Today is February 29, Leap Day. It’s also the last day of meteorological winter, which is defined as December 1 – February 28/29 in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that winter is over in the Pacific Northwest – the weather these past 2 weeks has spoken for itself. It’s perfectly normal for our climate, by the way: Late February is, on average, warmer than late November, which is still considered part of “autumn.”…
Valentine’s Day has come and gone. Here in the Pacific Northwest, this is the time that winter weather geeks begin to throw in the towel on any more interesting cold/snowy weather for the season. There’s a strong historical precedent for this, at least in Portland: our coldest quarter of the year, statistically speaking, runs from the 3rd week of November to the 3rd week of February. Nearly all of our BIG snowstorms, arctic blasts and ice storms occur during this three-month…
Happy February everyone! We just experienced the warmest January in 67 years at PDX airport: 45.8 degrees F, which is more than 4 degrees above normal. It was also the wettest January in 14 years, with 7.58″ of rain. February is starting much cooler than January ended. Instead of 62 degrees, this morning there were spotty snow showers in a few western OR-WA locations, including Molalla. (Credit: post by Jeff Roth on Facebook). There may or may not be more…