It is now officially spring, and a good time to check on how unusual this winter has been.
Meteorologists often do so by reviewing conditions over the water year (October-now), and I will do the same.
First, consider Seattle's accumulated precipitation during the present water year (green line, observed; red line, climatological average).
We have been a bit above normal overall! Wet periods in December and March.
Yakima, on the east, is similar, with a water year total near normal. There is a reason I have been discouraging the drought talk.
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Temperature? See below, with blue being observed, tan showing the normal range, and red/light below showing the record highs and lows.
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I know some folks are interested in climate change, so what do the long-term trends for water year temperatures and precipitation look like? (October through February shown below)
Consider the situation for Western Washington from 1896 to the present.
For temperature, this year was warmer than normal but not a record. Over the past 130 years, there has been a slow warming of roughly 1.5 F.
A modest global warming signal.
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Agree, living here most of my life I did not sense any real abnormalities, outside of the major floods in Dec, but even that is not unheard of around here. Most years do some flooding and periodically, we get a major one like we got in Dec.
ReplyDeleteAs for temps, not the coldest, nor the warmest, felt mostly normal, with maybe a touch less cold overnights as some years we get more hard freezes and got them this year no less, but nothing terribly unusual there either.
The snow in March was not normal, but a nice diversion weather wise nonetheless.
Those warm/wet periods and attendant thin snowpack added up to a very poor ski season.
DeleteWater situation is good. But due to the low snowpack....doesn't that leave a higher than normal probability of forest fires?
DeleteCliff is reporting actual, recorded data. There is nothing to "sense" or to agree or disagree with.
DeleteI know he was, and was just agreeing, and was addressing to most folks that tend to bemoan climate change, lack of snow pack etc.
DeleteWorking on the "flip" side of this trough/ridge pattern, its been quite cold and snowy in Alaska this winter. It's almost to the point of brutal. There are some houses with snow drifts up to the roof here in the village. Living in Hayden Idaho on my R&R the weather has been nice and mild this winter. I don't think I shoveled the driveway once! (My wife did maybe twice) It was a good "mix" of winter weather this season for me.
ReplyDeleteYakima Reservoirs today at 92% full or an amazing 144% of the historic average for this date
ReplyDeleteIs there any systematic effort to measure what percentage of seasonal precip falls as snow (vs rain)? I realize the delta is roughly evident when comparing % of normal precipitation against SWE % of normal, but I'm curious if there is a detectable trend that more winter precip is falling as rain.
ReplyDeleteThank you for assembling this wrapup. It helps to put the entire season in perspective.
ReplyDeleteI observed a record here at Alki.
ReplyDeleteFirst year my geraniums that I left outside did not get killed by a frost.