Nothing left to do, shows are over so I’m headed home now.
I’ll try to check in at midnight or so again. Because, like you, I’ll be up awhile scanning observations, gradients, etc…
So far nothing crazy yet, prime time is the next 3-4 hours. All there is to do now is sit back and see what happens.
Mark
THE PUGET SOUND CONVERGENCE ZONE IS ACTIVE BUT NOT WELL DEFINED THIS
AFTERNOON. MODELS GENERALLY AGREE THAT A BETTER ORGANIZED
CONVERGENCE BAND WILL DEVELOP OVERNIGHT AND TUESDAY AS SHORT WAVES
EMBEDDED IN THE UPSTREAM FLOW MOVE THROUGH THE AREA. EACH OF THESE
WAVES WILL ENHANCE THE CONFLUENT FLOW AROUND THE OLYMPICS AND ALSO
BE ASSOCIATED WITH A REINFORCING SHOT OF COLD AIR. SNOW LEVELS WILL
FALL TO 500 FEET THIS EVENING…THEN DOWN TO NEAR THE SURFACE LATER
TONIGHT AND TUESDAY MORNING. THE LOCATION…TIMING…AND DURATION OF
THE CONVERGENCE ZONE IS RATHER UNCERTAIN. BUT THE NAM/GFS BOTH SHOW
ONE DEVELOPING TONIGHT WITH ENOUGH SLY FLOW SO THAT IT REMAINS N OF
SEATTLE. DECIDED TO GO OUT ON A LIMB AND ISSUE A SNOW ADVISORY FOR
THE FAVORED CONVERGENCE ZONE CORRIDOR TO THE N OF SEATTLE AND ALSO
INCLUDE THE E PUGET SOUND LOWLANDS TO CATCH THE FOOTHILLS. SOME
SPOTS COULD SEE A COUPLE 2-3 INCHES OF SNOW IF THE CONVERGENCE ZONE
BECOMES PERSISTENT. HEAVIER SHOWERS COULD ALSO PRODUCE A DUSTING OF
SNOW OUTSIDE THE ADVISORY AREA TUESDAY MORNING. Looks like we will have some snow by morning .
Windy? Yes. Wind Event? Yeah. Wind Storm? No. The winds did pick up around 12:30 AM, then an obvious peak at my house from 1-2:30 AM. I had many gusts over 45mph, but my peak was only 47.5mph. Looking at other Observations and Peak Wind Gust reports..
*Willamette Valley(Mph)
Portland: 39
Scappoose: 37
Forest Grove: 45
Hillsoboro: 33
Troutdale: 45
Vancouver: 31
Aurora: 44
Salem: 46
McMinnville: 43
Corvallis: 43
Eugene: 44
Quite lackluster and noticed highest official gusts were along or east of I-5. A Wind Advisory would have sufficed just fine.
*Coast(Mph)
Astoria: 53
Tillamook: 60
Garibaldi: 73
Mt. Hebo: 91
Lincoln City: 81
Mary’s Peak: 101
Newport: 64
Yaquina Bridge: 76
Yachats: 70
Florence: 66
Windy, but overall a typical storm for the Coast. So, obviously this was a big bust. This means my High Wind forecast was a bust. NWS was a bust, and many others. I say that with utmost respect and not trying to throw anyone under the bus.
So, what went wrong?
Let’s investigate a bit….
It appears the low came onshore around 975mb near Cape Elizabeth/Forks, WA. This was 3mb weaker than December 2006 windstorm which reached peak maturity of 970mb just west of Tatoosh Island then moving onto the southern tip of Vancouver Island at 972mb. Both of these storms peaked at roughly the same depth at roughly the same location, around 127-128 W, then leveled off and began a slow degrading process. I looked up the 2006 windstorm on Wolf Read’s ‘Storm King’ site and discovered that to be true. Last night the storm became detached from jet/upper level support as it neared the Coast. 00z GFS 300mb model showed the 140-160kt jet moving inland over the central or southern Oregon Coast, then pointing well inland towards the Cascades. I think that played a role in things too. It seems December 2006 the jet support was much closer to the low and into western Washington/Oregon.
PDX – EUG maxed at 9.9mb at 2 AM, impressive, and more than the December 2006 windstorm that yielded 9.1mb. Remember, WRF last night advertised a max of 12-13mb, so obviously the models(at least what we were basing our forecast from) fell short a tad. OLM – EUG maxed at 18.7mb, again down from the 20-21mb forecast shown. Pressure rises were weaker than modeled. From 2 AM – 5 AM only a 3.1mb pressure rise occurred. That’s 3mb/3hr and not nearly enough to be conducive for high winds. Last night’s 00z featured much stronger rises, which also did not come to pass. I would say that is the main reason we did not see widespread 50-60mph gusts 00z WRF 4km Wind Gust model showed 40-50kt gusts over the Willamette Valley too, which did not come to fruition. Overall it seems models were a bit weak with the gradient or perhaps the isobars didn’t align themselves perfectly perpendicular as projected.
Ah well, we’ll try again next time.
BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST
It was breezy in the Beaverton area, with a few decent gusts, but that was it – quick and gone in about a 1 hour span… (midnight – 1am or so). Nothing approaching 50mph, maybe 40mph with a peak gust – maybe…
At least you have snow in K-Falls.
Hahaha true dat Mark ^_^
West winds still blowing 40-50 mph here and just had a hail/graupel shower move through.
[img]http://ntekinc.com/weather-images/articles/weather-images[/img]
Based on satallite data, it looks as if this wave will be coming into the metro area between 5pm – 8pm tonight… The system is clearly moving at a rapid pace. All the better – the less time over the warm pacific waters the better (if you like snow).
Does anyone have the buoy temps? Mark Nelson’s ECMWF links don’t seem to indicate those -8 numbers at 850mb to create any great snow situation, but the KPTV 850mb link seems to be on the fritz.
Insights anyone?… From all the data I’ve looked at, this next mass of showers looks more promising than Saturday mornings snow glance…
How about the link instead: http://ntekinc.com/weather-images/articles/weather-images
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/
Snowing and 38 degs
Temps seem to be slowly dropping after high of 44 early this am. Down to 40 drop baby drop
GFS la la land looks cold!
currently it is -43F in Fairbanks AK wow! needs to come south:)
Have a positive splat test on the shower going through!
Lots more headed in.
http://www.cascadeaccess.com/~mnelsen/lightning2.jpg
Oops
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?ir4km_enhanced+12
the way the sat looks theres lots of cold air to the northwest and a decent short wave if not two in with it, tonite might be interesting
agreed
A few Stray Albino Donkeys wandering about!
http://www.cascadeaccess.com/~mnelsen/lightning2.jpg
I think we’ll be watching the tower temps for a couple days.
Bring on the snow! Hahaah!
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/pqr/tower_temps/tower_temps.php?&units=F
looks like a sketch of Mt. Hood
Ya, I like the trend!
Max gusts between 1-3 am….
SLE 36
PDX 39
EUG 31
KEL-LONG 29
Gusts were stronger north…
OLM 37
SEA 59
TAC 46
RENT 44
Not epic for sure.
Hey Brad, what is that pile of stuff in your gravatar?
boydo..it’s a type of clay.
I always imagined it was Tang. Or a pulverized traffic cone…
Well the windstorm….at least in terms of severity…B U S T E D. Even if things did not pan out as originally advertised, the suspense was well worth it….’tis the season.
On to other subjects:
NAM MM5 has snow in South Willamette Valley tomorrow morning….good for 1-2 sloppy wet inches…but this is on a 12 km resolution model which I think does resolve the valley floor sufficiently for this to be valid. Will wait for MM5 GFS output. There is a vort max passing over the area associated with cold trough axis Tues morning.
I think Dec 23-24 will need to be watched. Low approaching SW Oregon from the southwest could yield lower elevation snow than usually associated with given 850mb temps/500-1000mb thickness.
Not so fast Paul. It’s stuff like this that gives weather geeks and mets a bad name. We predicted, hyped and weren’t just wrong but completely wrong. Not even high wind criteria. We deserve some boos.
GFS mm5 says no low snow tomorrow…will vote with GFS output…chunky rain tomorrow morning is best bet.
12Z GFS has backed off on strength of low for Dec 23/24 as well. Have to wait and see….best bet for low snow will be in the next 48 hours but odds of sticking snow on valley floor looks minimal.
Great to see some wind last night, but what a terrible outcome.
Peak gust at PDX was 39, SLE 46, and EUG 44. Both SLE and EUG peaks were before 10 p.m. last night. Main event, wasn’t.
A couple trees down here at the beach, but nothing too major. The seas sure are ferocious though:)
The Weather Channel named the storm now that it is a wind & snow producer! Winterstorm Draco! Only TWC
Doesn’t hurt my feelings at all, that I don’t have to go out and clear trees off the driveway this AM.
Snow watch today! Hahaah!
National Weather Service Portland or
242 am PST Monday Dec 17 2012
A weakening onshore flow continues tonight and Tuesday with the cool upper trough remaining over the Pacific northwest. Bufr soundings and 1000 to 500 mb thickness values continue to suggest snow levels down near valley floor late Monday night and Tuesday.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/pqr/tower_temps/tower_temps.php?&units=F
Just drove home from Portland. Rain all the way to Coeur d Alene. Here at home we have a foot of new snow and it is still dumping. No south wind here but just 20 miles south of Sandpoint the wind was out of the south.
Lucky you Hope we get some snow tonight