February a mixed bag of chilly and warm

What a month. February turned out to be a heatwave wrapped in cold burrito! I managed to post two daily record highs in a row, a daily record low max temp, four daily morning low records in a row as well! All in the same month and the shortest month of the year to boot. After all the turmoil and the rollercoaster temps, the month came in almost dead average on both ends of the day!

This time I'll start with precipitation as the month came in bone dry looking more like Eastern Washington than Western Washington with just 1.86 inches of rain in a month that tends to produce closer to six inches. I did record 10 days with measurable precipitation but mostly drizzle aside from the 2 days with more than a 1/4 inch. The wettest day was the 28th with 0.64 inch that led the lion of March in, but that's a story for next month. 

February managed to produce snow on the 24th, but a very meager 0.5 inch at my house. It turned out that this minor snow event was highly localized as some areas saw more than an inch of fluffy snow. Some arctic air hung over the area for nearly a week and the tiny dusting of snow stayed on the ground in the shady areas for a few days.

Temps were the real wild animal of February. Despite the overall month coming in at an almost exact statical normal, Pat Timm's expression of "normal is just a collection of extremes" was ever present last month. The warmest temp of the month was a daily record high of 64.2º on the 11th which was literally 1/2 degree off my local all time high for any February in the last 21 years. The lover's month produced another daily record high on the 12th at 61.5º for two 60+ highs last month. But February was just getting started and these two warm days were the top of the roller coaster. Some modified arctic air decided to float over the top of us later in the month and it managed to deliver a few daily records for chilly weather. From the 22nd to the 25th four straight local daily record lows happened. The coldest being a 14.8º mark that I though might be my 21 year record low for February but it was short by 0.1 degree. February is not noted for frigid over night lows but that arctic mass had other ideas. That was one of two mornings with temps below 20º last month. I even had one daily record low max temp when the mercury topped out at 36.4º on the 22nd. That day was a day of strange timing. A weather system moved through the area in the afternoon dumping a chilly 0.19 inch of rain. Had that disturbance come in a little earlier over the top of the 23º morning low, that could have been a 4 inch snow event. 

There were only five days recording temps below freezing and the aforementioned two mornings with sub 20º marks. Also the two warms days above 60º. Six days last month managed to stay above 40º all day and night. There we only three days that failed to reach 40º at all but everyday managed to get above freezing. We had 10 rain days and 4 sunny days.  

The very tail end of February saw some heavier rain and that lead into the first few days of March with drenching rains to start us off. We'll have to cover that next month.

A Very Typical Start to the New Year.

Last month went down like a statistical norm. Temps averaged out to less than 1º under average by night and less than 1º over by day. Rainfall was an inch shy of my 20 year average, but still pretty 'normal' by my book. The month was not without it variances as I did manage to post two 20 year daily lows as well as three 20 year daily highs all with in the confines of a normal January.

The year started off right out of the gate with the chilliest morning of the month on New Year's Day posting a 19.4º low which to my surprise was the coldest January 1st at this station in 20 years, and the only temperature of the month below 20 degrees. This is one of two daily record lows at my house to fall the other a 20.9º mark on the 26th. That one less surprising as the latter part of January tends to see average temps rise quite a bit from the dark and chilly weeks around the Solstice. These two records were among the 10 days with sub freezing temps, a pretty typical number for January. 

The other three daily records were warm afternoon highs with the first on the 6th with a 55º day, then the warmest mark of the month at 58º on the 12th, followed up later in the month with a 56.7º degree reading on the 20th. The warmest overnight low came on the 13th with a mark of 44º one of six warm evenings in the 40s. The chilliest afternoon high arrived on the very first day of the year following that daily record low when the merc stopped at 36.8º well above the daily record and one of three days that were trapped below 40º. A total of four days managed to breach the 50º mark also not that uncommon. 

The rain gauge collected 6.04 inches of precipitation all in the form of rain. January on average is the 'snowiest' month but this year saw nary a flake. I've average 7.05 over the years so a tad under but still typical for the month. The wettest day arrived on the 6th with 1.48 inches which was the only day with over an inch and one of seven days over a 1/4 inch. January delivered 14 rainy days and 2 sunny days. Several of our would be 'clear days' came under a heavy inversion layer in which fog was stuck at the valley floors while the foothills and mountains were sunny and quite warm in the 50s. The foothills above a thousand feet had at least a dozen sunny days.

Will there be anymore snow this year? Well that's a tough one as 85% of our average snowfall comes in the three months associated with winter, December, January, and February. We were well above average in December this year, I posted 6.5 inches, but January was a zero. Odds are, some snow will come this month but even if we go a snow free second half of the winter season, we will still be at 75% of normal snow so I'll say we have a 65% chance of at least a dusting of snow before the season ends. 

Soak it up my friends, soak it up.