Wet will rule region for a while
The moisture continues to flow in from the Pacific Ocean and our weather pattern has turned a bit milder, which has meant more rain than snow in the lower elevations over the past week. As of late Saturday, 54.1 inches of snow had been measured at Cliff’s station in northwestern Coeur d’Alene. The average snowfall to date is 47.1 inches, so we are still above normal. It’s almost hard to believe, but last year at this time, we’d had a total of only 31.1 inches of snow.
Of course, February 2019 brought a record-smashing 56 inches of snow to Coeur d’Alene. By the time the 2018-19 season was over, Cliff had measured a very healthy 96.6 inches compared to a normal of 69.8 inches. For the 2019-20 season, we believe that our final snowfall total may be around 80 to 90 inches. If sea-surface temperatures cool a bit and we get some of that cold Arctic air into the region, then we could see another year with a seasonal total in the 90s.
The overall weather pattern still looks wet across the Inland Northwest as more storms are expected to move in from the Gulf of Alaska. However, we don’t believe that February 2020 is going to be anywhere close to February 2019. For this year, we’re expecting about 10 to 20 inches of snow in Coeur d’Alene. We’ll also see more rain in February, but in 2019, all the moisture fell as snow, which was another record. The mountain areas will likely see around another 30 to 50 inches of snow, so skiing should be very good into the spring season.
In some mountain locations, last week’s snowfall totals were impressive. According to Seattle’s National Weather Service, Mount Baker received 85 inches of new snow with nearly 83 inches at Snoqualmie Pass. The Washington State Department of Transportation says Snoqualmie Pass has received more than 180 inches of snow for the season, nearly 50 inches more than at the same time last year.
It’s always a case of elevation when it comes to rain and snow. A few degrees difference in the lower elevations often makes a world of difference. It seems that we’ve had the record snows over the last year, like in February, September and October of 2019, plus the week in January 2020, but the big snows have come in pieces rather than all at once like in 2007-08.
In terms of our near-term weather, it looks like the pattern with more rain than snow will continue through the rest of the month. However, in the early portion of February, we should get a colder northwesterly flow from the Gulf of Alaska that will increase the chances for snow in the lower elevations. Then, we’ll see the moisture change from snow to rain as we’ll likely have a “back and forth” rain and snow pattern next month and into the middle of March.
Over the last few months, we’ve seen a lot of weather and nature-related events that have made international headlines. The bushfires in Australia were reignited last week as hotter temperatures along with strong winds fanned the flames. Firefighters did get some relief as a series of storms dropped some much-needed rain across the region. While some areas received heavy rainfall along with hail, some fire areas received very small amounts of moisture.
Speaking of Australia, a recent study says that the large Yarrabubba crater in western Australia has recently been dated to be approximately 2.2 billion years old. The crater is about 40 miles across and is now believed to be the oldest one on Earth. Based on the evidence, it’s possible that this impact could have put an end to one of Earth’s great ice ages, “Snowball Earth.”
It’s estimated that approximately 600 to 715 million years ago, our planet was covered in ice from the poles to at or near the Equator. Geologic evidence of stones that were carried by glaciers were found in the tropics in the early 1990s.
Scientists speculate that when the meteorite hit western Australia, the heat from the impact would have instantly vaporized large amounts of ice which, in turn, would release large amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere. Like carbon dioxide, water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, which may have helped to warm the planet and melt much of the ice that covered Earth.
Impacts from space rocks have been a violent part of Earth’s history. About 66 million years ago, a massive asteroid or comet hit the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and devastated the global environment and likely led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
And, there have been some recent close calls of collisions with these large space rocks. An asteroid came within about 43,000 miles of Earth in late July 2019, closer than the moon’s orbit. If the giant rock had hit, scientists say it would have released 30 times the energy of the atomic blast at Hiroshima.
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Contact Randy Mann at randy@longrangeweather.com