Inland Northwest Hay Weather

It's been nearly 3 weeks since we've had any precipitation.  It is not unheard of to have long dry spells in the winter, but this one has been longer than the average.  But that streak will come to an end on Friday as snow returns to the area. Currently we still have strong high pressure to our west which has kept us dry, clear and cold.  But there are 3 areas of low pressure that will affect our weather over the next few days in a rather interesting way.  The first low is currently over Alaska, the second is north of Hawaii, and the third is out by the dateline. Low #1 is going to drop down to the British Columbia coast while Low #2 heads to the Pacific Northwest.  Low #2 will reach our area early Friday morning. Since Low #2 is coming at us from just north of Hawaii, it will a little on the warm and moist side.  Initially our precipitation will start off as snow Friday morning, before sunrise.  But as the day progresses, some of that snow will change...

Despite our recent chilly week, this winter has thus far been a very mild winter.  Could February change that? Typically, December and/or January are the coldest months of the winter.  But there are instances where February is the coldest month.  Here's the breakdown of coldest month for Spokane: December - 49 years January - 75 years February - 20 years The latest outlook from the Climate Prediction Center does show that this February could be on the colder and wetter side. But we've seen this before.  CPC thought that's what this winter would hold, based in large part on the expectation that this would be a La Nina winter.  So why should we believe this latest outlook for February? La Nina has taken a long time to get started, but it has finally developed.  You can see it in the Sea Surface Temperature anomaly map below.  Note the blue area in the Pacific along the equator. The Climate Prediction Center expects this trend to continue.  And so th...

As we've discussed in this blog, the winter of 2024/25 got off to a decidedly mild start.  So how does this winter compare to historical data?  The map below shows the temperature ranking for the U.S. for December.  Pink colors indicate that December was in the top 3rd of warmest Decembers ever, going back to 1895.  Orange color shows areas that were in the top 10% of warmest Decembers ever.  As you can see, much of the western U.S. was in the top 10%, including parts of eastern Washington and north Idaho.   After a very wet November, we had a pause in the action after Thanksgiving.  But the mostly-rain storms reappeared by the middle of December.  So for the 2 months combined, nearly all of eastern Washington has had above-normal precipitation, with the Columbia Basin receiving twice as much precipitation as normal. To put this in historical perspective, the precipitation we've had so far puts us in the top 10% of wettest November-Decembers....