Winter Weather will transition to Classic Rain

Rain is washing snow away 10:00 am

Starting all the way back on December 4th when I got the first snowflakes of the season with a series of light flurries to this morning where another 3/4 inch of snow and then ice was deposited on my yard, I have accumulated just over 5 inches of winter precipitation and that is well above my 15 year average of 2.7 inches in December.

The first system brought an inch of wet snow that stayed on the ground for the afternoon but was gone my early evening. The second bout of snow brought me 2 inches of fluffy white snow and howling winds that blew the snow all over until it came to rest on the east side of some immovable barrier like a house or fence. That system had entrenched cold air that kept us chilly and left the snow on the ground for 4 days. Then another blast of arctic air mixed with moisture from the south made way north. The southern half of the metro area got upwards of 5 inches where I got about an inch and a half here in the north. The remnants of that snow and the fresh layer from this morning remain on the ground here on day six but it will be gone by the end of the day. I got 34 degrees showing and it is steady snow eating rain that is falling from the sky.

We are expected to see some locally heavy rain later in the week possibly 2-3 inches and snow levels will rise up above pass levels for a bit before returning to a more typical 2000-3000 feet.  But what of Christmas now just six days on the horizon? Right now the NWS in Portland has us forecast for a cool 38 on Christmas Day the low Christmas morning should be just a tad above freezing. This far out, who knows, a little shift in the atmosphere could drop us back into the snow zone. Statistics do not favor this however.

Let's sit back and soak it all up my friends, soak it up. Ho Ho Ho... Merry Christmas be it white or green :)

November Soggy and Mild

2016 is taking it's final lap as the month of November is retired to history. November was pretty warm overall and seasonally soggy. I have never recorded a 70 degree mark in the month of November and that is still the case but we did tease it a bit with a 68.4 reading on the 4th of the month.

Between the record wet October and this seasonally typical November I have recorded nearly a foot and a half of rain in the last 60 days!

On the temperature side of the weather, that 68.4 was the warmest and the coldest mark I had was 34.3 degrees on the 18th and that means I still have NOT recorded a subfreezing temperature. I did briefly accumulate some ice on my car's windshield on that very night so I have recorded a frost. This year will be the latest for the first seasonal sub-freezing temperature in the 16 years I have been recording at this locale. In fairness, we haven't had a continuously clear night in a long while. The warmest overnight low came on the 5th when the mercury bottomed out at a balmy 52.5. The coolest afternoon high was a seasonal cool, 45.3 degrees on the 27th. Overall the average observed temperatures were 44.8 and 55.19 against my 16 year "normal" of 38.42 and 50.98. That was a toasty November!

As for precipitation it was seasonally pretty typical. I measured a satisfying 7.67 inches in the bucket against a normal 7.98 inches. Nary a flake of snow fell but that is really not unusual at all for November as the last 16 Novembers have had 9 without any snow, 2 with just a trace, and the remaining 5 having some legit snow ranging from 1-3 inches. The rainiest day came about on the 24th when a monsoonal 2.24 inches fell which was one of two days exceeding an inch and 7 days over a quarter. 21 days saw .03 or more and just two days could be called sunny. Yeah, it was November ;)

The local prognosticators are calling for a mass of chilly air to drop down out of Canada and the Gulf or Alaska next week and snow is in the forecast. Hard to say, some feel it will be limited to 1000 feet and higher but others think that we may get isolated, localized snow showers all the way down to sea level. We shall see, but one thing is for sure, December on average is the coldest month of the year and the second snowiest month of the year behind January. La Niña is supposedly in place and that does mean cooler ocean temperatures and a little less effective marine influence on local snowfall.

If it is gonna snow, isn't December the better month for it anyhow? Ho, Ho, Ho, let's have some snow!

Get out and soak it up my friends, soak it up.