Karl's Weather Discussions

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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Most of you know me as a weather enthusiast.  But throughout my life, I’ve also had a keen fascination with astronomy. My grandpa first introduced me to the topic when I was about 4 or 5 years old.  I learned the names of the (then nine) planets, and the basic features of each world.  By the time I was in fourth grade, my interest was budding into a real hobby:  there were many family trips to Goldendale Observatory, back in…

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I think most of us weather geeks can agree that the winter of 2019-2020 has been extremely boring thus far. We haven’t had a single Pacific windstorm in the region, except for the “bomb cyclone” in Southern Oregon back in late November. Also no flooding in the immediate vicinity of PDX. And as for cold & snow…what initially looked like a promising mid-January snowstorm ended up just giving our area a couple slushy dustings, with temps at the airport barely…

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Happy New Year (and new decade) folks!  It’s been a hectic month for me, with holiday work in retail and whatnot.  Also there were some problems with the Weather Together site over Christmas time, so I was limited to posting on my Facebook page.  I encourage all of you to check it out; generally I post “minor” weather updates on that page and save this blog for the deeper discussions. Fortunately (or unfortunately) it’s been a very boring first half…

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It’s been a beautiful autumn across the Pacific Northwest, at least if you love colorful leaves.  Trouble is, I haven’t been able to get out much due to a long-winded car repair fiasco.  But just from the vantage of Portland, I’ve noticed brighter colors than usual – and the colors have peaked a week or two earlier than in recent years; i.e. the middle of October instead of near the end.  By Halloween, most of the vibrant colors were already…

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  This is going to be a quick one; I’ve got a few personal tasks I’m trying to bust out today.  But there’s a very interesting weather event going on tomorrow Tuesday, if you’re a seasonal temperature nerd like I am. Remember how earlier in the fall we had two brief teases of cold Canadian air, that dipped down from the north and gave much of the Pacific Northwest a few unseasonably chilly days & nights?  Well…it’s happening again.  Check…

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  Tornadoes in the City of Roses.  Thanksgiving-like chill in September.  Two historic snowfalls across Montana and even parts of Eastern Oregon & Washington. It’s been a very interesting first half of Fall this year.  After a summer with mild days but stuffy warm nights, the rain faucet turned on big-time in September.  The airport got 3.80″ of rain, making it the second wettest September in two decades.  But there was also a twist toward cold by the end of…

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