The Portland NWS forecast office picked up another 1.2" of snow this morning, adding to the winter total. There was .7" last Saturday night/Sunday AM. Funny how in most other winters this would be a big deal, but instead it's just another little burst of winter snow this year. Of course it's nice when it comes in quickly and disappears quickly, at least for our jobs here at a TV station.
Things worked out really well this morning, except that the ultra-fast timing of our RPM model was correct, not the UW mesoscale models.
A nice surge of mild air has made it all the way through the Gorge…I see The Dalles is in the mid 40s…for the first time in 2 weeks! I bet some of you out there have stripped down to boxers and are running around in the streets??? Maybe not…but it must feel good, especially since you'll probably have lots of sunshine with westerly downslope wind tomorrow. That will also be the first time in two weeks you've seen any of that bright yellow orb in the sky.
Back here in the metro area, our weather looks REALLY boring the next week or so again. One change though this evening is an increasingly sharp shortwave for Saturday morning. Not a lot of rain, but a vigorous cold front passage Friday night ahead of it.
Thanks for all the snow measuring you folks did this morning, it filled out the maps nicely, especially since there were no spotter reports from the NWS again today.
As Steve Pierce has pointed out in NUMEROUS emails today, we are doing really well with our winter snow. The NWS forecast office site has recorded 23.2" of snow so far this winter. At the PDX Airport site, snow measurements stopped in 1995. If you put those two together, then this is the 3rd snowiest winter since WWII, or when the PDX site began taking observations. Thanks for the info again Steve.
Mark Nelsen
FOX 12 Weather Blog 
temp at my house is 32.0 with heavy fog. Visibility is less than 100 yards. Streets are wet from rain and fog. Will we continue to cool and possibly see all if this freeze tonight???
It’s coming…
It gets frustrating and a bit awkward at times to sit out on an island based on the LRC theory, but we are getting a bit more consistency now long range. The TCs look about right [still some adjustment expected].
More to come in the upcoming days, but hope this isn’t a surprise to anyone. It’s soon going to be quite active…
Nice primer on evaporative cooling:
http://www.komonews.com/weather/blog/38450844.html?blog=y
Im at 40 inches so far this year. Im suprised how far behind Mark I am. Makes me think I measured wrong or something. Our total last winter was 40 inches. So looks like I will beat that this year.
Linking up several analog years to Feb 10th to 15th timeframe of predicted AO,PNA, and NAO phases it really looks like were gonna have a good February blast of winter.
I feel like its a good chance given the year so far. Things may come together to make this even more of a winter to remember
JN,
You need to get your weather station online considering the lack of east wind spots that show up on the Mesowest data. Is it a digital one?
Wrath, I have recorded 49.5” so far. I think I am about 6” behind Marks house. I had hoped to beat his totals, but I am 200 ft. lower although a bit further into the gorge. You would love it here. I had a peak wind gust of 86 mph during the east wind storm! I love snow, but I am so sick of wind.
Maybe I’ll record stuff in my Oregon Scientific rain gauge. It’s thirsty. 😦
41.2F here and cloudy.
Weekend cold is a maritime cold airmass with little moisture for now. If this were a more moist sytem, you could almost be on a change over to snow near the back edge of the front in the heaviest precip with that type of a sharp cold front. But i don’t see that happening unless heavier and steadier precip pops up in the models over the next few days.
Steve P killed it with the emails today, by that I mean my blackberry overloaded 🙂 Nice info though Steve…amazing stats.
🙂
Great blog Mark, very detailed! =O)
Minimalism has its place.