Inland Northwest Hay Weather

  At this point in the year, most folks have already posted their winter outlook.  And as usual, they are all over the place.  Here's a sampling of Farmer's Almanac and Old Farmer's Almanac (yes, they are two different outlooks). Accuweather even has a specific snowfall outlook for Spokane, which is a little below normal, but more than last year. How about the National Weather Service outlook?  Here's the December-January-February outlook for temperatures and precipitation. So what is all of this based on?  In large part, it's expected to be a weak La Nina winter coming up.  But with a twist.  Typically, La Nina will last through the winter and dissipate in the spring.  But this year the computers expect an early end to La Nina. Here's the various computer forecasts of the El Nino - La Nina index.  La Nina is expected to peak during the Oct-Nov-Dec time period, and by 2026, neutral conditions are favored. The reason that there is so much focu...

Just a couple of days ago we hit 80 degrees at many places, followed by a thunderstorm near Deer Park yesterday. And now we’re talking about snow? To be honest, a few of the computers were hinting at this a week ago, but I didn’t want to mention it. The computer models have really struggled with this weekend forecast. But now they’re coming into better agreement. The culprit is a deep low right over the Northwest, sending hard-to-predict bands of rain into our area. You can even see the low on radar, just west of Spokane. Rain from this low will continue Saturday night.  Then another round of rain could spin through the area on Sunday.  Meanwhile, cold air will be moving down from Canada The best way to view this is to look at the temperature forecast at about 5000 feet above sea level.  Here's that weather map on Saturday morning. And here's the forecast map for Sunday evening.  Notice how much colder (bluer) things are up in Canada, as well as our area north o...

While thunderstorms have been observed every month in the Inland Northwest, fall and winter thunderstorms are definitely in the rare category. But then again, temperatures near 80 on 9 October are also rare. (The record high for Spokane is 81 for this date, set back in 1934). The European model has consistently been showing a batch of showers moving through eastern Washington on Friday morning.  And the overall pattern does suggest the potential for a morning clap of thunder with these showers.  So don’t be surprised if you hear a rumble Friday morning.  This is just the lead up to a wetter weekend. It’s not going to rain for 2 straight days. But there will be periods of rain over the weekend and into Monday.  Here’s the Model Blend forecast of how much rain we might receive by Monday morning.  Around 1/4” in Spokane, with higher amounts to the north.  Temperatures will be decidedly cooler. Daytime highs on Sunday and especially Monday might not warm out of...

As I mentioned in the previous blog, there was the potential for September 2025 to set a record for the warmest September ever recorded in Spokane. Now that we’ve turned the calendar, we can definitely say that September 2025 was the warmest on record, going back to 1881. Here’s the top 10 list.  A few things to note. September 2024 is third on the list of warmest Septembers. And 2022 is in 5th place. Is this a trend, or is something going on at the Spokane Airport? If you’ve read other blog entries you know I’ve pointed out that the temperature sensor at Spokane Airport is surrounded by a lot of concrete runways and tarmacs, which could contribute to a warm bias. But in this case, that’s not the sole cause.  If we look at other stations in the Northwest, the story is the same. Below is a map showing the ranking of 2025 temperatures in September. Missoula and Yakima also had their warmest September on record, with other locations coming close to setting records, including Lewi...