December 13, 2009

Not Much Snow Yet in Central Sound--Snow Showers to N and S

Bellingham this morning

Olympia 4PM

We had a bit of light snow around the region, mostly flurries, although Bellingham and Olympia had enough to whiten things up (image)

As the radar shows, central Puget Sound is rainshadowed by the Olympics, which is what you expect under this situation (winds aloft are westerly and northwesterly). The upward motion from the upper trough (which brought the earlier snow showers) is quite weak. The convergence zone is weak since it doesn't have good low-level support (winds along the coast are not strong NW as you would like).
The convergence zone may rev up a bit later. So we have some light snow in the south Sound, in the weak convergence zone, and over NW WA. The coast is getting a few rain showers (a little too warm there). Mostly flurries, but north and south of the snow shadow the ground may whiten with perhaps a 1/2 inch of snow.

16 comments:

  1. Pretty good snow shower in Maple Valley right now. Just watched two otters playing on the ice in Lake Wilderness from my dock.

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  2. More than just light snow in Olympia at the moment! It has been coming down hard for the last hour and there is a good coating of white on everything. Temp was 34, it has now dropped to 32.

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  3. snow showers have really picked up here in Tacoma!

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  4. Pretty good heavy snow here in Lacey!!

    My puppy likes his first snow and showed affection by pooping, and going crazy.


    Diego Going Crazy Video

    Snow On Houses

    Pooping in the snow

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  5. B'ham's morning snow was melted but in the time it took to read Cliff's blog post and start my comment a fresh band has dusted the entire world as visible from my window. NWS is predicting several inches overnight. I really love these post-Arctic events!

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  6. 1.5 inches in North Bend. Not coming down hard, but it's been steady since about 2PM

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  7. Once again, the snow shadow rules the Seattle/Redmond area weather.

    This event completely sucked.

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  8. Yep, Brian, I could not have picked a worse place to live as a snow lover. I am constantly teased.

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  9. what happened to the moisture? Though it was supposed to ramp up around this period????

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  10. Steve, I am wondering the exact same thing. Yet no forecasters are updating about the current situation, so we are all left in the dark.

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  11. I am confused. IF the precip is over, DROP the Winter WX advisory...The NWS just updated the pinpoint forecasts and it still shows 80% chance here east of Seattle?? The radar sure looks clean. I just check the latest model runs of the GFS and NAM & they are painting precip over us tonight. I guess maybe there is just not enough lift from the low going over tonight?? Maybe things will change later, but if you like SNOW and live in the Seattle Metro area, the latest radar trends are not looking good...maybe a better shot tomorrow!

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  12. Cliff? is tonight's "event" pretty much done? Any info would be great. Seems to be a bust with the NWS forecasts at the moment..No hint of any PSCZ either

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. First, I don't think the NWS failed. They did a pretty good job at accurately painting where "potential" snow could be. There was a snow shadow, and there were a few localized spots that received far more. Surface winds aren't favorable for a classic CZ. Cliff has said all of this.

    Maybe some sort of diagonal boundary when the N winds at bellingham meet the S winds of the sound?

    And with that chance to see some snow tomorrow, good luck. Even that NWS hood canal watch is extreme, kinda like tonight.

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