Early spring? Wish may be granted

Our extreme weather pattern continues across the globe with no signs of letting up. What looked like a promising start to the snowfall season across the Inland Northwest has many of us now wondering if spring will arrive much sooner than later.

The last good snow in Coeur d’Alene was 8.2 inches on Jan. 6. Since then, only 2.9 inches has been measured, making it one of the most snowless periods in recorded history.

In fact, last week’s temperatures were much warmer-than-average as some locations around Coeur d’Alene went above the 50-degree mark. At Cliff’s station, it was 50 degrees on Feb. 9, and on Feb. 10, the mercury hit 53 degrees at Kellogg, Fernan Lake and North Idaho College and 52 degrees at Post Falls, Dalton Gardens and Hayden.

In Coeur d’Alene, the warmest recorded temperature in February was 62 degrees, which occurred on Feb. 6, 1920. Highs also hit 62 degrees on Feb. 24, 1981 and Feb. 29, 1968.

Based on 30-year averages, we should be having afternoon readings in the low-40s at this time of year.

CALIFORNIA WARM-UP

Down in California, spring-like temperatures were reported across much of the state last week. In a few areas in the northern part of the Sacramento Valley, highs warmed up into the mid-80s at Red Bluff and Redding. The Sacramento area went into the mid-70s while highs in the mountains approached the 60-degree mark.

A rare heat advisory was issued for Los Angeles for Super Bowl Sunday.

The all-time high temperature in Los Angeles for February is 95 degrees, which occurred on Feb. 20, 1995.

By extreme contrast, it has been absolutely frigid in northern Alaska. For example, Beetles, Alaska, which is located in the north-central part of the state, reported an air temperature of minus 51 degrees Fahrenheit last Sunday morning. The normal is about minus 15 degrees.

In a remote far northern town called Deadhorse, the mercury went down to minus 50 degrees, but the winds made it feel like it was minus 88 degrees.

There was a wind chill temperature of minus 91 degrees at Howard Pass in northern Alaska, which was close to their all-time wind chill record of minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit back in 2014.

Despite the strong moisture totals in California in October and December, the big drought continues to hang on. Since early January, much of the Golden State has not received much rain in the valley locations with very little snow in the mountains.

Average snowpacks in the mountains were as much as 150% of normal at the beginning of the year. As of Feb. 7, though, it’s down to around 90% of average and will likely keep falling, thanks to the recent warm temperatures and forecasts of below normal moisture over at least the next several weeks.

The Sacramento Bee reported that residents of Southern California are prepared to pay millions of dollars for the purchase of water from the Sacramento Valley. It’s been so dry that water has been purchased from Northern California in eight of the past 16 years.

In 2020, a study published in Science reports that much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico may be in an extreme long-term drought worse than any other in recorded history. The research is based upon modern weather observations and new tree-ring reconstruction data dating back over 1,000 years.

According to an article from Columbia in 2020, based on tree-ring data dating back to 800 A.D., there were four major megadroughts in the western U.S. These occurred in the late 800s, mid-1100s, the 1200s and the late 1500s.

All of the “ancient megadroughts” were longer than 19 years and the one in the 1200s lasted for nearly a century. Other studies said that within the last 1,200 years, scientists claim there were two dry long spells in parts of California, each lasting for nearly 200 years and this current drought “is affecting wider areas more consistently than any of the earlier ones.”

TALE OF TWO WINTERS

In terms of our local weather, it may be a “tale of two winters” for North Idaho and surrounding regions. We started off with healthy snowfalls in December and January, then things changed and our snowfall pattern moved to the east.

However, Cliff and I believe that the end of February and into the middle of March may be another period of snowfall for the Inland Northwest. We don’t believe that we’ll have snow totals close to what we saw in December and early January, but there’s a chance we could get close to our 69.8-inch normal.

Stay tuned.