PNW October 2021, Pumpkin Spice Edition

[snow_wizard]

9 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

I’m 22 and lived here my whole life. I definitely plan on staying in Washington…I would consider oregon too though but most likely will stay here. 

As I mentioned in an earlier staying is WA can mean anything from having mild winters to having winters as cold and snowy as anything back east with the exception of the coldest states of course.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Going to be camping this weekend…looks dry and should be much chillier at night compared to the last 2 weeks. Will be nice to get some dry weather after 10 consecutive days with rain should be able to get some kayaking in. 

It will be kind of nice to finish the month on a chilly note.  It will help bring down the final monthly averages which will be below normal.

[TacomaWaWx]

Just now, snow_wizard said:

As I mentioned in an earlier staying is WA can mean anything from having mild winters to having winters as cold and snowy as anything back east with the exception of the coldest states of course.

We can do pretty decent here…had snow on the ground for almost the entire months of December 2008 and February 2019. Most of the time the snow only sticks around for a few days but we can get pretty wintery every now and then. 

[TacomaWaWx]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

It will be kind of nice to finish the month on a chilly note.  It will help bring down the final monthly averages which will be below normal.

Won’t be quite as crisp as October 2019 at the end but still looks decently chilly. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Hot dog 

[Meatyorologist]

8 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Hot dog 

hawt

[Timmy Supercell]

Low of 47 this morning, and did not alternate more than a couple degrees in the last 8 hours?

Unsurprisingly the sun rears its presence again. 

[Meatyorologist]

LR GFS for the past several runs have gone full blown +EPO w/ a solid AK vortex. Hopefully that serves as a conduit for a SPV weakening come December.

[Timmy Supercell]

18 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Won’t be quite as crisp as October 2019 at the end but still looks decently chilly. 

Averaging out Octobers 2019-2021, all 3 run cool! When was the last warm one?

[AlTahoe]

42 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

For the United States collectively January 1963 was ridiculously cold.  In fact I think Europe joined us on that too.  All of the cold air was getting transported to the mid latitudes that winter.

Must have been an extreme gradient between California and the PNW that winter. Jan 1963 had almost 6" of rain with only 7" of snow at 6200' in the Sierra. About as tropical a setup as we can get in Jan. 

[snow_wizard]

21 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

We can do pretty decent here…had snow on the ground for almost the entire months of December 2008 and February 2019. Most of the time the snow only sticks around for a few days but we can get pretty wintery every now and then. 

No doubt.  And we haven't really seen anything compared to the winters we used to get.  I still think we should still be capable of a top tier winter here.

[snow_wizard]

2 minutes ago, AlTahoe said:

Must have been an extreme gradient between California and the PNW that winter. Jan 1963 had almost 6" of rain with only 7" of snow at 6200' in the Sierra. About as tropical a setup as we can get in Jan. 

Yeah...in the west the cold was mainly limited to WA and OR.

 

[Deweydog]

18 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Hot dog 

Whatever…

I’m not afraid of anything!

[Timmy Supercell]

5 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Whatever…

I’m not afraid of anything!

I'm afraid it's gonna be a straight week of dull sunny weather right before I'm leaving. 

[snow_wizard]

Can you imagine how nuts the media would go if we had a Jan 1963 redux.  The screaming headlines would be climate change, climate change, climate change!  Even though it happened 60 years ago.

[snow_wizard]

Really interesting how blocking keeps popping up around the date line.  Probably a good sign going forward.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

52 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Going to be camping this weekend…looks dry and should be much chillier at night compared to the last 2 weeks. Will be nice to get some dry weather after 10 consecutive days with rain should be able to get some kayaking in. 

I was going to go camping the weekend after next, but it isn't looking so dry anymore. 

[Timmy Supercell]

16 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Can you imagine how nuts the media would go if we had a Jan 1963 redux.  The screaming headlines would be climate change, climate change, climate change!  Even though it happened 60 years ago.

Imagine a modern Dust Bowl. Leonardo DiCaprio would have to do another documentary. 

[Timmy Supercell]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I was going to go camping the weekend after next, but it isn't looking so dry anymore. 

Nov 4-6 is around the time we pack; chances are I miss it.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 minutes ago, Timmy_Supercell said:

Nov 4-6 is around the time we pack; chances are I miss it.

Do you have family in Ashland? I told my Dad I knew someone moving there and he was very curious. lol

[Meatyorologist]

6 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I was going to go camping the weekend after next, but it isn't looking so dry anymore. 

Snow camping in the cascades is still fun! I had the pleasure of going on an October snow trip during a scout outing. Cold as all hell but my nerd asss loved every moment of it

[Meatyorologist]

35 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Yeah...in the west the cold was mainly limited to WA and OR.

 

now that's a fun map lol

[Front Ranger]

42 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Can you imagine how nuts the media would go if we had a Jan 1963 redux.  The screaming headlines would be climate change, climate change, climate change!  Even though it happened 60 years ago.

February 2021 was no joke.

[Skagit Weather]

It looks just a bit damp around the sound tomorrow. Should be kind of nice because we haven't had a period of continuous heavy rain up here for a long time.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

9 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

February 2021 was no joke.

Depends on location. It was pretty boring here.

[Meatyorologist]

7 minutes ago, Skagit Weather said:

It looks just a bit damp around the sound tomorrow. Should be kind of nice because we haven't had a period of continuous heavy rain up here for a long time.

I hate how they use the snow colors for general precip. My heart skips a beat everytime 

[TacomaWaWx]

39 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I was going to go camping the weekend after next, but it isn't looking so dry anymore. 

Yeah getting to the time of year if you want to camp and be dry at the same time opportunities are pretty limited and shortlived. 

[TacomaWaWx]

31 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

Snow camping in the cascades is still fun! I had the pleasure of going on an October snow trip during a scout outing. Cold as all hell but my nerd asss loved every moment of it

I’m definitely going to try and get a camping trip in the snow sometime this winter. Really want to test out my equipment during some cold and snow. Would be nice to go out to the island property to do so but if not will have to settle for going into the cascades. Haven’t done a winter/snow camping trip since I went up to bearhead mountain in November 2019. 

[Timmy Supercell]

39 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Do you have family in Ashland? I told my Dad I knew someone moving there and he was very curious. lol

I forgot you have folks near where I'm going lol (at first I thought you were talking Oregon Ashland)

Other than one Aunt in Minnesota we don't really have family in the eastern US. A lot of relatives on both sides of the family still live in California.

[Skagit Weather]

6 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

I hate how they use the snow colors for general precip. My heart skips a beat everytime 

Yeah, I have no idea why they changed their precipitation color scheme last year, but I wish I about to get 20"+ of snow.

[TacomaWaWx]

Our final rainstorm for the month is approaching. 

[snow_wizard]

Looks like the ECMWF caved to the GFS again with the late week trough.  850s are 5C lower on this run vs yesterday's 12z.  I think the GFS may be the better model now.

[Front Ranger]

34 minutes ago, TigerWoodsLibido said:

Depends on location. It was pretty boring here.

The point was that it was a top tier month for cold in the U.S. The central U.S. anomalies were just silly, but below normal weather stretched from coast to coast, by and large.

[Front Ranger]

6 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Looks like the ECMWF caved to the GFS again with the late week trough.  850s are 5C lower on this run vs yesterday's 12z.  I think the GFS may be the better model now.

Phil will be with you shortly.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 minutes ago, Front Ranger said:

The point was that it was a top tier month for cold in the U.S. The central U.S. anomalies were just silly, but below normal weather stretched from coast to coast, by and large.

Fly over states were cold. If 90% of the country torched, but DC and NYC had a cold month that would be the big news. 

[Front Ranger]

8 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Fly over states were cold. If 90% of the country torched, but DC and NYC had a cold month that would be the big news. 

The funny thing is it did make big news (at least the extreme freeze in TX), and climate change was indeed invoked.

Some pretty big cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Dallas, etc had a top tier month, so it's not like it wasn't experienced by lots of people.

[snow_wizard]

Looking more in depth at the winter of 1970-71 it featured a number of decent cold snaps and several periods with lowland snow.  In this area there were cold 2 cold snaps close together in late Nov / early Dec, more cold with some snow later in Dec, a decent cold snap with snow in January, and an historic cold wave with snow in late Feb / early March.  The North Interior of WA got smacked big time in December.  Looking more in depth at the cold snaps, it appears the ones in the earlier part of the winter could have easily delivered more lowland snow than they did.  I would take my chances with a redux on the large scale features of that winter any day.

[snow_wizard]

Just now, Front Ranger said:

The funny thing is it did make big news (at least the extreme freeze in TX), and climate change was indeed invoked.

Some pretty big cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Dallas, etc had a top tier month, so it's not like it wasn't experienced by lots of people.

Yup.  They made it sound like anything like that had never happened before.  February 1899 and January 1963 are just a couple of examples that say they were full of it.

[Front Ranger]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

Looking more in depth at the winter of 1970-71 it featured a number of decent cold snaps and several periods with lowland snow.  In this area there were cold 2 cold snaps close together in late Nov / early Dec, more cold with some snow later in Dec, a decent cold snap with snow in January, and an historic cold wave with snow in late Feb / early March.  The North Interior of WA got smacked big time in December.  Looking more in depth at the cold snaps, it appears the ones in the earlier part of the winter could have easily delivered more lowland snow than they did.  I would take my chances with a redux on the large scale features of that winter any day.

Similar winter in some ways to 2016-17.*

*This does not apply to every location.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

Yup.  They made it sound like anything like that had never happened before.  February 1899 and January 1963 are just a couple of examples that say they were full of it.

It was the coldest February on record for Tulsa, OK and I think their 4th coldest month on record overall.