It was mostly -WPO, but a usual -WPO does not pop a ridge that strong along the West coast

It's another cloudy morning.

Good morning! How are the snow maps looking?

I don't know about that. The Pacific had blocking pretty far West when it had it, and 500mb heights were consistently very high across the West due to that. So it did make sense and there are a few other examples of that dominant pattern historically (all of them blowtorched the West). Just a case of persistence with an unusual pattern that is technically -PNA but with the main features dislodged from the typical -PNA spot.

To chime in with @Clinton, we are still on track to possibly rock and roll tomorrow with a chance of strong tornadoes in the area. Seems a little early for this based on recent years, but here it is already.