What a spectacular day today! It looks like the end to our warm winter though. January and February had well above average temperatures. In fact in January we were above freezing the entire month. The low temperature was 35.3 on Jan 8. In February we only dipped below freezing three nights: the 9th (30.8), the 21st (29.6), and the 22nd (28.5).

But we're supposed to get some cool weather moving in tomorrow night, and lingering throughout the week. Finally we'll get some snow in the mountains. The snow level locally is forecast to dip to around 1500 feet, maybe even as low as 1000 feet. It's been over two months since snow has even been talked about in the area. For Monday the forecast is talking about the possibility of small hail and thunderstorms. Could be an interesting day.

Happy New Year everyone.

That was quite a surprise snowstorm last week. The forecast was for rain, with perhaps a bit of snow mixed in at 1000 feet. But early Tuesday afternoon snow began in the entire metro area, and traffic was a nightmare.

I've been on a contract in Vancouver. I left early on Tuesday fearing it would be bad. I caught a bus in Fisher's Landing at 3:30, which normally would have gotten me into downtown Portland by 4:00, where I would have transferred to a bus back to Tualatin. Well, by 4:40 we were just at the Rose Garden. And I was thinking to myself, that was slow, but not intolerable - we still might get to downtown by 5:00.

Then things really slowed down. It took over an hour to cross the Marquam Bridge! And then, right where I-405 starts, it came to a complete stop. At there were cars, trucks, and buses all over the road. Some stuck in the middle of the road, some abandoned on the side of the road, and some slid out perpendicular to the highway, blocking multiple lanes. Quite a few people were walking around on 405, since nobody was moving. We heard that 26 was shut down, which I'm sure was contributing to the traffic. Another C-Tran bus had slid off the road and was blocking the shoulder and another couple of lanes. The driver of that bus asked if we could take his sole passenger, which we did . But we didn't move anywhere for the next 20 minutes anyway.

By this time, I was not confident that I would be able to catch a bus to Tualatin. The traffic on I-5 looked just as bad, and I wasn't sure Tri-Met would be running that late - I knew the schedule at this point was meaningless. So rather than chance getting stranded in downtown Portland, I stayed on the bus. We got to our first stop in Portland at 6:50 - three hours and 20 minutes after we left Vancouver. We made two more stops, and returned to Fisher's Landing at 8:00. Where I had made plans to stay over at Alix's hours for the night. She lives 16 blocks from where I work, and we got back to her place at 8:30.

So, I left work at 3:00, and 5.5 hours later ended up 16 blocks from where I started. I've never seen traffic that bad, and from what I saw in the news later, it was like that on just about every road. I-5 had a 14 mile backup from Woodburn all the way to Tigard. And we only got 3-4 inches of wet snow. OF course it was converted to ice on all the highways, and I think it caught just about everyone unprepared.

Well that concludes a very cold week, the coldest temperatures I have ever measured with my weather station. Starting on Wednesday, Dec 9, the lows for three consecutive days were 12.4, 14.2, and 14.6. Here in Tualatin, the storm that was our transitioning out of the cold weather never really materialized. We didn’t get any snow, and just a little bit of rain yesterday (.05”). Over night it dipped back below freezing, and the moisture on surfaces froze, so it was a little slick today. But nowhere near as bad as the forecast had been predicting. At least here, some areas got hit pretty hard. I understand I-84 is still shut down in the Columbia River Gorge. That seems to becoming an annual event.

I added a couple of new features to the web site this weekend. On the main weather page, I have styled the data so that anything that is a record will stand out. You can easily see for the day any records that have been set. Remember, this is just for my station, I only have data since October 2000.

I also added a section to the Records page that lists any notes I recorded on that date in any prior years. Most dates won’t show anything, I’ll only be recording notes on dates with noteworthy weather. To see an example of how they will appear, you can select any of the dates from our heat wave this past summer, such as August 1.

Seasons Greetings!

Well winter is certainly here. It’s been quite cold and tomorrow’s supposed to be the coldest day of this stretch. Today’s high was only 33.9. But as of now there’s no snow in the forecast, and it should start warming slowly after tomorrow.

A month ago, my friend Rich came out for a visit and we went to Cannon Beach for a couple of days. Here are a few pictures from that trip.

Have a great holiday everyone.

I’ve had my weather station for almost 9 years now. It’s a small sample size, but just large enough that I often ask myself questions such as what’s the highest temperature I’ve ever recorded on this date, or how often does it rain on this date. So I’ve created a new page for records and averages. Despite the small sample size, it can be pretty interesting. For instance, yesterday was the first time it had ever rained on Sep 6 since I’ve had the station.

Eventually I plan to do more with this page. I’d like to somehow tie in the records with the current day’s weather. I’ll also probably add the ability to choose a different date other than the current date. But this seemed like a good start, and I wanted to get the page published. Enjoy.