Wintry Winter This Winter Be

This winter of 2016-17 has been in a nutshell, cold. Well relatively that is, I know folks in the North Dakota would be sweating like a hog in June with these temps we have. But this is not North Dakota, is it?

The annual average snowfall at my location over the past 16 seasons has been just about 8.5 inches; yet this winter season nearing the halfway mark, I have already measured 13.75 inches of fluffy white snow. And this is where the "cold" part is, that snow has stayed on the ground now for 22 of the last 45 days. Over my 16 winters at this location my average for the whole season is 14 days with at least a trace of snow on the ground. We are at 22 at the halfway mark. Of course it is entirely possible that no more snow will fall all year. If that happens this current snow will still lie here another 4-7 days before warmer temps and rain can wash it away.

In fact, this new year has yet to produce a temperature above 40 degrees. My year to date warmest high is a cool 37.9 degrees and every day this year has had overnight lows below the freezing mark, including 4 below 15 degrees. Average low so far has been a chilly 22 and the average high just 34 both marks WAY below my 16 year averages of 32 and 42 for the opening 2 weeks of January.

Cold snaps are a normal experience for any winter in this region, but extended periods of cold lasting more than a week are a bit uncommon. Of the 14 days that have passed this year, 4 of them refused to break the freezing barrier and those that did often did so for a only a couple hours or so. According to my hourly readings Starting January 1st at 12:00 AM and continuing till today, January 15th at 12:00 PM, 232 of 348 hours were below freezing. The mean daily temperature this year has been 28.4 degrees which is well below the typical daily mean of 37 this time of year.

The NWS in Portland seems to think that all of this cold air will washout with the series of Pacific storms that are approaching the coast now. They have made similar predictions on two occasions this season in which the cold air was more stubborn than they expected. So tomorrow night when the first of these disturbances move through, we shall see just how entrenched this cold air is. Meanwhile long term forecasts are suggesting more snow could be on the way for next weekend.

After the last two winters that only produced snow on one occasion each and with paltry accumulations, this season is delivering the goods as a wintry winter.