Febuuurwary 2021.

February turned out to be mostly normal save for that one wild weekend at the Presidents Day/Valentines holiday. I saw a few daily records broken and even a month record over the 19 winters I have recorded at this location. That was fun. 

First let's talk temperatures. February on occasion can deliver some frosty temps but generally by the time the 2nd month arrives things are already starting to get a bit warmer. That big mass of arctic air that gave Texas the coldest winter temps ever recorded did not hit us near that hard. But I did have a few daily records fall, quite a few actually. The four days from the 11th through the 14th all recorded daily records for lowest maximum temperature. The 11th surprised me as the temp did get well above freezing, but anyway the daily highs were 36.1°, 28.1°, 33.1°, and 32.8° respectively all daily records for coldest daytime high. The all time coldest February daytime high in my 19 winters here is 22.2° back on February 6th, 2014. Although the heavy cloud cover all week leading to the snow event kept the overnight lows relatively warm, I did manage to muster two daily record lows on the 12th and 14th with 24.3° and 28.2° respectively all under cloudy skies. The coldest temp came on the morning of the 12th with that 24.3° of course nowhere near any monthly records. My all-time low for February is 14.7° and the official all time low dating back to 1950 is -3°. The coldest afternoon high also came on the 12th with 28.1° under snowfall. The warmest temp of the month was a nice 55.3° on the last day the 28th. The warmest overnight low came on the 21st when the mere only dropped to 43.6°. 

February delivered seven sub-freezing mornings and two days that failed to get above freezing at all. The month had five days that failed to make it to 40° but five days broke over 50°. Overnight lows were about dead average for a February but daytime highs stayed nearly 4° below average with lots of cloud cover.

The real news last month was the snowfall. We don't get many snow events with a foot or more of snow, but that is exactly what most of the northern part of the metro area got. I received a total of 12.5 inches over a four day period the bulk of which fell on the 13th. In fact 7.5 inches landed softly that day which is the single highest one day snowfall in February for my records. It however is well short of my all-time one day record January 6th, 2004 when I got 10 inches. It started aggressively snowing around 4pm Friday dropping the 7.5 inches by midnight that's almost an inch an hour! 

Overall precipitation was a tad lighter than average, with 4.78 inches about an inch and a quarter light. The wettest day was actually the snowiest day with roughly a 1.1 inch water equivalent. I had 6 days with more than 1/4 inch and 17 days with precipitation. This was a very cloudy month with just one day qualifying as "sunny" and barely so. Four days had frozen precipitation. During the snow event, there are all three types of winter precipitation mostly snow, but a bit of sleet and some freezing rain were in the mix as well.

March started of with temps approaching 60° and I am certain some areas topped 60°. Looking like a spring tease me thinks :) We shall see but I have not ever had a major snow storm in February followed by a big snow event in March. Winter isn't over, but I think Snowzilla is done for season.

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

2021, First Month in the Books

January was warm and wet, kind of warm, really wet. This winter has been very mild. If we don't get a late season arctic event we will end up as one of the balmiest winters in the last twenty years. 

Last month was rather wet and that typically translates into warmer temps. My observed averages looked more like November or February than January. 3° above normal for the lows and about 2° warmer by day. I had six days in January that broker above 50° and one day got super close to SIXTY! In fact the official measurements at both PDX and Pearson hit 61° on the 13th when I had 59.4° here. That same day resulted in the wettest one day rainfall of the season with 1.96 inches in the bucket. Yeah, that's pineapple express. I only had five days that recorded a freezing temp and everyday managed to get above freezing in the afternoon. The coldest daytime high was only a couple of degrees under the "normal" high, that was a 39.1° mark the afternoon of the 26th when the only snow of the month and season so far fell. It wasn't much. The warmest overnight low was 45° mark the morning of the 2nd. Every day save for two made it into the 40s. The coldest overnight low was a seasonably chilly 24.8° on the 23rd. There were eleven overnight lows that stayed in the 40s!

I mentioned pineapple express and that was the scene for most of the month with warm temps and buckets of rain. I measured 8.4 inches last month against the more typical 7 inches. The warm temps kept the snow levels high and the lower foothills saw mostly rain. Higher up the snow came down by the yard. The wettest day, the aforementioned 13th with a balmy 59.4° high and nearly 2 inches in the bucket. That was one of seven days producing more than 1/4 inch of rain of which five produce more than 1/2 inch and two over an inch. There were 24 days with precipitation. The only snow event was a paltry short lived 1/4 inch on the 26th. Most areas down low saw nothing stick and not much more than flurries, higher plains around 300 feet saw the light dusting hang around for an hour or so. Weak sauce. This is early yet in the second half of winter, so there's still time, but if no more snow falls this season it will be the least snowy since the winter of 2002-03. 

The outlook for the rest of winter is a bit questionable. Right now there is a dip in the jet stream sending heavy rain into California. Sometimes these dips can let cold arctic air invade the region. Over the last ten years we have had several cold events with heavy snow in the second half of winter. 

• February 2011: 5.8 inches (9.4 inches total season)
• March 2012: 7.9 inches (14 inches total season)
• February 2014: 11.1 inches (12.9 inches total season)
• February 2018: 8.5 inches (11 inches total season)
• February 2019: 7.5 inches (8.3 inches total season)
• March 2020: 3 inches (5 inches total season)

You can never really tell for sure, so we will just have to see. Soak it up my friends; soak it up.