February 2014 in the PNW

[pscz1140]

Just saw a couple of snowflakes in Seattle after seeing three flakes flutter down gracefully to their final resting place in Tacoma earlier today.

 

Flakepocalypse 2014 continues!!

 

PS - Congrats to eveyone in Southern WA/Oregon. You guys deserved it!

[Perturbed Member]

GFS is running. Better trend north & deeper

 

Yes please!

[HighlandExperience]

GFS is running. Better trend north & deeper

 

Yup hope it goes right north of Centralia 

[The Swamp]

A few flakes flying here in the swamp.

[GHweatherChris]

.

 

GFS is running. Better trend north & deeper

Its only out to 24 hours, and nothing to note yet.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Heavy snow band moving through Salem right now.

[TT-SEA]

Yea, but you have 782 total and most are for no reason. LOL  

Sorry Tim.

Couldn't resist!

 

Dewey is surprisingly at half that... pretty high.    Andrew is over 500 as well.  

[Dadio]

Snowflakes falling here. Can't believe how dry out it is. I went outside to enjoy the snow and didn't get wet at all. You can see the flakes swirling about, but it isn't accumulating on the ground at all.

[Snow]

OOZ GFS Snowstorm Friday overnight for PDX.

[Deweydog]

Dewey is surprisingly at half that... pretty high.    Andrew is over 500 as well.  

 

#68.

 

I like snow.  

[TT-SEA]

The GFS for the next 2 days looks almost exactly like what we have right now.     The 3-hour frame looks like the 36-hour frame and the 48-hour frame.

 

Difference for Portland is the 0C line is almost there on Saturday afternoon.    Compared to -12C right now.

 

I think conditions Saturday will be quite different compared to today.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

GFS is running. Better trend north & deeper

It's a little further north but not much.

[Dadio]

#68.

 

I like snow.  

I like snow too.

[Snowman Josh]

I'm going to commit no-snow suicide. We really got screwed up here again in the Puget sound. I'm going to go outside and stare at the lights and see if I can spot a rogue.

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

I'm going to commit no-snow suicide. We really got screwed up here again in the Puget sound. I'm going to go outside and stare at the lights and see if I can spot a rogue.

Just drink a brew.

[luminen]

Skies starting to clear here in EUgene, at least temporarily. I can see a star or two.

[Snow]

OOZ GFS has a band of moisture starting Friday night to atleast Saturday night just sit over Salem to PDX. Possible heavy accumulations.

[MossMan]

Thought I saw a single snowflake while pulling in my driveway about a half hr ago. Currently 26 degrees. I am on full Flurry watch now with all the outside flood lights on!

[HighlandExperience]

I'm going to commit no-snow suicide. We really got screwed up here again in the Puget sound. I'm going to go outside and stare at the lights and see if I can spot a rogue.

 

Weed is legal now. 

[TT-SEA]

OOZ GFS has a band of moisture starting Friday night to atleast Saturday night just sit over Salem to PDX. Possible heavy accumulations.

 

 

Could be some serious freezing rain at 0C in Portland.

 

I think Salem is just plain rain by Saturday afternoon.

[Snowman Josh]

Just drink a brew.

"A"....I'm going to drink "A" 12 pack.

[Snow]

Could be some serious freezing rain at 0C.     

 

Yeah snow/sleet/ice.

[chopper 918]

Could be some serious freezing rain at 0C in Portland.

 

I think Salem is just plain rain by Saturday afternoon.

Freezing rain Sat. night for PDX?

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

It sure looks like some light snow Saturday and Sunday morning on the 00z for Seattle area.

[GHweatherChris]

00z sucks, might get some flurries tomorrow evening though, so not a complete wash.

 

Although, it does show the potential to put some more moisture up this way.  Unless the Euro shows that then I don't believe it.

[Dadio]

Still snowing and can't see it on the ground. Also the moon is visible.

[TT-SEA]

This  was 4 p.m. today:

 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/images_d2/slp.00.0000.gif

 

 

This is 4 p.m. tomorrow:

 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/images_d2/slp.24.0000.gif

[seattleweatherguy]

do u think bothell will get snow tonight and or sat/sun?

[MossMan]

Still snowing and can't see it on the ground. Also the moon is visible.

What is your location again, I forget! Everyone needs to fill out their location info on their profiles!

[TT-SEA]

Snow from 4 p.m. today through 4 p.m. tomorrow... some of this has already fallen obviously.

 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/images_d2/snow24.24.0000.gif

[TT-SEA]

Checking out tomorrow evening... lots of precip over Oregon but the WRF is now showing this to be rain in the valleys.

 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/images_d2/pcp1.27.0000.gif

 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/images_d2/snow3.27.0000.gif

[TT-SEA]

do u think bothell will get snow tonight and or sat/sun?

 

 

Not of any consequence.

[MossMan]

After looking at some of the E. Wash. cams I am really glad my work travel day east of the Cascades was yesterday! Looks very snowy on my route currently! Other than the 10 degree temps with a 20MPH breeze in Pasco, yesterday was an awesome travel day with NO fog, which usually slows me down between Ellensburg and Yakima.

[Karl Bonner]

A reminder on the whole "Sun Angle Debate":  Let's stick to the facts about the sun angle calendar (where solstices and equinoxes are defined as the midpoints of their respective seasons rather than the beginning cusps).  Even though February 3-4 is the start of the 'spring' quarter, keep in mind that the seasonal sun angle curve is sinusoidal in nature.  That means the majority of change in insolation levels occurs within 4-6 weeks, either direction, of the spring and fall equinoxes.  On the February cross-quarter we have regained only 1 - (1/sqrt2), or 29%, of the north-south distance from the celestial Tropic of Capricorn up to the equator.  That gets us up to 16.6 South, or about 29 degrees above Portland's southern horizon, at the time of solar noon near 12:15pm.  Better than the 21 degrees at the winter solstice, but it's still a weak and wintry sun. 

 

Perhaps the sun-angle seasons should be partitioned so that 'Spring' and 'Fall' are only 2 months instead of 3; say Feb. 20-Apr. 20 for spring and Aug. 21-Oct. 22 for fall?  That would put the solar declination on the seasonal cusps at 11.7 degrees North or South, instead of 16.6 - allowing the position of the sun in the sky to actually get halfway back to its Equinox position before we declare the onset of Spring or Fall.

 

Everyone knows that February 20 and August 20 seem to be the respective cutoff dates for really intense heat or cold events in the Pacific Northwest.  A big arctic blast ought to be perfectly doable through at least Valentine's Day - I'm convinced that the "arctic cliff" in daily record low temps around February 5-6 is simply due to the fact that the 2nd week of February just has managed to avoid getting hit with strong arctic air for the historical period that our records tend to run in.  Older recording stations DO show mid-February arctic blasts from the early 20th century, though I don't have the data on hand to post examples.  And had we gotten clearer skies with this arctic air (and a little snow cover beforehand), we might have set quite a few new record lows for the Feb. 6-8 period.  I'd imagine that today's high of about 19 or 20 at DLS might be a new record cold high for this late in the season, and perhaps again tomorrow.  We're getting that frigid air in here, it's just too cloudy for some epic low temps.

[TT-SEA]

Looks like more sun tomorrow than today:

 

http://s9.postimg.org/on1c8i2wf/Untitled.jpg

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

It would be interesting to see that low at hrs 114 come in a few hundred miles south.

[pscz1140]

It would be interesting to see that low at hrs 114 come in a few hundred miles south.

 

I was just thinking the same thing. The way things have trended a bit south lately it's not impossible.

 

No matter what next week looks interesting.

[Perturbed Member]

Checking out tomorrow evening... lots of precip over Oregon but the WRF is now showing this to be rain in the valleys.

 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/images_d2/pcp1.27.0000.gif

 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/data/current_gfs/images_d2/snow3.27.0000.gif

 

I'm confident we stay snow all day in PDX, the rest of the valleys though will almost certainly have ZR and even regular rain. 

[Dadio]

Still snowing, coming down bigger flakes and more. The ground is starting to turn white. Also the moon is even more visible, very crazy.

[TT-SEA]

Seems like Eugene and Salem may jump way into the 40s this weekend.    Here is Saturday afternoon:

 

http://s15.postimg.org/4nfzrxjsb/Untitled.png

 

 

NAM MOS has 49 on Saturday and 50 on Sunday in Eugene.

 

And it has 46 at SEA on Sunday.   

 

Transition seems to be completely a dud up here in WA.