The real "news" about January 2020 as far as local weather was the rain. Yes, winter in the Northwest tends to be a bit drippy, but we outdid ourselves last month with a solid bucket of rain nearly 9 inches deep. But soggy conditions were not the only story. It was downright balmy at times with pineapple express conditions. I had a few personal record highs and even a couple of record warm low temps!
All of this sub-tropical warm and wet was even countered with a little bit of winter in the form of a couple of weak snow producing systems that passed through mid-month. What a weather month!
Keeping with my monthly reporting tradition I'll start with temps for January. Overall the month was relatively warm, seriously warm. The average overnight low was 6° above my established normal and daytime highs averaged nearly 4 above. The warmest daytime high temp arrived on the 31st when my merc hit 59.2°, other areas around the metro were above 60°. That was one of 11 days that managed to break into the 50's and one of 4 days to set local daily record highs last month. The warmest overnight low came on the 31st as well when the mercury barely dipped below 50 with a 49.8° mark that is a daily record warm minimum temp for me. It was one of 7, yes
SEVEN daily record warm minimum temps last month! On the cold side of the equation there wasn't much to talk about and no daily record lows or record cold highs were even remotely challenged. The coldest morning came on the 15th with a 30.9° mark, yeah, above 30 degrees for the coldest temp in
JANUARY! That was one of only 2 days below freezing all month long. This is also only the third time I have recorded a January with a coldest low above 30°. The coldest daytime high arrived on the 13th when the merc topped out at 37.9° and wintry mixed precip was about. I can't overstate this rather warm January. 17 days had low temps above 40°. This has been the warmest 'mean temp' January I have had dating to 2002. In fairness, when you see the precipitation results below you understand why that happened.
Before I mention the precipitation totals, it should be noted that the wettest months of the year in this area are typically November and December. Those two months average at my house close to 8 inches each. January and February are wet, but typically average closer to 7 inches. January 2020 manages to put 8.94 inches in the bucket, not a record, but genuinely wet. January 2020 was my second wettest January dating to 2006 when I had 11.43 inches in the bucket and narrowly edging out January 2008 when 8.93 inches fell.
The incriminating factor was the fact that I measured precipitation on every single day in January. Officially I had 29 rainy days because I don't consider less than 0.04 inch of rain as "rainy." It is also notable that I did not record a single sunny day. Yes a few times the sun cracked through for a couple hours, but the whole month was all about those Northwest clouds and their innate ability to trap warm air at the surface. I measured 15 days with a 1/4 inch or more or rain, 4 days above a 1/2 inch and two of those were over one inch. The rest of the month was a seemingly relentless drip from above. The wettest day came on the 25th when I measured 1.25 inch of rain. Snowfall was below average for January but snowfall in this area is a bit fickle. I had 6 days with snow in the breeze but only two of those produced any sticking snow and both of those events were light and short lived. The most sticking snow I received was about 0.75 inch that lay on the ground on the 17th and was all but deceased by lunchtime. That whole period from about the 12th through the 17th was a "snow warning" that really never materialized below 500 feet of elevation and really was limited to high elevations above 1000 feet. I did receive a total of 1.29 inch of snow but of that only 1.25 inch stuck on the ground.
Looking ahead to this month we were rather toasty warm last night when at 12:01 AM my thermometer was at 59.2° following yesterdays high at 11:59 PM. The temp started falling overnight and continues falling to this moment where I now stand at 47.7°. The NWS seems to think that cold air will infiltrate our region over the next two days and snowflakes may start flying again tomorrow. We shall see. February is typically our transition away from wintry weather but it is no stranger to heavy snow and locals may recall that three of the last six Februaries brought significant snowfall and led all months those years in snow totals. For me at my station, February 2014 had 11.10 inches, February 2018 had 8.50 inches, and last February had 7.50 inches. You never know when it's gonna snow. If February passes without any snow, March is also no stranger to wintry weather, but I have only had one March that had a lot of snow and that was in 2012 when 7.85 inches fell. In short, it is still winter and very well may continue to be winter for the next 4-8 weeks. Only time will tell.
Soak it up my friends, soak it up.
The meteorologists consider March 1st the beginning of Spring but the "official" first day of Spring falls on the Spring Equinox which is March 19th this year. I have had a some issues with the network server updating my weather stats online. My station is fine but my charts and such are all messed up. I'll have to get it all sorted or buy a new Raspberry PI server. In the meantime, February was below average for rainfall, a tick above average on temps, well below average snowfall. The snow levels have been riding the roller coaster all month. Today the sun peaked out to reveal a heavy winter coat across the Cascade foothills down to about a thousand feet or so.
