A Cold Spring So Far...

I had about an hour of extra time this evening, so instead of catching up on work (like emails that are clogging up my inbox), I decided to see how chilly this Spring has been so far.  Looks like (as of April 22nd), we are in the running for 5th coldest March-April average temp.  So of course the next question in my mind, and I assume in many others', is:  So what happened in May?  The answer surprised me.  Looks like most of the really chilly springs aren't ALL that wet.  The other 4 Mays were all under 1.50" rainfall.  So maybe there is hope for drier and warmer weather?  Or maybe I'm just really reaching out for some improvement and I'm not being realistic.
By the way, I used a couple of pictures from Jerry in Vernonia tonight.  They show the same spot April 19th this year and April 1st last year.  It's very clear that this growing season is far behind last year's.  The pictures are off to the left in the Viewer Photos album.
Today's wind was a surprise, obviously upper-level winds surfaced FAR more than expected.  When was the last time you've seen 3 millibars EUG-PDX produce 35-50 mph wind gusts?  Usually we'd have 6-10 millibars with that kind of wind.

Moving on, I'm just about out of time here, so the sad weekend story is that a warm front is going to linger over us much of Saturday...so the warm/dry Saturday forecast is gone.  Hope is still there for Sunday...keep your fingers crossed!  Mark Nelsen

Comments

[Cherie in Vernonia]

Well, it was CLEAN water....something to wash away some of the mud still visible on the streets.
I know about flooded gravel. Our entire self storage business is a gravel lot. It was moved & re- moved along with a trailer that floated away & a shipping container turned completely around.

[HIO Phil (Punxsutawney)]

Cherie,

I'm glad you can find humor in the movie company watering down the roads after everything you have been through this last December. There was water damage to the gravel road to our property outside of Gales Creek but nothing like Vernonia.

FYI: Long time Lurker, just starting to post.

Correction to earlier post: Late February was pretty much average.

[Cherie in Vernonia]

way..way...way off topic..

You should see the crowded streets, flaggers, & movie lights on the streets of Vernonia today. Traffic is a MESS cuz they are filming part of the movie "Twilight" here today. Funny side note....they had to run a water truck thru town so the streets would be WET!!! Who would ever believe??

[Cherie in Vernonia]

54 in the shade & glorious

off topic......

Since I can no longer take the car to the car wash cuz it leaks so bad.....AND since the weather is nicer than i had expected.... today was car washing day. The windshield on the pickup must leak too since there was more frost on the inside than on the outside??
Think i need to go to a glass shop & have them both looked at. Spent a ton of $$ having new seals put around the T-tops....but still leaks RIVERS. Shop vac'd a quart out of the back last time it snowed & it was under a car cover AND a blue tarp!!!

[TheTriforce]

I wonder when Salem had their laterst freeze? since, In those conditions the valley does best. :)

It's 61.3F now.

[HIO Phil (Punxsutawney)]

32 Degrees at my home at 5:00 am this morning in Hillsboro. According to the Western Climate Center the last freeze in Hillsboro was May 29th.

Jacob - So it has been cold with low snow levels in late January, February, March, April!. So maybe we will have some snow on the Rose Parade this year. ;)

[HIO Phil (Punxsutawney)]

Test

What no way! It never got to freezign last night. I check every moring when I get up to take care of "business" and will remember a 32F spell since I have a big intrest when it goes to 32F. I would have remembered.

Now on to the weather report.

[B1900 Pilot Bethany (400')]

Did you notice this in the Forecast Discussion?
A CLIMATOLOGY NOTE...IF THE LONG RANGE FORECASTS VERIFY AND WE DO
INDEED GO BACK INTO A COLD UPPER TROUGH NEXT WEEK...OVERNIGHT LOW
TEMPERATURES WOULD ONCE AGAIN FLIRT WITH THE FREEZING MARK IN THE
PORTLAND METRO AREA ON ANY CLEAR NIGHTS. THE FIRST WEEK OF MAY IS
GETTING INTO ALL-TIME RECORD TERRITORY FOR THE LATEST FREEZE IN
PORTLAND. ACCORDING TO OUR RECORDS...THE LATEST SPRING TEMPERATURE OF
32 DEGREES OR LOWER FOR PORTLAND WAS ON MAY 2 1964.

[TheTriforce]

Quote "Weather folks

Don't look to next week for a warmup--the weather God is going to stick it to Gore--he is going to need his millions just to keep warm--then we'll see just who's in charge of the weather and who's RIGHT!!".

Yeah Gore come on down for some Global Warming on your expensive dirty airplane and gum up the atmosphere. X:O

by the way: Global Warming isn't even happening at least as of now. There is ice recovering remarkably quick up north.

[Sandi (Wilsonville)]

This morning around 6:30 am temp on our old fashioned thermometer was 30° and ice had formed on our hot tub cover. Near I-5 & Willamette River.

[Vaportrail]

Test. OK. Good.

[sds/N. Clark Co.]

Weather folks

Don't look to next week for a warmup--the weather God is going to stick it to Gore--he is going to need his millions just to keep warm--then we'll see just who's in charge of the weather and who's RIGHT!!

Your test worked!

test

[Mat ne portland]

I drank about a six pack around noon today. It was still gloomy. And no I'm not at the same place. PCR sold to another company and it really went downhill. I am currently in construction now and don't really feel the need to go back to restaurants.

[luvry]

Matt, go drink a beer, the day won't be as gloomy.
BTW, tell me your hours and days you work again...still at the same place?
I'll try to get in there with my gf sometime soon if you're still there.

[Mat ne portland]

Well, a pretty gloomy day AGAIN here in Portland. Starting to look up though as the liquid sunshine seems to be tapering off. 52.2 here and headed down at the moment.

[GradientKeeper~AtmosphericWrath -Far S.E Portland-]

Yep, I was the hider, the weather ghost.
I was the one that posted about the gradients being weak and surprising to see how they produced the winds they had. I wanted to go into detail about it, but that would have given me away. It sure was a very gusty day. As far as today goes had a pretty heavy shower about 2:00 PM.
As Bobby said yesterday I also was actively down in Dallas all morning, day and to about 8pm on the Fox4 live chat helping the folks there. The thing I remember most was everyone saying how they had not seen a light show like that for a very long time. I believe they had somewhere up to 3,000 cloud to ground lightning strikes in Dallas/Fort Worth over a 15 minute time frame. That equals out to 3 per second. Insane.
Well as usual I was vigilant in tracking individual cells, rotation, and providing my analysis. Here is the hook echo I took as it passed Granbury, Texas (Just west of Fort Worth)
Base Radar - http://img30.picoodle.com/img/img30/4/4/24/f_607PMRadarBm_4d0f9b2.png
Storm Relative Velocities -
http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/4/4/24/f_445PMRadarSm_484a03a.png
There was 3 or 4 people from Granbury in the live chat session asking, "How's it looking for Granbury we have tons of lightning here", and myself and 3 others were showing that image telling them to take shelter. It amazes me how people seem to choose to be unaware or foolis quite frankly if you ask me when tornado sirens are going off and they seem to be taking to action, not being prepared correctly.
Once again Dallas/Fort Worth was spared if you ask me. Sure they had a lot of wind/hail damage, but it was mainly confined to west and south of the metro area.

[Luvry]

Heat, you are a character...nothing like one of your posts to keep us entertained on a boring weather day...keep it up buddy! Hope you had a great birthday!

[TheTriforce]

So the "Weather Ghost" was you Salem Phil. The suspect has been uncovered. (Fox 12 Media begins pouring in to SalmePhil's house and asks 10 questions at once)

Media guy 1: Did you know it's 49.8F in Silverton?

Media Guy 2: Yah but it's still overcast there and a light drizzle and a whopping .12 of rain since yesterday.

Media Women 1: Well that sucks. I was hoping to go to the Garden's for dry weather and check out Silverton. Looks like that will be on hold. (Drives borrowed Dimension machine back to the Studio and tells Mr.Nelson about the bad news of not going to report at the Gardens due to incliment wather) :(

[Vaportrail]

Strangeweatherways, herewecome

[Boring Larry in Cherryville el.918]

...i sense a general discontent with this cold rainy crap (sorry Mark)...
and now my biggest worry...plants are so very way behind schedule; methinks hay fever season is going to start in a major pollen explosion..get your Flonase (trademark R) soon.....

[salemphil]

UM ok whatever lol It says I need to sign in but shows my name now!

[salemphil]

That post to Triforce was from me...salemphil. I was signed in but typepad must have been in a bad mood lol. OH and this time I know I am not signed in!

[jacob BPA]

Im still looking forward to Snow in July

[Cherie in Vernonia]

Hey TV....I thought the good weather didn't start til after the fireworks in July :0)

Summer in Oregon = the best 20 minutes of the year!

Hey Triforce, we actually lost power here at my place yesterday for a few minutes. Came home and all the clocks were flashing and I had to reset the computers. Could have been from something other than the wind I suppose, but I doubt it.

[Ice]

Agree. The cold weather is very tiring... :( I hope that every thing would be a lot better son! :D

[TV Weather Producer]

Timmy and Kirk are on the game tonight. I like rain and I love cold weather, but I'm even starting to get burned out. Its mid April. I'm just looking forward to mid June, post Rose Festival. Thats when the good weather starts.

[kirk]

1st runner up !!

[timmy - scappoose]

first