The bright side of this late winter snow is that we may see fewer slugs and snails. Hate those little devils.
Do you think that my daffodils and other bulbs will die? I mean the foliage, the bulbs can live.
Daffodils were just about ready to flower and tulips had come up about few inches.

No snow for me (West Seattle, an in-city neighborhood of Seattle) but it felt chilly enough for it to fall. Vdixit, I bet your bulbs (and their foliage) will be fine. They've been conditioned with fairly chilly weather so far this year, and the temps haven't been super low recently. The biggest problems occur when spring has been quite mild, and a severe cold snap occurs late in the season.

I'm definitely ready for spring. And summer!
Take care,
Grant

No kidding! 6+ inches in S. Everett! How long has it been since we've seen that much? No snow about 20 miles south at Grant's, and I hear only 2" at my in-laws in Bellingham. Very strange.

Plants just planted in the fall - well, we'll see.

Maro

It's our lovely convergence zone. 7" at 318 ft elevation, NW of Snohomish. Would have been more but there was some melting mid-day between rounds one and two.

Now look what you've done!
Look at me!
I'm melting
Ohhh I'm melting
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The sun came out, snow's just about gone but still too cold to work outside for me. I guess we're all going to have to adjust to these changing weather patterns. So sad.

A.......

There's nothing unusual about this weather pattern, though, of course, the temperature for the last week or so has been colder than average. In 1989, we had a killer freeze with temperatures in the teens and 20's (9F at Olympia airport) on March 1-2 and lots of snow. In Feb 17-19 (approximately), 1990, it snowed more than two feet at my place near Olympia. It's rare for us to have a late season arctic blast, but convergence zone snows at this time of the year are certainly within the realm of normalcy.

I guess I was thinking about this winter in general. Horrific wind and rain storms, the likes of which I have never seen before and I've been around for a long time. Lots of damage done by both.

A......

Ah - well, the windstorm was roughly similiar in severity to the January 20, 1993 storm and still not even close to the intensity of the Columbus Day 1962 storm. I think one could possibly make a case that the rain event was exceptional, and that severe floods are occuring with increasing frequency. Many computer models have indicated that a rise in temperature will result in an overall increase in precipitation in our region. On the other hand, the problem could be more that flooding has been aggravated by years of detremental forestry practices and suburban and rural development. After all, the one-month rainfall total still didn't really beat the old 1935 record for Seattle (though the 2 month total did). It would be interesting to compare similiar data for Vancouver or other locations.

Facts vs. perception. A recurring theme on this web site. Another thing that it has been said global warming may bring here is darker springs.

Well, my "perception" is that it is a very rare winter that combines ALL of the occurrences and phenomena that many of us have experienced this season. Yes, we have the odd blustery, power-disrupting, tree-felling windstorm and dips into the 20's or teens are not all that uncommon, neither are sudden or late season heavy, wet snowfalls and 100 year floods are to be expected, oh, every hundred years or so. But to combine them all together, in multiple doses, and top it off with record-breaking rains (and yes we did break the '33 record, by .30 of an inch) is a bit more unusual than I can remember in my lifetime of living in this area.

You can be as nonchalant as you like about it with your facts and figures but no one considers this to be anything remotely resembling a "typical" PNW winter.

If you think this is wild you're going love it when darker springs, hotter summers, and other climatological dramatics expected due to global warming become a regular feature. Meanwhile, remember the idea I've mentioned before that golden chinkapin pollen in local bogs indicates the Portland climate comes up here at rather frequent intervals. If true, we could get their more continental conditions and still be within the normal parameters.

This winter has been very active and I see your point! But we've been treated to a lot of relatively benign winters lately as well (1997-98, 1999-00, 2001-02, etc.) so those weren't typical either!

To clarify: our November rains DID beat the 1953 record from Sea-Tac. While Sea-Tac also beat the 1935 record from Seattle (city office) by a small amount, that shouldn't count since that recording station receives, on average, less annual precipitation than Sea-Tac by a few inches. We DID easily break any consecutive two-month total from either location, which is exceptional; and the severity of the flooding that occurred without the contribution of snowmelt (since it was nonexistent at the time) is also remarkable. That's why I consider the rains to be the one really outstanding feature of this winter.... even more so than the windstorm or numerous snowfalls (most of which were not that deep, and some of which didn't effect a large proportion of the area). Let's remember we also had "100 year floods" in 1996, 1990, and (more locally) October 2003. That smells a little more like climate change to me than the snow or wind.

Some have also theorized that being in the cool phase of Pacific Decadal Oscillation, as we were in the 50's and 60's (some of those winters were very interesting... snow for weeks etc.), brings more extreme weather; and the warm phase brings more benign weather. That could be the reason most of us remember more benign winters. Climatologists percieved that we were re-entering the cool phase around the mid-1990s but there is some disagreement about whether this pattern has persisted. The effect of PDO on our climate is apparently still not very well understood compared to something like ENSO.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pacific Decadal Oscillation

Yesterday started with 5+" of snow here in north Clark County....that looked nice! It followed 3" two days earlier. Nothing in Vancouver since a dusting there on Wed. This morning it was still mostly there but after a night and day of cold rain it is 3/4 gone and still raining. I like snow, I like rain....I really dislike cold rains that come after a snow and run red mud into the melting snow. It is cold and miserable and absolutely nothing looks good in my garden right now. What looks especially awful is the formerly 6' tall and 3.5' diameter clump of Phormium Pink Stripe which has trived and bloomed, got badly damaged in the sudden freeze after the warm spell last winter....I finally hacked it down...it was mush to the core.....any chance it will come back or should I start excavating the roots. Looking forward to cloudy mid 50's this weekend....sounds really GOOD! jwww

The WIND this winter has been ferocious and nearly constant here. The rain the last 2 weeks is amazing! But the really awful change has been the relentlessly scorching burning frying dry long hellish long long long summers. Plants not watered during summer can no longer survive. Trees around here are visibly stressed. Villages and cities will have to find some way to catch and hold rainwater because we can no longer count on snow melt to keep rivers / reservoirs going in the burning too-long summertime.

This has certainly been the longest winter in the 22 years I have been here!! We lost several huge trees during the windstorm, but we were also very lucky that not one hit our house. However, I am still cleaning up and have some large craters in our yard.

Personally, I am looking forward to the "relentlessly scorching burning frying dry long hellish long long long summer"!

Mary

LOL! I've lived here all my life and I've yet to see anything that qualified as a "relentlessly scorching burning frying dry long hellish long long long summer"! Well, maybe the dry part :-)

I didn't think Clackamas county had that significantly different a weather pattern than up here.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "relentlessly scorching burning frying dry long hellish long long long summer" but here in the north Clark County cascade foothills we rarely get any rain between the 4th of July and mid September, we often get long episodess of hot drying east winds out of the Columbia Gorge, and can go a full month without any high humidity days let alone any morning unmeasurable (but significant) mists. I suspect Clackamas is at least as dry. jwww

Down there they are in the Willamette Valley climate, which starts north of Toledo.

If you really want to have a relentlessly scorching burning frying dry long hellish long long long summer and still be west of the cascades try the Rogue Valley. This Portland summer couldn't hold a candle to that!