What happened to spring?
Except for the occasional day or two of sunshine and 60-degree weather, this April will go down as one of the chilliest in recent memory.
“We’re in the top 10 coldest and top 10 wettest, but not the coldest and not the wettest,” said Chris Burke, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle, on Wednesday.
While the all-time records are safe, winter isn’t going down without a fight.
The snow level was expected to drop to about 500 feet in the North Olympic Peninsula lowlands this morning. Showers are likely in Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Sequim and Forks today.
“We’ll be struggling to reach 50 tomorrow anywhere in the state,” Burke said.
“It’s a run-of-the-mill storm. It’ll rain, and it’ll get pretty cold. The upper-level trough is pretty deep. Tomorrow morning, you’ll have some showers,” he said.
“I think you’ll be able to see snow in the hills south of town.
“There’s nothing really unusual about that, except that it’s April 28.”
Burke said we are experiencing La Niña’s “second half of the winter effect.”
La Niña weather patterns typically bring cold and wet weather to the Pacific Northwest, especially after the first of the year.
La Niña is caused by the periodic cooling of the surface of the tropical Pacific Ocean.
It is the opposite of El Niño. Both can have significant impacts on weather by changing the movement of winds and high- and low-pressure systems.
“The first half of winter was kind of normal,” Burke said.
“For the second half, from January on, it was wet and cold.
“January was lousy. February was average. March was lousy. April — I don’t know, I think spring has got to do with the weather, not the calendar.”
However, Burke said today’s weather disturbance “might be winter’s last gasp.”
The weekend is shaping up to be nice, he said, with sunny skies and highs around 60.
“Sunday is definitely going to be very nice,” Burke said.
Climate Prediction Center models show a greater-than-average chance of below-average temperatures — and above-average precipitation — for May.
Long-range models predict an average summer in the Pacific Northwest as La Niña loosens its grip.
The cold and wet weather of the late winter and early spring may be a good thing for irrigators and recreationalists this summer.
Snowpacks in the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges have an above-average water content, Burke said.
The Olympic snowpack was 90 percent above normal earlier this month, leading the state for a second year in a row, said Scott Pattee, Natural Resources Conservation Service water-supply specialist.
The average high temperature at the National Weather Service climatology reporting station at the Quillayute Airport near Forks is 49.9 degrees this month.
That’s nearly 6 degrees cooler than the historical average of 55.7 degrees.
Forks’ precipitation for April is about an inch below normal — 6.6 inches — compared with an average of 7.4 inches. March, however, was 7 inches above normal, at 17.9 inches.
The Quillayute Airport is the only local climatology reporting location on the North Olympic Peninsula, Burke said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
