Warm and Wet in Mid-Autumn

 

That title sums it up well, in fact this may be the warmest November I have on record, after 20 Novembers at this location. But this wasn't sunshine and hot levels of warm and in fact the all time record high for me at this location wasn't even close to being challenged. But it was consistent balmy for most of the month with a continue pipeline of war and wet systems dropping copious amounts of rain. It has been a long while since we had a proper Western Washington November, and this was it, although it was warmer than normal by a substantial mark. You may notice I have begun highlight warm and cold records on my chart that accompanies this blog post each month. Warm being red and cold being blue.

My twenty year average low and high for November is 38.85º L and 51.34º H. Last month it was 43.46º L and 54.89º H. Yes you read that right plus 5 and plus 3 respectively for the month. What was particularly interesting was the fact that I had 11 daily records fall, all on the warm side. Eleven daily records in ONE month is more than just unusual. I had 7 daily high records broken on the 13th, 14th, 15th, 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th. The warmest of these was the monthly high mark of 65.7º on the 14th, well off my November record of 72.1º. I also had 4 daily record warm minimum temps. That is the overnight low being warm. Those occurrences were the 11th, 14th, 29th, and 30th. The warmest overnight low last month came on the 14th when the mercury dipped to just 58.9º. A few miles away at PDX the overnight low that night was above 60º in MID NOVEMBER! The month was not entirely absent of chilly temps however. I dod have a 3 sub-freezing mornings the chilliest of which was a mark of 29.7º on the morning of the 22nd. No daily low records were so much as challenged. The chilliest afternoon high was a rather typical 45.3º on the 21st. November delivered just 3 sub-freezing temps and only 8 nights dipped into the 30s. That's nuts! 

November gave us just 1 sunny day and the rest were partly cloudy of overcast. 21 days of rain which isn't that unusual for November, but a bit gloomy none-the-less. Not a lick of snow fell but snow levels did come down to 1500 feet a couple of times. I had 8 days with more than a quarter inch of rain and 2 days with more than an inch including the wettest day of the month, the 12th when 2.01 inches fell. The total rainfall came in a tad under the historical average but still managed a solid 7.32 inches in my bucket.

Today it is a nice sunny afternoon and sitting at about 55º so December is off to a warm start as well. But December is when things tend to get chilly, so we shall see if Captain Balmy continues to rule.