Inland Northwest Hay Weather

In our last blog, we were talking about the potential for a return of winter weather next week.  In other words, can you put away your winter gear, shovels, chains, etc?  At this point it still looks like it would be wise to wait.   The weather computer forecasts haven't really changed all that much from our previous blog.  But we're starting to see things in a bit more detail. We should see a few dry days here for the end of the week, as warmer high pressure builds over our area. But then on Sunday, a cold trough of low pressure sweeps down from Alaska into the Northwest.  This will result in a rainy Sunday.  So if weekend work matters to you, Saturday is your day to get things done outdoors. We're not looking at a lot of rain from this front.  Probably between a tenth to a quarter of an inch.  Part of the reason is that this front is moving from the northwest to the southeast.  That track isn't a favorable one for northeast WA.  Better for the Palouse and southern Pan

February is often the start of spring in the Inland Northwest.  But not always.  We've had a fairly mild winter, and so it seemed reasonable that February would continue this mild pattern.  And while we have had some spring-like days, with even a few convective afternoon showers, we've also had some cold (like this past week).   Things are going to warm up next week, back into the 40s.  But should we get used to it and declare winter over? First we'll start with the weather map for early next week.  Cool low pressure persists along the West Coast, but most of this storm is going south of us into California, with just light precipitation for the Northwest.  Again, typical El Nino.  We can see another cold system to the west, near the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.  This system is also going to go south of us. By the end of next week, that system that was near the Aleutians is now off the California coast.  Meanwhile we have warmer and drier high pressure over the western US.  B

With the snow having melted and the road weight limit signs going up, our thoughts are naturally turning to Spring.  Will the mild temperatures and rain continue?  First, let's look at where we are on moisture. In the Northwest, things overall are on the drier side, with pockets of above normal precipitation. Zooming in a bit, we can see that the Columbia Basin overall has had above-normal precipitation, while much of the rest of the state has had near- or below- normal precipitation.  This makes sense.  We have had very little wind this winter (only one windy storm I can think of).  So the Cascade rain shadow hasn't been a factor this year. Looking even closer at a few locations, we see precipitation is very close to normal for mid-February.  In fact, it's rare that it is so close to normal (I know, that sounds strange).  Here's the Spokane Airport trace since October 1st.  The green line is the actual accumulated precipitation for this winter, while the brown line is