PNW November 2021 Wx Obs/Discussion

[MR.SNOWMIZER]

Mt baker looks incredible.  Going to b r a great early season opening with another 16 inches coming over the next 48hrs.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

EURO/GEM/GFS all seem fairly well aligned today.

[Chewbacca Defense]

3 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

CFS showing the north pole migrating to the Western US the first week of December. 

Pretty crappy timing for Santa.  I sure hope he got a nice relocation package and extra resources to deal with the move during his busiest time of the year.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Looks like the coldest Fairbanks has been so far this fall is 14. They should go below zero tonight for the first time this season. Would have to think that is close to record territory. The good news is the upcoming weather looks much more seasonal with highs around 5-10 and lows solidly below zero. 

[Deweydog]

Breezy!

[Omegaraptor]

33 minutes ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Mt baker looks incredible.  Going to b r a great early season opening with another 16 inches coming over the next 48hrs.

Wish we could have this at Mt Bachelor! I just bought my Bachelor season pass yesterday!

[Chewbacca Defense]

There is some good news today.  The border reopened from Canada into the US, hopefully colder air will have an easier time getting down here as compared to last year.  Last year it seemed like it kept getting hung up at the border...

[SnowWillarrive]

2 hours ago, 1000'NorthBend said:

Thank you for posting this, the linked article from Berkley Lab was an interesting read (I couldn't get to it until today when I was back in my office). Disseminating scientific research to the general public is difficult, and I don't think that OPB article was that great at it. 

"A recent study highlighted that there has been a 21% decline in the April 1 snowpack water storage in the western U.S. since the 1950s".  We have already seen the impacts of modest declines in snowpack for the West. Here are their range of projections for the Cascades and the Sierras:

  

I assume there will be a significant North to South gradient for both of those. 

You are incorrect.  "The research... starts with a literature review which distills several hundred scientific studies on snow loss; of those, they identify and analyze 18 studies that had quantitative snowpack projections for the western U.S." They did not choose whichever data fit their narrative, they evaluated research investigating snowpack in the Western US and of that research, 18 studies had quantitative projections of snowpack. 

If someone attempted to get research published as you suggested, they would be shredded during the review process and the research would go unpublished. The privilege of inaccurately characterizing info to support bogus claims is best left to posts on internet forums like yours. 

I can't believe they forgot to ask @snow_wizard his anecdotal observations on Cascade snowpack from CA, OR & WA!! Flawed research!

@Phil "yawned" at the research, so it must be BS. He is a snowpack expert, I remember, a couple years ago, him genuinely asking why the PNW would root for snow in the mountains...

 

 

I bet Cliff Mass would like a word with you. 
 

BTW it is no secret that academic researchers feel a pressure to continually publish. This often leads to exaggerated claims and choking of real science. 

[Cloud]

1 hour ago, Jginmartini said:

Strangely he went missing after the “missed connection” post!

Hopefully he will chime in soon 

 

2 hours ago, T-Town said:

Where has @TacomaWaWx been?  I need my daily Tacoma rainfall totals. 

I honestly keep an eye out for his posts regularly mainly because of the stuff he shared about his former friend on here once or twice. 

[RentonHill]

12z EPS - Precip Totals through Friday

[Phil]

1 hour ago, MR.SNOWMIZER said:

Wow just beautiful at hurricane ridge today. The Olympics are such a gorgeous place.

My god that’s orgasmically beautiful.

[Phil]

1 hour ago, 1000'NorthBend said:

Somehow I doubt that. Cliff Mass posted a blog on modeling declining snowpack in the WA Cascades this spring:

"If we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the Pacific will eventually warm and that WILL reduce the snowpack. My group, in concert with Eri Salathe of UW Bothell, has been running many high-resolution climate simulations over the region.  This is the gold standard for regional climate predictions."

Some of his research was probably used in that literature review research article. Here are his results for Stevens Pass (4,000'):

What do you know, it shows a 25% decrease by 2050 and a 50 to 75% decrease by 2100. Let's check what the research articles projections were: 

Looks like a 25% decrease by 2050, and a 50 to 75% decrease by 2100. The same.

Cliff Mass clarifies that he is using the high-end CO2 emissions, but keep in mind that his projections were for the central Cascades of Washington, not snowpack for the Cascades of Oregon and California. 

Like I said, and as indicated by the above, observations (to date) reveal no statistically significant trends in Cascade snowpack.

Re: these GCM-derived projections. There are so many quasi-independent, spatiotemporal variables/forcings involved, the physics of which are poorly understood and near impossible to model given limited computing power. The degree of inter-decadal to intra-millennial variability is *enormous*, both in the observational dataset(s) and the paleo records.

These GCM derived projections you’re referencing cannot simulate the vast majority of this variability (we cannot even explain most of it [beyond the hypothetical], let alone project it).

If you actually believe these projections, you are doing so out of faith. And that’s fine. We’re all entitled to religious freedom.

[T-Town]

1 hour ago, Cloud said:

 

I honestly keep an eye out for his posts regularly mainly because of the stuff he shared about his former friend on here once or twice. 

Yeah I thought about that too. 

[MWG]

Currently 43 degrees and cloudy the high for today is supposed to be 59. We are under a Wind Warning and it's supposed to rain too but with the downsloping we might no get any until the winds die down. 

[Kolk1604]

1 hour ago, RentonHillTC said:

12z EPS - Precip Totals through Friday

Can't wait until the ensembles have a city view. Or at least a state view

[Front Ranger]

2 hours ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Looks like the coldest Fairbanks has been so far this fall is 14. They should go below zero tonight for the first time this season. Would have to think that is close to record territory. The good news is the upcoming weather looks much more seasonal with highs around 5-10 and lows solidly below zero. 

It's crazy how fast their averages fall during autumn. Average high of 35 on 10/15 down to 9 on 11/15.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Chilly

[Kolk1604]

Surprised no one has posted the weeklies yet. Here's the control vs mean. I'll take the control

 

 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

This may surprise Tim and Phil, but I am kind of looking forward to a potential stretch of dry weather in the long range. Once we get soaked later this week we'll be in solid shape, provided it is a reasonable 3-5 day stretch of dry weather. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

6 minutes ago, Kolk1604 said:

Surprised no one has posted the weeklies yet. Here's the control vs mean. I'll take the control

Anyway we can slow them down, my brain hurts.

[Blizzard777]

Crude shot as zoom is not a good thing for iPhone you can sort of see the south side of the mountain being assaulted by the east winds currently.  . Looking through binoculars looks pretty brutal up there right now. 

[Kolk1604]

5 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Anyway we can slow them down, my brain hurts.

Lol right now I'm just like Phil

Anyway I slowed them down

[snow drift]

Sunny and 51 right now, the 1st week of November has been solidly warmer than average.

[Cloud]

What a wonderful fall day... was mostly sunny for most of the day but now the wind have picked up and clouds rolling in. Still not total cloud cover but they're coming in and the satellite is showing the leading edge of the clouds over us. 

Currently 52.

 

[The Blob]

It's been a really nice day. The kids are sick otherwise we would've have enjoyed it

[Gradient Keeper]

7 hours ago, MossMan said:

The PNA forecast has been slowing going more and more negative over the last few days for the second half of the month…C’MON!!!

Hell ya. The fuzzies! We need more fuzzies! C'MON!!!!

00z GFS in 4 hours 4 minutes

00z ECMWF in 6 hours 14 minutes

[Omegaraptor]

Really what I want more than anything right now is to build up that mountain snowpack. The big burst of warm rain coming up won't help too much but luckily the warmth seems to be short lived and we go right back into a colder pattern after the weekend is over. First day of the season at Bachelor is scheduled to be 11/26 but I don't think I'll personally manage a ski day until first half of December.

[Deweydog]

Still breezy!

[TT-SEA]

It seems like things are going to eventually become more progressive across North America by next week... which will be a big improvement (in my opinion) over the pattern for the last month or more which has featured a permanent trough offshore and an endless flow of moisture into the PNW while the rest of the country is warm and dry.     At the very least... a more progressive pattern will offer some more variety with stormy and dry days mixed in.

[Gradient Keeper]

5 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Still breezy!

PDX-DLS now at -4.5mb peak so far.

[MossMan]

Oh boy…

HERE WE GO!! 

[T-Town]

A few shots of the snow covered Olympics. Would have been much better earlier in the day when I was distracted by work. 

[Gradient Keeper]

Interesting. According to buoy 46002 the low is near 989mb right now. Looking at the 12z MM5-NAM for 4 PM it had a closed 988mb low, and WRF-GFS a 994mb open wave. Models are continuing to do a poor job handling the secondary southern low. It seems the NAM is doing a better job handling this low. The PDX NWS AFD says this low will continue to deepen before moving onshore.

[RentonHill]

18z Euro - Total 10:1 Snowfall - Hour 90 (Top) vs 12z Euro (bottom) - Higher is better, right?

[RentonHill]

18z Euro - Total Precip progression - through Hour 90 

 

[Gradient Keeper]

Buoy 46002 now 29.22 and falling

[Gradient Keeper]

Now it has dropped to 988mb(29.18 in) down -1mb in 10 minutes

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Blob]

Flowers still blooming and I picked a raspberry off the bush.

[Gradient Keeper]

46002 29.16" now about 987mb

[Gradient Keeper]

The low should be over 46002 any minute now.

00z NAM in 1 hour

00z ECMWF in 5 hours 4 minutes