PNW November 2021 Wx Obs/Discussion

[Joshua Lake Oswego]

2 minutes ago, TacomaWaWx said:

Even if it was a wet run he’d be whining. 

That's true because I know it would trend drier in subsequent runs. It always does. We might get through the first half of November drier than normal. Hard to fathom based on all the maps you guys have been posting over the last week or so.

Every strong system that is forecasted to hit here either weakens dramatically before it arrives or ends up north or south of here. It's crazy.

[RentonHill]

Looking at 6z EPS members for Tuesday. We are all over the map, folks. I have no idea whats going to happen or what the fulcrum point is right now, but it will be fun to watch it "click" at some point and converge upon a solution. Or, it will be fun to watch it never click and we fly blind into either a nothingburger or a sweet storm. Somebody on this forum will score!! and the rest of us get to whine. 

 

[RentonHill]

Here is 12z GFS members. You'll notice a lot more members have the southern low featured compared to 6z EPS. Will be super interesting to see what the 12z EPS spits out. Please anyone who knows what they're talking about step in and offer their insight. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Blue skies and sunshine up this way despite a forecast of “mostly cloudy.”

[MossMan]

Major dumpage currently. 

[Joshua Lake Oswego]

12 minutes ago, Eujunga said:

I don't post much here anymore because I can't handle the rudeness, but I wanted you to know I'm with you 100% even if everyone else dismisses your concerns.

Multiple model runs confidently showed 6"-8" for the first half of November here, and now it looks like I'll be lucky to get 1.5", which would indeed be much drier than normal.

We consistently perform below the 10th percentile of ensemble means for precipitation. How is that even possible? I'm no statistician, but I'm pretty sure the 10th percentile should mean 1 out of 10 times, not 9 out of 10 times. As far as my experience tells me, there is nowhere else in the country that has such a gap between forecasted precipitation and verified precipitation. 

[TT-SEA]

14 minutes ago, Joshua Lake Oswego said:

We consistently perform below the 10th percentile of ensemble means for precipitation. How is that even possible? I'm no statistician, but I'm pretty sure the 10th percentile should mean 1 out of 10 times, not 9 out of 10 times. As far as my experience tells me, there is nowhere else in the country that has such a gap between forecasted precipitation and verified precipitation. 

I don't track it that closely... but I am pretty sure the ensemble mean runs high for total precip up here as well.   Just the nature of an ensemble mean at this time of year.   

But Portland has had over 8 inches of rain since September 18th... in a span of 7 weeks.   Its not like its dry down there.   

[Kolk1604]

Looks like not only is it not backing of, but increasing snow totals this weekend?

[TT-SEA]

12Z ECMWF... the regular snowfall map shows even higher totals than previous runs.    Kuchera map continues to show much less.  

850mb temp of -3C and 925mb temp of +1C on Sunday with southerly flow.     Those numbers don't usually equal a foot of snow here.    But once again... hard to ignore the ECMWF which is trending snowier. 

 

[Requiem]

So EURO does one better and does away with the storm entirely. Is it just me or is it very difficult to get a decent windstorm these days?

[Cloud]

GFS has no clue what the hell it’s doing 90 hours out. The difference in placement for the storm on Tuesday isn’t by notches but rather by hundred of miles.  

[SouthHillFrosty]

20 minutes ago, Joshua Lake Oswego said:

We consistently perform below the 10th percentile of ensemble means for precipitation. How is that even possible? I'm no statistician, but I'm pretty sure the 10th percentile should mean 1 out of 10 times, not 9 out of 10 times. As far as my experience tells me, there is nowhere else in the country that has such a gap between forecasted precipitation and verified precipitation. 

You’re not taking into account variation or model noise. You’re always looking at a week to two weeks out which is impossible to predict. If you looked 3-5 days out then “busting” would be substantially lower and would definitely get more of a mean. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment looking more than 5 days out. I also think we also need to define the word “bust”. A bust should be if it was shown for 5 more runs consecutively within 7 days and didn’t happen. 

Every run is different past five days. There is literally no consistency and thus force statistically impossible to call a bust. 
 

[Requiem]

4 minutes ago, Cloud said:

GFS has no clue what the hell it’s doing 90 hours out. The difference in placement for the storm on Tuesday isn’t by notches but rather by hundred of miles.  

Granted at least the GFS has a storm somewhere-- the EURO decides to turn it into a weak open wave.

[GHweatherChris]

Snow totals about cut in half for here.

[RentonHill]

6 minutes ago, Cloud said:

GFS has no clue what the hell it’s doing 90 hours out. The difference in placement for the storm on Tuesday isn’t by notches but rather by hundred of miles.  

Euro unsure too

[SouthHillFrosty]

Does weatherbell Include access to its data? I wanna create a data analysis on predicted precipitation totals at 10,5,3 days out versus actual total precipitation received. Any idea on how to get access to this data would help 

[RentonHill]

1 minute ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Does weatherbell Include access to its data? I wanna create a data analysis on predicted precipitation totals at 10,5,3 days out versus actual total precipitation received. Any idea on how to get access to this data would help 

You need to save it to your computer because it only keeps 24 hours of runs

[SilverFallsAndrew]

EURO continues to show 3-5" of snow here. Just not going to happen. I hope it doesn't pull this kind of crap all winter. 

[SouthHillFrosty]

18 minutes ago, RentonHillTC said:

You need to save it to your computer because it only keeps 24 hours of runs

Hmmm but there is a way you’re telling me……

[RentonHill]

19 minutes ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

Hmmm but there is a way you’re telling me……

Anybody smart enough to write a script to scrape em automatically ? 

[Phil]

33 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

EURO continues to show 3-5" of snow here. Just not going to happen. I hope it doesn't pull this kind of crap all winter. 

Might also be flaws in the map algorithms if that’s what you’re using.

I generally try to avoid looking at those esp in borderline situations. You’re much better off using modeled soundings. Stuff like dendrite growth, dynamic cooling potential, etc can be more readily inferred from that.

[ChrisEl Elyon]

Thinking gusts of 25-40 mph for tomorrow in the South Sound.

[Phil]

 

[MossMan]

.27” so far on the day, 3.96” for the month. 
Cloudy and 46 degrees currently. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

42 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

EURO continues to show 3-5" of snow here. Just not going to happen. I hope it doesn't pull this kind of crap all winter. 

Change those inches to feet and you have some idea of what it’s saying I will see! Just. Not. Gonna. Happen. Not with temps in the range they are forecast to be. I will be quite surprised to see so much as a single slushy flake mixed in with the rain.

[Phil]

New Euro seasonal more bullish on Dec/Jan blocking, with tendency to -NAO and -PNA in Dec/Jan.

Late winter looks more +NAM/+NAO, an Andrew pattern.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 minutes ago, Phil said:

New Euro seasonal more bullish on Dec/Jan blocking, with tendency to -NAO and -PNA in Dec/Jan.

Late winter looks more +NAM/+NAO, an Andrew pattern.

That's when we want it anyway. Just looking at things historically, it is fairly rare to get big periods of cold onshore flow type snow here before mid-January. 

[The Blob]

4 hours ago, SouthHillFrosty said:

I’ve been working 14 hour days with work and school and I went to take a quick nap at 6:30pm yesterday…. I just woke up…. Wasn’t expecting that

I feel you on that. I work 10hr nights and take cat naps when I can during the day when caring for my young kids. 

[The Blob]

Any snow for Troutdale on Saturday? We're having a partial building closure and there's no reason why my department needs to be at work.

[TigerWoodsLibido]

Looks like we got down to 47F. Now 50F and cloudy but dry. Been less rain than forecast of late.

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

14 minutes ago, Phil said:

New Euro seasonal more bullish on Dec/Jan blocking, with tendency to -NAO and -PNA in Dec/Jan.

Late winter looks more +NAM/+NAO, an Andrew pattern.

 

[GHweatherChris]

50 minutes ago, 1000'NorthBend said:

I guess it's that time of year again where I have to start guessing who is being genuine and who is attempting some strange form of meteorological reverse psychology. 

The reverse psychology I pulled off last winter was absolutely magical!!  But in all seriousness, I truly do no think I will see any snow this weekend, if I do, it would be a fluke.

[GHweatherChris]

40 minutes ago, Phil said:

Might also be flaws in the map algorithms if that’s what you’re using.

I generally try to avoid looking at those esp in borderline situations. You’re much better off using modeled soundings. Stuff like dendrite growth, dynamic cooling potential, etc can be more readily inferred from that.

This is no place for talk like that, stop using rationale and reasoning.

[T-Town]

3 hours ago, MossMan said:

I almost canceled the family trip to Cabo back in February 2020 when the models were going nuts with snow a few weeks before leaving…Thankfully the models went full Tim after a few days of sweating bullets! I cannot miss the action! 

Back in the early 2010s I had a work trip planned and the models were showing a major snowstorm like the day after I was supposed to leave. I actually recall an AFD within a couple days of the storm where they expressed confidence it would happen and actually compared it to December 96.
 

I agonized over whether to cancel my trip. I was still relatively new as an employee of an acquired company, and I was envisioning trying to explain to a bunch of New Englanders why I wanted to stay home because it was going to snow. 
 

In the end, Mother Nature and/or a gang of raccoons pulled the rug on the whole thing and it rained. I ended up going on the trip. But It was a pretty rough few days leading up to it because I was sure I was going to miss out on something epic. 

[RentonHill]

12 Euro (top) vs 12z GFS Total Precip through day 10

[RentonHill]

12z Euro (top) 10 day total snowfall 10:1 vs 12z GFS (bottom)

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

1 hour ago, 1000'NorthBend said:

I guess it's that time of year again where I have to start guessing who is being genuine and who is attempting some strange form of meteorological reverse psychology. 

The hard data that we know to look at despite what the pretty map shows just doesn't support snow below 1000ft.

[RentonHill]

12 Euro progression on the Tuesday situation

 

[TT-SEA]

Blue sky...  a rarity.

[GHweatherChris]

7 minutes ago, T-Town said:

Back in the early 2010s I had a work trip planned and the models were showing a major snowstorm like the day after I was supposed to leave. I actually recall an AFD within a couple days of the storm where they expressed confidence it would happen and actually compared it to December 96.
 

I agonized over whether to cancel my trip. I was still relatively new as an employee of an acquired company, and I was envisioning trying to explain to a bunch of New Englanders why I wanted to stay home because it was going to snow. 
 

In the end, Mother Nature and/or a gang of raccoons pulled the rug on the whole thing and it rained. I ended up going on the trip. But It was a pretty rough few days leading up to it because I was sure I was going to miss out on something epic.