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Watsisname
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Unusual weather

10 Feb 2017 21:26

Bummer. :/  I know you've been wanting to get some for a while.  

Today was an interesting weather day for us over here.  No snow, and not even cold.  Instead it's been very warm with storms blowing in from the south.  That in itself isn't too unusual, but the wind was behaving strangely.  It would raise big waves on the water, and then the tops would literally lift straight up into the air and form huge blowing clouds of mist.

Image

Every now and then it would also spin up into a waterspout... or whatever you call the water equivalent of a dust devil.  Mist devil? No condensation funnel, but a strong tight circulation nonetheless.  I've never seen one before, and the old-timers say they can happen once in a very long while when the conditions are just right.  Most were many kilometers out and hard to see, but one suddenly spun up very close and came ashore.  Not strong enough to do real damage besides blow off a few fir tree limbs.  I wish I had been taking video -- the spin of it was incredible -- but did manage a few photos with the DSLR.

Image
 
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Unusual weather

11 Feb 2017 01:15

cool!! i have only seen waterspout on t.v from images of the beach here.
is it true that washington state has wet/snowy season this year? above average?
i also saw that california mountains got lot of snow, most in many years. and i glad about it, i know california suffer from bad droughts and forest fires. :)
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Watsisname
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Unusual weather

11 Feb 2017 06:05

Yeah, it's been a good year for snow for the western US.  Here's what we currently have (sorry my country uses stupid inches. A meter is about 39 inches.)

Image

And the difference from normal:

Image

Similar for California -- much more snow than normal there.  That's a good thing for them since it makes up a big portion of their water supply. :)
 
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11 Feb 2017 06:55

Watsisname, what is your town's name?  :) bellingham?
you got snow there or like seattle you get less because you close to the shore (0 meters elevation)
also like i told you i am interested in weather. and for what i see in the recent days or the whole month. british columbia mountains get heavy snow for almost every day! also the east part of washington state, and now with your image i see its correctly what i saw....lot of snow.
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Watsisname
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11 Feb 2017 07:11

I'm near Bellingham. :)  It's very rare to get snow near the water (I think less than once a year on average -- the water temperature stays around 7C in winter which helps keep the air warm), but this winter has been unusual and we've had several decent snowfalls at sea level.  The schools and university have been closed for several days this last week because of it.
 
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11 Feb 2017 11:31

cool indeed living next to warm sea wont give you lot of snow. the last time tel aviv got snow (the beach area here) was in 1950.
BTW in the horizon with the 500hpa map i can see small polar mass that will get close to here and it might bring some snow to my town (750 meters above sea level). if it will esacpe again in the 90 minute, it will be the 7th time this winter of polar mass esacping...i allready started to think about conspiracies! this winter it was like greece-italy area got giant snow magnet and stole all polar masses before reaching my area, or we have some anti snow device here!! :geek:
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midtskogen
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11 Feb 2017 13:13

The schools and university have been closed for several days this last week because of it.
That sounds so funny.  I can't recall ever hearing about a school over here closing because of snow.  Sure, if an avalanche cut off the road, the roof collapsed, the heating broke down, or something, but not from a snowfall itself.
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11 Feb 2017 14:08

midtskogen, here even if it close to snow like graupel or 1 centimeter of snow is like an holiday and all schools shut down.
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midtskogen
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11 Feb 2017 16:08

The main problem with snow here is to keep the mountain roads open during the winter.
[youtube]DM9QHnfDHdQ[/youtube]
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Watsisname
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11 Feb 2017 17:50

That sounds so funny.  I can't recall ever hearing about a school over here closing because of snow.
The problem is at low elevation the snow is rare enough that too many people don't know how to drive in it.  I kind of laugh at it too -- in Virginia we had more snow and people knew how to deal with it better, though a heavy snowfall would still close things down until the roads were cleared.  

The mountain snow is a whole other realm, pretty much same as Norway's.  The northern pass is kept closed all winter because of avalanche, and dealing with the avalanche risk by triggering them just buries the road again.  Usually it's not cleared until April or May.  In the Mt. Baker area they keep the road open only to the ski area, and then it's a business clearing it out the rest of the way come summer.  Even in June everything can still be buried under 10+ meters of snow.  A few summers it never opens.  Here's what a typical July looks like:

[youtube]YFcBiwm2kIw[/youtube]
 
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midtskogen
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12 Feb 2017 01:49

too many people don't know how to drive in it
Yet, it's so simple: don't. If snow is rare, then people wont have snow tyres, so this simple rule is all it takes.
The challenge here is that the only (practical) routes between the country's two largest cities (and between other regions) are over the mountains, so some roads must remain open (but frequently you have to wait for a convoy, and sometimes the road has to close).  The distances are too great to tunnel away the problem completely.  We do have the longest car tunnel in the world, though: 25 km.   Anyway, it's rarely as bad as the road getting buried by 8 meters in a single storm as in the video (of course mainly due to wind carried snow).
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12 Feb 2017 02:33

that's true, here also no snow tires at all. also it snows here only in the mountains part (mostly above 500 meters when storm come) so most people not used to it at all.
also here all schools shut down because of safety, you put lot of kids in danger if you tell them to come to school on foot or in a car by thier parents. little accident can cause great damage and fatalities 
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18 Feb 2017 21:53

In California we've been having rain nonstop. A flash flood warning was recently issued to my area. Just a few months ago nobody would have believed it.
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18 Feb 2017 22:11

It's the middle of February and it's been in the upper 60's. This is PA we're talking about here.
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19 Feb 2017 16:26

Same here in Minnesota; we've been breaking local records left and right since Thursday or Friday. Id normally expect this on an el nino year, so Im a bit surprised. And were also expecting thunderstorms in the next few days, and the snowstorm expected later this week is only meant for the southern part of the state, while Minneapolis and my town 50 miles north northwest arent getting a flake that snow.
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