PNW November 2021 Wx Obs/Discussion

[SilverFallsAndrew]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

That has to be extrapolated from surrounding areas, because Covington itself didn't have anyone keeping records that I know of in the past.

Yeah it is. But it is fairly accurate when I compare it to my observations over the past 10 years. I'm not entirely sure of their methodology, I'm sure their site explains it somewhere. 

https://prism.oregonstate.edu/explorer/

[snow drift]

3 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

Jan 1937 was awesome.  Cold and snow for everyone.  That winter was amazing in Whatcom County.  According to the Clearbrook records there was snow on the ground for over two straight months.  Just a great winter, and almost none of the typical mess you have to go through to get to the good stuff either.

I was looking at Novembers and 1985 is simply a ridiculous anomaly. 2000 and 1955 are the next coldest in that order at KGEG, but there is a huge difference between 1985 and 2000. I'm pretty sure I'll never see another November 1985.

 

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 3.5

(Past 4 runs) If only that ridge over us would back offshore = Sexy ridge merger = Jim turns into Jimcubes. Really cold

[GobBluth]

1 hour ago, snow drift said:

1995-96 was okay. The late January and early February cold wave redeemed it. It seemed rather vanilla otherwise. 2014 was a nino, but I rather enjoyed November and December. We had multiple cold shots and quite a few winter storms with snow and freezing rain. Frankly, I would take 2014-15 over 1995-96. I'll have to look at the other two years. I'm not as familiar with them.

December 95 was the last region wide wind storm. Also wildly fluctuating polar and maritime influences all winter.

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 4

(Past 4 runs) *Waves at Jesse

[snow_wizard]

The ICON is pretty with the late week trough.  Would love to see it be right.

[Phil]

2 hours ago, snow_wizard said:

Be careful with statements like that.  You will eventually get burned big time.  Pretty hard to beat 1984-85 for dry / cold and it was a -QBO -ENSO winter.  It broke two "rules".

The “rule” (if there is one) is that Niña/+QBO consistently performs, while Niña/-QBO is much more unpredictable.

Easy to get locked into +EPO with Niña/-QBO (especially after easterly shear reaches 50mb).

[Phil]

2 hours ago, TT-SEA said:

No matter how hard we try to figure it out... weather is chaotic and random.    Much like the entire universe.    

There is logic within the chaos. And vice versa!

[Phil]

1 hour ago, BLI snowman said:

December 1933/January 1934 had probably the strongest +EPO and Alaska vortex in the last century. Fairbanks was 23 degrees below average for both of those months. They hit -66 on 1/14.

Cold was very extreme, just bottled up. Except the Greenland blocking must have been extreme as well because the arctic air funneled into the NE and they had a historic arctic blast in late December and then the all time February (-15 in NYC).

Similar pattern to one right now, actually. Just a bit more amplitude over the NATL/Eurasia.

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 5

(Past 4 runs)

[snow drift]

Just now, GobBluth said:

December 95 was the last region wide wind storm. Also wildly fluctuating polar and maritime influences all winter.

I don't think 2014-15 was a great winter, and 1995 was definitely not a bad winter. I qualitatively enjoyed November-December 2014. The rest of the winter was a forgettable torch. 1995-96 is memorable because of the cold wave in late January and early February. 2016-17 was a classic. I really like having snowcover for 2-3 months.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 minutes ago, snow drift said:

I was looking at Novembers and 1985 is simply a ridiculous anomaly. 2000 and 1955 are the next coldest in that order at KGEG, but there is a huge difference between 1985 and 2000. I'm pretty sure I'll never see another November 1985.

 

1985 is easily the coldest November here. 1896 is #2, which isn't surprising given the ridiculous arctic outbreak at the end of the month. #3 really surprised me, 1994. 

 

[GobBluth]

1 minute ago, snow drift said:

I don't think 2014-15 was a great winter, and 1995 was definitely not a bad winter. I qualitatively enjoyed November-December 2014. The rest of the winter was a forgettable torch. 1995-96 is memorable because of the cold wave in late January and early February. 2016-17 was a classic. I really like having snowcover for 2-3 months.

I don't have the stats, but what made the Feb floods so brutal was several weeks of snow down to 1000 ft. Then the valley snows, then the arctic freeze.

[TT-SEA]

15 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Yeah it is. But it is fairly accurate when I compare it to my observations over the past 10 years. I'm not entirely sure of their methodology, I'm sure their site explains it somewhere. 

https://prism.oregonstate.edu/explorer/

Elevation appears to be an issue.    My area is listed at 1,644 feet and then you get closer to North Bend and it goes from 1,644 to 469 feet with nothing in between.    1,644 feet is wrong... the plateau up here with homes is generally at 900-1000 feet.    The elevation value probably represents the average elevation in that box.    But the weather can vary wildly out here even within one of those boxed areas. 

[ShawniganLake]

6 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

The ICON is pretty with the late week trough.  Would love to see it be right.

Nice little snow event with that up here.  We have seen several lows take that track and dump snow here in recent Decembers

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 6

(Past 4 runs)

[snow drift]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

1985 is easily the coldest November here. 1896 is #2, which isn't surprising given the ridiculous arctic outbreak at the end of the month. #3 really surprised me, 1994. 

 

I'm surprised by 1994. Go figure. I was surprised by 2000 being colder than 1955 at KGEG. 1955 has that legendary cold wave. So I've seen the two coldest Novembers.

[BLI snowman]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

1985 is easily the coldest November here. 1896 is #2, which isn't surprising given the ridiculous arctic outbreak at the end of the month. #3 really surprised me, 1994. 

 

November 1994 was actually quite troughy regionwide and deeply -PDO/-PNA in spite of the Nino. That period culminated in the little arctic airmass and snow in early December.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Just now, TT-SEA said:

Elevation appears to be an issue.    My area is listed at 1,644 feet and then you get closer to North Bend and it goes from 1,644 to 469 feet with nothing in between.    1,644 feet is wrong... the plateau up here with homes is generally in at 900-1000 feet.    The elevation value probably represents the average elevation in that box.    But the weather can vary wildly out here even within one of those boxed areas. 

Yeah because you live so close to the mountains you are probably in a grid with higher elevation. I looked at data from near you with an elevation around 1200'. I figured that was probably pretty close, I thought you were a little above 1000'? 

The grid for my place is 1578', which is just about my elevation. 

[GobBluth]

What a waste of a perfectly placed Kona low.

[snow_wizard]

Looks like everything is shifted east a tad.  Might be good for the second attempt.

[snow drift]

2 minutes ago, GobBluth said:

I don't have the stats, but what made the Feb floods so brutal was several weeks of snow down to 1000 ft. Then the valley snows, then the arctic freeze.

There were issues with flooding in a lot of places. I remember drifts being a problem on the Palouse.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

GFS looking more like the GEM for the weekend. 

[Gradient Keeper]

2 minutes ago, GobBluth said:

What a waste of a perfectly placed Kona low.

Yep. Exactly.

[snow_wizard]

3 minutes ago, DJ Droppin said:

Day 6

(Past 4 runs)

Really bizarre setup.  Going to give the models fits on the all important details.

[snow drift]

2 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

November 1994 was actually quite troughy regionwide and deeply -PDO/-PNA in spite of the Nino. That period culminated in the little arctic airmass and snow in early December.

It was a bit of an odd ball

[Meatyorologist]

Unsurprisingly the next seven days are completely wasted. It just astounds me how the pattern progresses. Conventional wisdom would convey that strong NPac ridging would force deep troughing in its lee, but in this case, not so. Instead, for whatever reason, another ridge just builds right on top of us. It's "troughing" is basically a thin notch south of Anchorage where height anomalies are less positive. Don't know what to make of it.

[Gradient Keeper]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

GFS looking more like the GEM for the weekend. 

Unfortunately.

[Phil]

51 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

1999?

More than anything this fall has reminded me of 2016.

Interesting. Couldn’t be more different than 2016 out here. If anything it reminds me of 2015, or some of the late 2000s years.

My memory fades before 2006.

[snow drift]

At the moment, my standards aren't too high. I'm just looking for seasonable weather with some mountain snows.

[snow_wizard]

Much more of a ridge right off the coast at hour 180 than previous runs.  That could have interesting implications for the evolution early in week two.

[SouthHillFrosty]

Here she comes!

[Gradient Keeper]

Day 7 Doesn't look like La Nina to me.. Hmmm....

(Past 4 runs)

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2nd system early next week is way further north on this run. Looks like our unabated torch will continue until further notice. ;). 

[GobBluth]

Just now, DJ Droppin said:

Day 7 Doesn't look like La Nina to me.. Hmmm....

(Past 4 runs)

This has potential to get golden, but the process will drag out.

[snow drift]

Maybe we have to wait until the 2nd half of the month. 

[TT-SEA]

Just now, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Yeah because you live so close to the mountains you are probably in a grid with higher elevation. I looked at data from near you with an elevation around 1200'. I figured that was probably pretty close, I thought you were a little above 1000'? 

The grid for my place is 1578', which is just about my elevation. 

I think our house is almost exactly at 1,000 feet.     The detached garage we built in 2017 is probably 30-40 feet lower than the house around 960-970 feet.   So when they say the snow level is at 1,000 feet... that means our property is split!    And I have actually seen times when there was just a coating and the snow line really did appear to be across our property.  

[Phil]

56 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Actually a total dud from what I have seen. Fort Steilacoom and Fort Vancouver did record data from that year but for some reason a number of datasets exclude it. But both had their warmest January on record (1849-68) and I don't think there was any late season action, either. Fort Vancouver's record indicates some low level cold there in December but I've never seen a mention of snow.

ENSO reconstructions do portray a weakish Nina that year. Guess we were just due for a dud at that point.

Interesting. Would love to have detailed data on the tropical upper levels for the 19th century.

[SouthHillFrosty]

1 minute ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

2nd system early next week is way further north on this run. Looks like our unabated torch will continue until further notice. ;). 

Yup unfortunately 

[snow drift]

1 minute ago, TT-SEA said:

I think our house is almost exactly at 1,000 feet.     The detached garage we built in 2017 is probably 30-40 feet lower than the house around 960-970 feet.   So when they say the snow level is at 1,000 feet... that means our property is split!    And I have actually seen times when there was just a coating and the snow line really did appear to be across our property.  

That is an abrupt snow line.