Karl's Weather Discussions

(cover photo credit of PureVacations.com) Those who have followed seasonal changes in the Pacific Northwest, know that our seasons can be rather lopsided:  Temperatures normally drop a lot more quickly in the fall, than they climb in the spring.  In particular, the month of October seems temps drop nearly twice as fast, as they climb in April and May. Basically what is happening is that the sun angle starts to warm the lowlands up beginning around mid/late February.  However, the…

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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…

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Over the past week, the weather in the Pacific Northwest has taken a dramatic turn.  Back in late March and early April, we were under a continuous two-week stretch of clouds, rain, cool temperatures and fairly low snow levels.  In fact, it was the coolest March at PDX since 2012!   But now we’re enjoying tons of sunshine and mild temps instead.  Last week we had a glorious 3-day stretch in the 70s.  Lots of dry 60s too.  And the…

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I hope all of you are safe and at some semblance of peace.  This has been a very tough 3 weeks for all of us, and we still have at least 6-8 weeks of isolation ahead.  The weather has been cooperating with our social distancing regime for the past 10 days: it’s been consistently cool, cloudy and damp in the Pacific Northwest. The month of March ended up nearly 2 degrees colder than the 1981-2010 average.  It was the coolest…

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I hope ALL of you are keeping safe and keeping apart from other human beings, this week.  Wow….it’s incredible how this COVID-19 virus has upended our entire social order in a matter of two weeks.  Exactly two Saturdays ago I was at a basketball game between the Blazers and the Kings.  But I seriously doubt we’ll be able to do that again, for the next several months at least! This pandemic is horrifically serious business.  At this point it’s pretty…

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Greetings!  What a week it has been.  I’m not going to delve into the COVID-19 pandemic here; you’ve probably heard enough by now that you’re canceling plans left and right, and preparing to isolate for a couple months. Moving on…I’ve been joking the past couple days, that some weather gods must have caught the coronavirus.  We’re just finishing up one of the most unusual patterns possible for mid-March:  lowland snow and cold east wind out of the Columbia River Gorge. …

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Hi everyone!  It’s been a fun early March for me.  During a short vacation from work, I got to go to a Blazers basketball game last Saturday, against the Sacramento Kings.  It wasn’t a very good game overall; the defense sucked and Damian Lillard wasn’t having a good night at all.  But the experience was still fun. Also on Monday night, I got to enjoy some dancing at the Madhouse PDX show downtown.  Not everyone understands house music; it really…

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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.”…

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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…

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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…

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