As forecast by the models, several inches of very heavy, wet snow fell last night.
The result included damage to vegetation, downed trees, and power outages.
This morning I risked life and limb to cycle into the UW on a slushy Burke Gilman trail. At over a dozen locations I was blocked by fallen or leaning trees or bushes (see pictures below)
Many powerlines were downed by the wet snow, with poor vegetation management by local utilities an important contributor.
Lines down
Seattle had many customers in the dark:
Even more for Puget Sound Energy:
As I will discuss in depth in a future blog, we are experiencing one of the coldest mid-winters in regional history.
And the cold is not over.
I have some news....more lowland snow will fall over the weekend. For example, below is the predicted 24-h snowfall ending at 4 PM on Saturday.
Relatively light over western Washington, with far more around Portland.
California is receiving massive amounts of precipitation and their reservoirs are well above normal. Seattle's reservoirs are near normal. Our snowpack is above normal over the southern Cascades and modestly below normal to the north.
At this point in time, there is no reason to be concerned about water resources over the West Coast during next summer. In fact, the seasonal prediction by the European Center is for wetter than normal conditions for the next several months from Los Angeles to the Northwest.
Was there a convergence zone setup overnight? Storm’s direction was from the southwest, did that avoid the Olympic’s rain shadow to a certain extent?
ReplyDeleteI am a an o your wok. It would be useul to me and others if you would extend the range of you
ReplyDeleteblog to include the Victoria area .
David
Regarding utility vegetation removal - Diverting utility resources into green mandates has coincided with the recent inability of nearly all utilities to be proactive. I wonder if this is part of the problem? It seems like the utility has become very cash-poor, like the post office and no one wants to work there anymore so we're just left with understaffed, overworked folk who are hanging on for their pension.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a strong opinion
DeletePart of the problem is western culture hasnt been around WA long enough for the full forest cycle. We got here, clear cut everything and now we have entire communities amongst trees that are coming up on their end of age. It’s a big problem when they are all the same age class and will start dying, and falling
DeleteIt seems like last night's snow fall seriously overperformed both the NWS and GFS forecast.
ReplyDeleteNWS said up to 1 inch at my location. Looking up the 24 hour GFS map from yesterday, it called for up to 2 inches for me. Lake Goodman near Arlington was supposed to be the big winner for the night with up to 4 inches:
https://a.atmos.washington.edu/wrfrt/data/2025020600/load.cgi?images_d4/ww_msnow24.24.0000.gif
So I was pretty surprised to find 8 inches waiting for my kids to play in this morning. That's TWICE as much as forecast for any location in the I-5 corridor.
I tried digging around to figure out what happened. My first thought it was supposed to be more rain than snow, but things cooled down just enough to shift the balance? Nope - the precipitation forecast was nearly identical (assuming a 10:1 ratio) - up to 0.2 inches for me in the precipitation forecast, and up to 2 inches in the snow forecast.
My next theory was maybe the main band of precipitation shifted further south - it looks like this was partly the case, as I did receive more than Lake Goodman. However, Lake Goodman still received 3 inches - nearly as much as forecast. Just east of there, Arlington received 7.2 inches.
King County, meanwhile, was forecast to receive barely a dusting. Although the airport didn't see much, it appears most stations recorded around 3 inches, and the trace that was forecast for Woodinville turned into 6 inches.
In short, it appears much more precipitation fell out of the clouds over a large area than the model expected.
It seemed like a convergence zone event. The Euro predicted 4 inches where I am in Maple Valley but we had just a light dusting last night.
ReplyDeleteNow that the ensembles are showing a shift in the weather pattern to warmer/wetter conditions toward the middle of the month, it's becoming less likely that January-February, 2025 will rank among the most exceptionally cold such periods in Western Washington history.
ReplyDeleteThe average temperature at KBLI during January was 36.7F. For the January-February, 2025 period to rank among the top-10 coldest such periods in the POR, the average temperature for the period must be 36.3F, or colder. Thus, the average temperature for February must be 35.9F, or colder.
The current forecast indicates that by the beginning of the final week of the month, the average monthly temperature will be ~32F. However, given the increasing likelihood of a return to normal weather conditions, the last week of the month will probably result in a substantial increase in monthly average temperature. If normal daily high and low temperatures occur during that week, the average monthly temperature will end up at ~34F.
This would result in a January-February average temperature of 35.4F - good for 6th coldest overall. The 5th place spot would require a January-February average temperature of 34.5F, or colder, which would require a February average temperature of 32.3F, or colder. This seems quite unlikely.
So, while this period will be rather chilly, it will hardly be historically cold.
Of note: 2025 will be the only 21st century year represented among the top-10 coldest January-February periods at KBLI, while 3/10 of the warmest such periods have occurred since 2010. The current average of the years with top-10 warmest January-February periods is 1990, with 7/10 having occurred since 1980, while the current average of the years with top-10 coldest January-February periods is 1970, with 7/10 such periods having occurred prior to 1980.
Amazing the north-to-south temperature differences across the country. While North Dakota is in the single digits, Texas is having highs in the 80's.
ReplyDeleteStay safe riding, Cliff. I've mostly recovered from a fall that happened on January 13th but I've been doing most of my riding inside on the stationary bike. It's kinda fitting that this stretch of weather has included groundhog day, because I'm repeatedly doing the same 90 minute ride to nowhere. I guess it's a good thing I can't pedal and pull my hair out at the same time. Accuweather and Weather.com are both giving this cold stretch an expiration date of the 16th, so at least there's something out there to look forward to.
ReplyDeleteCliff - you mention this as a particularly cold winter spell. Is that because of the length of the cold period? Because I can recall many past events that were much colder, such as December 2008 - a two week spell where the temps reached single digits on several nights and ice formed in Henderson Inlet.
ReplyDeleteEbyoly- yes, I have seen colder. But this is probably the longest (nearly) continuously cold weather streak I have seen since I moved to the area in 1972. Basically it has been freezing hard every night, except one or two, for a full month now, at least in my neighborhood.
ReplyDelete