March has Marched Away

Yet another month has marched into the archives and it was pretty ho-hum as far as weather is concerned here in America's Vancouver and the Metro Portland area. we had a few wind driven storms that did some damage but nothing out of ordinary for our fickle and sometimes angry spring.

April is starting out with the potential to be quite toasty. Today is threatening to hit 80 degrees, we'll just have to see if our first 80 of the season comes just a few weeks on the heels of the first 70 which I recorded on March 19th.

One thing interesting about this past march was the rainfall. I had exactly normal precipitation down to the 100th an inch! what are the odds of that? I have averaged 5.52 inches over the last 16 years and I measured exactly 5.52 inches. That's kinda of cool. The month of March had no crazy weather events. Those of you that look at my raw data will see a data glitch showing a minus 22 degree morning on the 29th. That definitely did not happen, and in fact never has a temperature that low been recorded in the 'Couv' as our all-time record is -11. I am not sure what happened there but I went through the daily data and the lowest temp other than the glitch was only 31.5 that day.

OK now the meat of matter. The warmest day in march this year was a nice mild and frankly perfect 72.1 degrees. Studies have shown that the ideal air temperature for humans is... 72 degrees F. That 72.1 came on the very last day of March and was the second "perfect" high in a row with 71.8 recording on the 30th. The coldest overnight low was a respectably chilly 30 on the 17th for a crisp start to Saint Patrick's Day. That was one of only two mornings below freezing for March which is not that unusual for the transition from winter to spring. The warmest overnight low came on the 5th with a cool but comfy 48.4. The coldest daytime high was 45 degrees and it happened twice on the both the 8th and 14th of the month. 45 is a tad chilly for daytime high this late in the season but not at all irregular for March. March is fickle has Old Man Winter tries to cling to life before being swept away by the occasionally puckish, Miss Spring. It's like she is teasing us and the old guy. Here's a 45 day for you old man, followed by a 70. let's face it winter around here does not do 70 ;)

The month overall came in a touch above average with the observed averages at 41.5 and 56.05 for low and high respectively. This measured against a more 'normal' 38.01 and 54.71. There was no measurable snowfall and that is not unusual this late in the season. We had 20 days with lows below 40 and 2 below freezing. We had 8 days above 60 and 3 above 70. 21 days of measurable rain and 6 sunny days. 9 days with more than quarter inch of rain. The wettest day was 0.67 inches on the 9th.

Unless we have a rare mid spring snow event, the final snow chart of the 2015-2016 winter has been posted on the website.http://rodsager.com/weather/snowfall-2001-date.pdf

Get out and soak it up my friends, soak it up; but keep a light jacket handy as Miss Spring likes to tease.

Another Warm Winter Month in the Books

February continued this winter's trend of warmer conditions as the chart show those FIVE days above 60 degrees quite well and the real shocker is that 24 of the 28 days of this past February saw the mercury push past 50 degrees. Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that I recorded only two sub-freezing temperatures all month.

All that warm sunnylicious goodness came at the expense of rain where I saw a well under average 4.17 inches.

A closer look at the month's statistics reveals the deliciously unseasonable nature of this winter. The warmest day was a very nice and cozy 64.7 degrees on the 17th one of three 60 plus days in a row and five 60 plus days on the month! The chilliest overnight low was a modest 29.3 degrees on the 24th. We had a few overnight lows that tickled the 50 mark the warmest of which was 49.8 on both the 6th and 7th. These were two of the 12 days with warm low temps in the 40s. The nippiest afternoon high came on the first day of the month with a mild 44.6 degree reading which is pretty close to normal for early February at my house. Looking at the temperatures across the whole of the month I was five degrees above normal for overnight lows with a month observed average coming in at 39.67 degrees against my 14 year normal of 34.76. The daytime highs were nearly 6 degrees above my normal of 49.41 as I observed an average 55.49 degrees.

On my website I post a 90 day trend chart and the last 90 days has absolutely zero snowfall. December, January and February without so much as a flurry? WOW! As for precipitation for February I mention that I recorded and under normal 4.17 inches, which is not drought numbers by any measure but low none-the-less. The wettest day was the 7th with 0.80 inches falling, the last of three straight days of steady rain over 0.50 inches. I had six days with more than 0.25 inches and 11 days with measurable rain. It is not very often in Western Washington that you get more sun than rain but I had 12 sunny days :)

March is coming in like the proverbial lamb as I am typing this under brilliant sunshine at as the mercury is nudging its way towards fifty degrees at 11 in the morning. So will the fickle month of March bring us any more snow for this season? Honestly you really never know. All the long term forecasts are suggesting that March will continue the mild streak we have had since January. If that pans out I'll end up with a paltry 1.1 inches of snow on the season which is well under my 14 year average of 9.37 inches. That is really not too unusual, Western Washington routinely has winters with very little snow and rarely has a winter with more than 12 inches. All of you snow-haters can relax, looks like you will have a reprieve until next winter. So go outside and soak it up my friends, soak it up.