Finally, BIG SNOW!

We got our first real measurable snowfall for this winter today. We've received about 4" of snow so far and it's still snowing - lightly. Temperature has been steady at around 12F and we've had a constant wind too. Wind chill has been in the single digit area.

Below are a series of photos of my "non-official" snow measuring station showing the accumulation of snow. First snow started around 7:30am today.

01-18-12 @ 0830

01-18-12 @ 1030

01-18-12 @ 1340

01-18-12 @ 1530

Potential winter storm event

Looks like we'll be getting our first measurable winter event by mid-week. Cold air is in place and the moist, warmer air is off-coast heading our way. Likely it will move into our area from the Southwest.

We'll see if there is any accuracy to the numbers shown on the below graph. We are in the region of the 4-8" prediction to the WNW of Spokane.

Graph by NWS Spokane 

December raps up 2011

December left only 1.3” of new snow here at the home weather station; a real disappointment. December 2010 we had 7.8” of snow (2009: 2.6” and 2008: 21.1”). Temperatures were mild for nearly half of the month. Our lowest temperature was on December 8 at 16.4F. The month couldn’t even muster up a single digit reading for us. We had some wind events the last four days of the month. We ended up with 0.51" of precipitation.

Though La Nina is in place not much happened. Generally, during a La Nina year, we see wetter and cooler weather here in the Pacific Northwest.

Much of the drier and "stagnate" weather was due to the ridge of high pressure that is characteristically out in the Western Pacific being much closer to the Alaskan Peninsula and Western Canada interfering with what one can consider normal winter weather patterns. We had several days of "air stagnation” alerts; most all of it was caused by that ridge.