La Nina Delivers Wet, Record Cool March 2011 For Northwest

Updated: 3/31/2011

I tend to feel most sorry for golfers and gardeners as winter turns into spring on the calendar–but not in water logged yards or on mushy fairways.

And let’s face it: walking the dog in Washington and  Oregon has been a chilling and damp experience much of this month.

How about the kids playing at local parks? Uh, not too many of those, either!

La Nina Delivers Unusually Wet, Record Cool March for the Northwest

• Portland: the Portland Airport waits until March 31, 2011 to to hit 60 degrees–the high was 63. Before this, the longest Portland waited for its first 60 degree day was March 27, back in 1955 (based on 70+ years of records at this location). McMinnville, Oregon also broke it’s record set March 29, 1945.
• The wet: Portland rainfall totalled 6.43″ of rain in March 2011. The 5th wettest March on record. 
• Portland (and many parts of Oregon & SW Washington) had measurable rain on 28 of 30 days during March. The most rainy days on record for any March in Portland.
•  Rain totals were also helped by a record rain for Portland on March 10th: .68″ of rain breaking the old record of .59″ from 1977
• Other Portland rain records, too. But hey, I don’t have all day here!
• Seattle had measurable rain on 24 of 31 days
• Seattle had record rain March 10, 2011: 1.47″ of rain that obliterated the old record for the day, .83″ in 2003
• Seattle rainfall for the month was 6.29″ – that’s 168% of average!

The weather always creates winners and losers. The big winners in our wet start to spring, I think,  are the ski resorts in Oregon and Washington, including the ones on Mt. Hood. They’ve been having almost daily fresh snow leading to unusually large spring break crowds at times. 

And that growing Northwest snow-pack? We’ll need that later in the year!