Inland Northwest Hay Weather

As I spelled out in the previous blog, we would see a return of snow into the forecast later this month. That still looks to be the case.  A major weather system will dive south of us and head into California this weekend. They will be the weather news maker.  But a couple of weak weather systems could also move through the region this weekend.  The first should arrive Friday night.  This will mostly be in the form of rain but some snow is possible. Another weaker and less certain storm could move through here on Saturday night or Sunday with more chances of rain or snow. By the middle of next week, the entire West will be under the influence of a rather cold weather system.  For our area, there will be a chance of snow each day starting about Tuesday the 17th and continuing for several days.  At this point we don’t see any strong storms, although there could one lurking that we just can’t see yet.   But the atmosphere will be very unstable.  Snow...

They’ve had very little use this winter. But they’re probably still handy, just in case. Our snow shovels. Will we need our shovels anymore this winter? We are expecting a pattern change due to a rather wet weather system this weekend. Here’s the best guess of rainfall from the National Blend of Models.  A half inch around Spokane with more over Pend Oreille county.  Some models focus the rain south of Spokane, so there’s still some uncertainty.  The rain will spread across the Cascades late Saturday afternoon and evening.  Then there could be a break on Sunday morning before heavier rain arrives during the afternoon and evening  the precipitation has a chance of changing to wet snow Sunday night north of Spokane but shouldn’t have any impact   Behind these storms cooler air will move into the region.  Nothing cold.  Highs will still be in the lower to mid 40s.  Next week will be mostly dry with a small chance of rain or snow showers.  N...

To say it’s been a mild winter so far would be an understatement. How mild?  Here’s the temperature departure from normal for the last 90 days.  Crazy warmth in the West. Parts of the central Rockies are more that 10 degrees above average. That’s huge. Meanwhile it’s been cold in the East.  Just for fun, here is the temperature outlook from the Climate Prediction Center issued in October for the same time period as above. They didn’t show any below normal temperatures anywhere in the lower 48 states. They said the Northeast would be warmer than usual. Not their best outlook. Let’s zoom in on the Northwest. Just about everywhere east of the Cascades has been at least 4 degrees warmer than average, with some locations more than 6 degrees warmer.  Here’s some interesting graphics. When you average all of the temperatures in each state and rank them, December 2025 was the warmest December on record (131 years of data) in several western states, including Washington and O...