Good morning!  I wasn’t planning to write much more on weather for a few weeks.  I’ve had plans to write about the pandemic, the economy, and greater social and political implications for the future.  But first, I thought it pertinent to follow up on last week’s drought discussion with a few quick points.

In the meantime, fellow WeatherTogether blogger Charlie Phillips, has written an extensive column covering the ‘coronarecession’ with a strong background in energy, Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve.  While the two of us agree in a number of areas, I can promise that my take on this subject will come from a different perspective…stay tuned.

On to the interestingly boring weather.  Today I did a tally of PDX rainfall totals since October 1, which is the start of our “fiscal year” for the purposes of measuring annual rainfall.  Generally we “earn” our moisture in the first half of the water year (Oct-Mar), and then “spend” it in the 2nd half (Apr-Sep). As of April 18, we have seen only 19.25″ of precip, nearly nine inches down from the normal of 28.06″.  Put another way, Portland has seen only 68.6% normal rainfall, this wet season.

The only wet month this water year has been January, with more than 7″.  December and March were somewhat drier than usual.  But October, November, February and now April?  MUCH drier.  This is how you get drought conditions going.

Yesterday was the first day with measurable rain in two weeks.  We got 0.09″ at the airport…barely enough to settle the dust and pollen after those days with dewpoints in the teens.  The U.S. drought monitor is calculated every Tuesday and the maps are printed on Thursday.  As of April 14, Oregon was slipping further into moderate and severe drought.  I imagine the upcoming weekly map will look worse, given that no more rain is expected today or Tuesday.

We DO have a soaking rain coming Wednesday; a quick-moving system from the west will sweep through the area.  The 00z GFS suggested between 0.50 and 0.75″ by Thursday morning:

(credit of TropicalTidbits.com)

After that it gets less clear.  It appears a parade of Pacific storms will hit the North American coast during the final week of April. Unfortunately for us, most of the action appears to be aimed at Haida Gwaii, Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula.  Portland may just get light showers unless the storm track swings further south.

Unless things turn wet in May and June….it looks like many blogs about wildfires will be in order this summer! -Karl