The Coldest Mid-April Period in Northwest History

We are in the middle of one of the extreme cold periods in Northwest history. 

Many locations are breaking daily and MONTHLY records for coldest maximum daily temperatures in April.  And to drive the point home, snow showers were observed around Seattle (see a WSDOT image from Auburn this morning).


Let's consider two-day average temperatures for April.   The last two days were the COLDEST at Seattle in April for the entire record (77 years).


Olympia?   The last two days were the coldest for April:


Pasco?  Monday and Tuesday were the coldest as well:


Yakima?  The last two days were the coldest.


Daily and monthly records are falling throughout the region.  Consider Monday, April 11..

Daily records  for the coldest high temperatures fell over the region (see below)


More impressively MONTHLY records also fell that day.


What about the low temperatures today? 

 Below freezing all over Washington and Oregon with teens in the mountains.  This is April folks...we are experiencing late December temperatures.
We are in the middle of one of the extreme cold periods in Northwest history The Coldest Mid-April Period in Northwest History
Want temperatures even MORE extreme?  The western slopes of the Rockies were in the single digits and even below zero this morning.
We are in the middle of one of the extreme cold periods in Northwest history The Coldest Mid-April Period in Northwest History
Incredibly, the daily high temperatures have barely risen to the normal low temperatures for this time of the year.

Even more impressive, the record cold we are experiencing now is nearly as unusual as the heatwave last June.   But where are the attribution reports?  The media stories about the record cold?

Want warmer temperatures?  You might try Siberia!  Believe it or not, it has been warmer in eastern Siberia than in portions of our region (see below, showing temperatures tomorrow mornng)



This cold spell is associated with an unusually deep trough of low pressure over our region.  There is the result of natural variability--there is no reason to expect global warming/ climate change has anything to do with it.  

As illustrated by a figure created by US EPA, cold waves are declining around the western U.S.--EXACTLY what you would expect with global warming.

We are in the middle of one of the extreme cold periods in Northwest history The Coldest Mid-April Period in Northwest History

_______________________

Reminder:  I will do a special session for this blog/podcast's Patreon supporters on Saturday at 10 AM.   Come with your questions....and I will talk more about the cold wave.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why so little lightning in the Pacific Northwest? And a very nice weekend ahead.

Image
During the past 24-hours, there have been a few lightning strokes over the region (see below) but nothing to write home about (see below). It turns out that the Pacific Northwest and the remainder of the West Coast have some of the lowest frequencies of thunderstorms in the entire country (see below). But why?    My podcast provides the answer. And I also give the weekend forecast....and I think most will like what I have to say. To listen to my podcast, use the link below or access it through your favorite podcast service. Some major podcast servers:     Like the podcast? Support on Patreon 
Read more

The Time of Year You Can See the Air Move

Image
  Most of the time, you can not see the air move.   You can feel it, but the complex, turbulent motions are invisible to you, except when it interacts with leaves and branches on trees and plants. But for a few weeks of the year, the sky is full of small, cotton-like tuffs that like a natural MRI machine reveals the complex three-dimensional motions of the atmosphere.   Cottonwood season.  And we right in the middle of it.   Being cottonwood aware is of particular value this year.  It reveals the active dispersion and movement of air that makes the outdoors essentially COVID safe, and thus should be of some comfort for those nervous about transmission outside. Cottonwood seeds are embedded in small cotton-like fibers.   A million seeds weigh about 3 pounds.  Yes, each seed and tuff weights about .000003 pounds.   And that fact, plus the cottonwood tuff, means that these seeds fall VERY, VERY, VERY slowly.   So slowly that they are excellent markers for the three-dimensional flow of the
Read more

A Much Colder Than Normal April: But How Unusual?

Image
  April was a chilly month over the Northwest, but how chilly?     It turns out the answer depends on where you are located. The difference between this April's temperatures from normal across Washington State (below) shows that the entire state was well below normal.  The eastern side of the state was particularly frigid:  some areas were more than 6 degrees below normal.   Considering the west side of the state, the April mean temperatures at SeaTac Airport are plotted below.   This April was the coolest since 2011. April 2020 was in 15th place for the coolest April since the mid-1940s and was a bit more than 4F below normal.  So if you felt that you were cheated out of normal spring warmth...you are right. But if you really wanted to experience extraordinary April cold you had to be east of the Cascade crest. Consider Yakima.  Wow.  It had the third coldest April temperature since the mid-1940s.   And the all-time record in 1955 was only slightly colder. If you want a longer-te
Read more