It’s been a beautifully boring couple of weeks in the Pacific Northwest. Boring in the sense that there has been NO active weather since the first weekend of November. Beautiful in that we have seen tons of sunshine ever since then, with seasonably cool days and cold, crisp nights. As of November 18, PDX is running 4.0 degrees colder than normal, and most of the cold departures have occurred since the 7th of the month (the last day with measurable…
I just KNEW that if I planned to take a break from weather blogging, then things would suddenly become really active and intriguing. Now we’re looking at a very active pattern for the end of October & early November, with possible hints of unusually early cold next week. So a compromise has been reached: Only short blogs for the time being (less than 500 words) No more than 3 images per blog. After an unusually warm and foliage-delaying start to fall,…
Whew, what an unusual season it has been! As of October 19, Portland International Airport is running 8.7 degrees F above normal, by far the warmest early/mid October period in recorded history. Today, October 20, was the last warm day before cooler and wetter conditions arrive tomorrow. Yesterday was the last “really” warm day…at 75 degrees, it was 12 above normal and only 3 degrees shy of the record. It sure didn’t feel that toasty, though – at least not after…
I hope you’ve been making the most of this once-in-a-lifetime October weather! Granted, for some of us (especially in the Puget Sound and the southern Willamette Valley), the persistent wildfire smoke has been pretty rough. And there are plenty of weather geeks who are eager for cooler, wetter conditions to arrive. I, on the other hand, appreciate the unseasonability of this fall. It has really tested previously-held assumptions of what is possible in our climate region. Today we hit 82 degrees…
Greetings, weather folks! I’m back from my five-day road trip to Southern Oregon and Northern California. As a kid I got to drive through the area several times during family visits to relatives in the Bay Area. But I never got the chance to really explore the region…until now. Since this is a weather blog and not a travel journal, I’ll keep it short and sweet. Here are the highlights: A visit to Grants Pass to reconnect with an old…
Today is the Fall Equinox, which means that we are now passing into the “dark half” of the year. Of course, due to seasonal lag it’s not quite the cold half of the year yet; that threshold is still nearly a month away. But normally we start seeing somewhat cooler and wetter conditions arrive around this time. I say “normally” because not all years are normal. In fact we’re expected to see a fairly impressive warm spell beginning this Saturday, continuing…
Last Monday morning, Portland Airport reported 0.01″ of rainfall in the gauge. For practical purposes that amount is meaningless. But for the weather geeks, it means that our long stretch of no measurable precip at PDX since July 6 has come to an end. At 67 days, it is the second longest period on record with no more than a trace of rain: Be careful not to get caught up in “longest dry streak” climatology! Suppose we had exactly 0.02″ of…
September is here! September 1 marks the beginning of meteorological fall in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, that’s not exactly how Pacific Northwest weather works. In reality, early-mid September often feels like a blend of summer and autumn: days are still warm and sunny, but nights are beginning to get cooler. This morning sure exemplified that narrative: the (not so accurate) app on my phone showed a temperature of 48 degrees this morning in my Orchards neighborhood. Some spots along…
I’ve been sick for the past 10 days, with my worst cold infection since the pre-Covid era. Only the first 3 days were really acute; the problem is that the symptoms are very slow to leave. I was going to write this blog a few days ago, but didn’t have the energy to focus clearly. In a way, my sickness is a perfect metaphor for the weather over the past 5 weeks. Spring 2022 is shaping up to…
Last week was a very interesting pattern, given the season. We had a full week of “Winter In April” weather – including a historic April snowstorm for Portland/Vancouver and temperatures more typical of late January or early February. There was also an impressive number of thunder and hail storms across the region, probably the best outbreak in the time I have lived on the west side. There are several points that stick out here: Snow. The Monday morning snowstorm was,…