March Madness is not just for Hoops

What a crazy weather ride March 2019 gave us here in America's Vancouver. The coldest morning temp of the year arrived in MARCH. What? Yes a pair of back to back sub 20° mornings in fact one of which was low enough to lead the year, yikes. We had it all in March in fact the very first 60°, the very first 70° and the coldest day too. Crazy, we had some snow, some rain, some sunshine, wind, sleet, hail, lightning. It was truly a cornucopia of weather events.

Look at that chart! The first week of the month could have been a random January week. On March 6th the daytime high was only 34.9° for heaven's sake. The only real downside other than a bit chillier than average was the pitiful rainfall totals of just 1.26 inches for the whole month! That is desert dry my friends. We need some rain, seriously we should be around 18 inches thus far and I only have 7 inches in the bucket.

The temps were chilly the first half of the month and then almost on queue, springtime arrived right about St. Patrick's Day! I recorded nine days with temps below freezing which is a lot for March. 2 days dipped below 20° which is crazy for the third month. The coldest temp was a 19.4° mark on the morning of the 5th. The chilliest daytime high was the aforementioned 34.9 occurring on the 6th of the month along with a light dusting of snow. Things started looking up on the 15th when I recorded the first 60° mark of the year and two days later the first 70° arrived. March gave us a bunch of January weather, but also managed to spit out 11 days above 60° and four above 70° The warmest temp was recorded on the 20th the first day of spring, when the merc went to 74.1° The warmest overnight low came on the 21st at 49.5° The averages for the month were colder overnight and warmer by day.

On the wet side of things it was, well it wasn't actually. The previously referred number of 1.26 inches is dry, dry, and dry. The wettest day a damp but not soaking wet 0.45 inches and that was one of only two days to produce more than a quarter inch of rain. The snowfall was light with sticking snow on one day only about a half inch with only half of it staying on the ground for any length of time. The second snowfall was flurries only nothing stuck. Just 6 days with measurable rainfall in March and that is nuts.

April is here and with it the chance of any winter weather is down into the low single digit percentages. Spring has sprung, the flowers are in bloom and the weather will start down the long path towards summer. There is still a substantial amount of snow lingering on the foothills up in the 2000 foot range and that means there is a strong probability of frost for the next several weeks. Be mindful gardeners!

So don't forget to get outside and soak up the springtime, yes soak it up my friends, soak it up.

January was Late this Year!

Last month was actually February, we all know that, well all of us except 'Old Man Winter'. February 2019 was the coldest I have on record, yet it did not have any real cold weather. It played out a lot like a typical January even slighter cooler than average for that month.

February started out looking very February-ish with the first two days the warmest of the month the 51.6° mark on the 2nd would stand as the ONLY temperature at or above fifty all month. I have had a few arctic outbreaks over the years in February, but this wasn't really that. The coldest morning came in at 19.9° on the 7th which is chilly for February but not anywhere near my 18 year low for February which stands at 14.7° nor close to the all time record of -2°. Every day managed to get above freezing so my 18 year low maximum temp for the month was never even remotely in jeopardy as that stands at a nippy 22.2°.

Last month wasn't really about extremes at all. It was just chilly all month long. In fact all but one night dropped below 40°,  16 days fell below freezing,  and 11 days failed to reach 40° at all. We had no signs of spring, just a lingering chilliness that never ventured too far towards "cold" but other than the 2nd day of the month, never got anywhere near "warm" either. It was the third snowiest February of my 18 years of records, but February has been the snow-maker over the last 5 years actually.

On the mercury side of the stats, the other notable temps were the warmest overnight low of 43° on the 2nd which lead to that solo 50 plus later that day. That was also the only day that stayed above 40° all day and night. The chilliest afternoon was the 35.4° recorded for the 5th. That featured flurries all day long that managed to accumulate to about one inch.

On the precipitation side of things, this is the month that could have been the snowiest February on my records and even had the potential for an all time record. But two things happened ever so slightly that kept that from happening. The first snow-making system that came through was very light just an inch, then the second system came through that delivered more than 5 inches and could have been huge, except the storm tracked north. This was one of those counter-clockwise rotation deals and Seattle got the brunt of it. A near miss for us. The third system came through and just clipped us providing little more than flurries with almost no accumulation. That storm hit Eugene Oregon 100 miles to the south head on dumping 6-12 inches on that area. Another near miss for us. We very easily could have had a 18-24 inch snow month, but alas, we did not. February 2019 will have to settle for the Bronze. We did have some rain including 4 days with more than a quarter inch the most came on the 12th when nearly an inch fell at 0.91 inch. 

February delivered 7.5 inches of snow which is almost all the snow for the whole season. We shall see what March brings. March can go either way round these parts so I wouldn't count winter out yet. Today is bright sunshine and bold blue sky which should persist over the next few days. The coldish air remains in place for now however, and that means spring may have to wait.