How unusual is the current low PNW snowpack?

bscott,

You wouldn't by chance actually be a meteorologist?

You aren't suggesting that the pattern shown by n-1 and n won't result in n+1?

Shocking......

You may forget that color graphs tell the truth.

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Is that really what the climate modelers are saying? Not really, or at least that's a severe exaggeration of what most (scientifically peer-reviewed, published, etc.) climate modelers are saying. But I suspect you know that already, and are just being hyperbolic and alarmist (although some degree of alarm over anthropogenic climate change is probably warranted).

I disagree with Amar’s comment that I have exaggerated what climate modelers are currently saying.
A recent publication (scientifically peer reviewed) in Nature (October, 2013, 502, 183–187) attempts to clarify what the climate modelers are indeed saying.  The article frames the climate change discussion in a manner more easily understood by the uninformed public.  If carbon emissions remain at their current levels, the authors point out that climate models predict that large regions around the world will soon see temperature increases that have no recorded historical precedent.  By 2047, more than half of the planet will experience average temperatures hotter than anything seen between 1860 and 2005.  That is only 34 years!  Seattle is one of the cities impacted.  Eventually (shortly after 2047), the coldest year in Seattle is predicted to be hotter than the hottest year ever recorded in the last 150 years (1860-2005).  If the models are correct, within the next 30 years, the climate change signal should quickly overwhelm the natural variability signal in our weather data.

The point I wanted to make is that our climate is changing, and fairly rapidly.  What has seemed usual in the past may not be what we can expect in the future.  Past performance does not guarantee future results.  While I agree with Amar that the signal from climate change is still too small to detect in the current weather patterns, it is, never-the-less there.  That signal should be increasingly more apparent in the coming years. I believe that within a few years we will begin to notice a very different regime of temperature and snowfall in the Cascades.  That change could already be happening.

I disagree with Amar’s comment that I have exaggerated what climate modelers are currently saying.
A recent publication (scientifically peer reviewed) in Nature (October, 2013, 502, 183–187) attempts to clarify what the climate modelers are indeed saying.
. . .

The point I wanted to make is that our climate is changing, and fairly rapidly.  What has seemed usual in the past may not be what we can expect in the future.  Past performance does not guarantee future results.  While I agree with Amar that the signal from climate change is still too small to detect in the current weather patterns, it is, never-the-less there.  That signal should be increasingly more apparent in the coming years. I believe that within a few years we will begin to notice a very different regime of temperature and snowfall in the Cascades.  That change could already be happening.

Link to that Nature article (not free without institutional access): www.nature.com/nature/journal/v502/n7470/full/nature12540.html

OK, I appreciate the explanation of your point of view on this issue. Perhaps I am hoping that point of view turns out to be an exaggeration of the actual degree of climate change which occurs over the rest of my lifetime, at least.

Actually, I do agree with your statement that "within a few years we will begin to notice a very different regime of temperature and snowfall in the Cascades", or at least fear that it will come true -- but not primarily due to climate change within the next 2 decades, but rather due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillaton shifting back towards its warm phase instead of the current cold phase we are in.

Which would mean a likely return to the bad old years of the late 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, when even the best years were barely above average, and most years were mediocre to well-below average (although even those years produced snowpacks far beyond any others in the lower 48 outside the Sierra). I was fortunate to start backcountry skiing in the Northwest during the summer before 1996-97, which turned out to be the first huge snow year in over 2 decades, and then enjoyed a number of huge to record-type years since then (1998-99, 2001-2, 2005-6, 2007-8, 2010-11, 2011-12), with only 2 far-below-normal years (2000-1 and 2004-5). A return even to the snowpack regime of the late 1970s to early 1990s period would be a major ongoing disappointment compared to recent years.

Finally, I'm curious Amar, do you work with this data professionally/academically or do you just have a keen personal interest? Most folks don't know of or throw out acronyms like ENSO, SST, and PDO

No professional or academic involvement in meteorology or atmospheric sciences, although self-taught over a decade ago to maybe an advanced undergrad or beginning grad-student level in that field (or at least the areas of it which interest me). I'm an experimental physicist by training and spent a number of years as research faculty at UW in that field, although as many of you know I'm taking a lengthy career break to ski mountaineer full-time and attempt to complete my Cascade volcanoes ski guidebook. Perhaps ironically given my frequent posts of snow-related data, I never liked data analysis that much, and preferred instead to spend as much lab time as possible designing, machining, and building various experiments, apparatus, ultra-high vacuum systems, diode-laser systems, etc.

(Also, for the color-blind, there may be a superior color palette choice. I haven't thought about it in the context of this sort of plot).

The choice of using red and green in any plot definitely makes it hard for many of us to see it, I'm only minimally red-green color blind (the problem is worse for me when the red-green area is small, subtending a tiny angle in my field of vision) but always tend to notice that issue. Even the first plot of data points and lines is hard to see for me, trying to tell the red and green points apart with no other clue like differing data point markers for each site. But it's always hard to get those with normal color vision to use only red-green color-blind-safe colors when things look "fine" to them.

Below is a quote from the Forcast Discussion from NWS Seattle today.

.CLIMATE...THERE IS A CHANCE THAT THE REMAINDER OF THE MONTH WILL BE
DRY. THE PRECIPITATION TOTAL AT SEATTLE-TACOMA AIRPORT SO FAR FOR
THE MONTH OF DECEMBER IS 1.62 INCHES. THIS WOULD BE THE SECOND
DRIEST DECEMBER ON RECORD AT THE AIRPORT SURPASSED ONLY BY THE
RECORD 1.37 INCHES SET IN 1978. INCLUDING THE FEDERAL BUILDING
RECORDS WHICH GO BACK TO 1891 THIS WOULD BE THE FIFTH DRIEST
DECEMBER.

IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT THE RECORD WET SEPTEMBER WE HAD THIS
YEAR...6.17 INCHES...BROKE THE OLD SEPTEMBER RECORD SET IN 1978.
FELTON

Interesting.

Recent less scientific research has shown the snowpack to SUCK....

Uller,.... a little help please??

tragically, no one knows whether it will snow or not.