Another month is relegated to the archives of weather history. Not much to discuss as it was a pretty typical September albeit substantially cooler than my 15 year average. In fact leading up to the start of the month my 14 year average high for September was 74.7 degrees and this month was nearly 5 degrees cooler than that average. Enough to actually impact the average in a real noticeable way. The new 15 year average stands at 73.8, nearly a full degree cooler. Of course it's all rather anecdotal it is still interesting just how cool last month was.I believe the cool average was due largely in part to the complete lack of any heat wave at all. The warmest day of September came on the 26th with a fairly warm 84.9 degrees. That was one of 7 days in which the 80 degree mark was reached. The warmest overnight low came on the 7th at 57.6 degrees and led to a sub 70 afternoon high. We had several systems move through during the month and that kept many days cooler than average including one day that failed to reach 60 degrees; that was the 23rd when the merc couldn't push past 57.7.
The air of Autumn is noticeable as our evenings are cooling off quicker and there is that crispness in the morning. No freezing temps yet, in fact we didn't even take a single jaunt into the 30s. The closest was a chilly but still seasonable 41.4 yesterday morning (30th).
Rain was fairly average with most of the moisture falling on two days, the wettest of those 1.02 inches on the 17th and there was 0.62 on the second. The rest of the rainfall was spread out over an additional 3 days. The total for the month was 2.11 inches; a little shy of my average mark around 2.47 inches.
So this past summer was a pretty average affair. I recorded no 100 degree days and since October has never produced a century mark in this region, it is safe to say there will be no 100 degree day this year. In fairness I did record a 99.3 in August and several areas in the Metro Portland-Vancouver area did breech the the triple digits. I did not however. I recorded 12 days above 90 degrees so far in 2016 and that is about 1-2 more than average. I have never recorded a 90 in October but it is not unprecedented, historically speaking. I think it's safe none-the-less that we are not playing in the 90s again this year as well.So what about the upcoming winter season? Wet? Snowy? Cold? Who knows? Last winter was mild, modestly wet, a little snow and not very chilly. In fact the last time I recorded a temperature below 20 degrees F. was way back on November 30th, 2015. The coldest mark so far in 2016 was a January morning when the thermometer bottomed out at 23.5. Not exactly a frigid morning. Will this Autumn bring us a more chilly experience? Possibly, La Niña is the prediction coming from the long term climate guys and that has potentially chilly weather associated with it. I wrote about that on my 'Couv' Life blog here.
I am feeling like an average amount of low elevation snow is heading our way. That means a couple of bouts totaling 4-5 inches at PDX and locally higher in those more snowy sections of town. My 15 year average snowfall hovers around 8.5 inches here.
La Niña is a weather phenomenon that the ski resorts here in the Pacific Northwest like. Generally the cooler Pacific Ocean temperatures bring in storms that drop copious amounts of snow in the mountains above 2000 feet. If that plays out, we could have trouble with the passes all winter long. Some climatologists think it will be a strong La Niña so hold on, we could be in for a robust winter season.
