Check out the 540 thickness line over Rattlesnake Ridge!

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/fxg1/NARR/1999/us0702.php

[Phil 12092]

10 minutes ago, TT-SEA said:

Meaning?

 

Late winter/spring WWBs are essentially a prerequisite for termination of cold ENSO conditions. The complete dearth of them thus far (and for the foreseeable future) increases the probability that we maintain La Niña conditions (or at the very least, maintain the canonical La Niña Walker/Hadley structure) for the remainder of 2021, and probably well into 2022.

I’m interested in this simply because it’s been a decade since this particular evolution took place with descending easterly shear under present IPWP/PMM boundary conditions.

[Phil 12092]

IOW, it looks more like the evolution we see ahead of intradecadal -ENSO cycles such as 1998-2001 and 2008-12.

[SilverFallsAndrew 15379]

Some anafront potential late next week. Tis the season.