For more than a week, weather enthusiasts have fixated on the chilly upper-level trough that is currently entering the Pacific Northwest and will stick with us for the coming week. Snow levels will drop to 1000’ at times, and a few slushy flakes could be seen even at the lowest elevations. But I’ve long felt that false spring – here defined as a stretch of warm and (usually) dry weather before March 1 – is a more noteworthy phenomenon…
It’s been a boring first half of February…at least until today, with a wet snowstorm expected in the Columbia River Gorge. Yesterday was a classic “late inversion season” day, not unlike an early-season day in October or early November. Fog formed in early morning, then slowly burned off under the marginal sun angle. The Willamette Valley and parts of Clark County didn’t break out until after 2 pm. Temps only made the upper 40s/low 50s due to north/northesterly flow. We…