A Mild Christmas Week

Perhaps the best measure of how mild this "winter" has been so far is this:  Deer Park airport has yet to have a low below 20F.  That hasn't happened since daily data was measured at Deer Park starting in 1998.  The coldest night at Deer Park was 20F on October 18th!

OK, I know.  That's only 26 years of records.  What about Spokane Airport?  The coldest low so far this winter for them is 24F set on the 2nd of December.  The last time it took this long for the Spokane Airport to have a temperature below 24F was in 1953!  Yes, you read that right.   But here's the funny thing about the winter of 1953/54.  Through December, Spokane had only 5.9" of snow for the season.  But when the calendar changed to January 1954, the weather pattern changed as well.  Spokane got hammered with 46.5" of snow that January.  So as we all know, things can change quickly.

Turning our attention to the last 11 days of 2024, it looks like the mild weather will continue.  We'll have several fronts to finish out the year.  Most likely these will be rain.  But there is an outside chance of snow from them.

The first will be Saturday afternoon and evening, amounting to 1/4" to 1/3" of rain.  The next arrives Sunday late afternoon or evening.  This will be a little weaker, and probably bring around 1/4" of rain before in ends Monday morning.  The timing of both of these fronts isn't good for snow in a mild pattern like we're in.

The next front arrives early Tuesday morning.  Again, most likely this will also bring more rain.  But the timing does hold out hope of some snow, especially for folks north of Deer Park.  The amount of moisture with this front should be on the higher end, close to 1/2".  

All of the computers agree that Christmas Day should be dry.  But a lot of them have been flirting with the idea of a little snow by the next morning.  Even the ECMWF model, which is typically Bah-Humbug when it comes to forecasting snow this year.  But some cooler air moves into the area aloft before this storm arrives so there is a chance we'll get some snow.

More storm fronts move through our area during the last few days of 2024.  Most of them look like rain, with only a small chance of snow, especially for the northern valleys.  Temperatures will continue to stay mild.

For those of you wondering what happened to the "snowy La Nina winter" outlook, the best I can tell you is that La Nina still hasn't developed.  The Australians were skeptical that would, and so far, they are correct.  But the equatorial waters of the Pacific are still cooling, so La Nina could still develop for the second half of our winter.