Our ride on this November’s  “weather roller coaster” is officially back at the boarding gates.
We can get off now.
But what a ride it was.
It even included a real snowball landing right in the KIRO7 Weather Center!
It will be the cold snaps we remember most, I believe.
This picture from Pam in Gresham (above) shows the freezing rain many areas had on November 13 and 14, 2014 that left school buses and other cars sliding around for the morning commute after the storm.
That storm was part of a Portland ‘snow scare’ (ha-ha) that never materialized most places–instead it was the always lovely and enjoyable wintry mix.
Warm, Cold, Warm, Cold
People in Portland and Seattle and all over the Northwest started the month by talking about how mild it was, how this fall had been so easy for so long. That’s because the first 10 days of the month were well above average.
Then we hit mid-month and Portland and most of the Willamette Valley and southwest Washington had seven straight days with lows at or below freezing. There was the wintry mix on November 13 followed by dry, sunny, breezy and cold days through November 18.
Next, we decided to go to the other extreme late in the month with lots of places setting records for being so warm.Â
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PORTLAND OREGON
354 AM PST FRI NOV 28 2014
…RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES ON THURSDAY NOVEMBER 27TH 2014…
TROUTDALE, OR 62F 60F (1962)
 …RECORD WARM LOW TEMPERATURES ON THURSDAY NOVEMBER 27TH 2014…
LOCATION…………..2014 TEMPERATURE…….OLD RECORD (YEAR)
ASTORIA 55F 53F (1899)
HILLSBORO 53F 49F (1949)
MCMINNVILLE 54F 53F (1899)
PORTLAND 54F 48F (1983)
SALEM 53F 52F (1899)
VANCOUVER 54F 52F (1949)
By November 29th, I was up in Seattle doing my freelance weather thing at KIRO7 television in Seattle. And Seattle and many places in western Washington had snow that morning. We’d flipped back to cold.
 This was the top of my car with a dusting of snow as I came out of the news studio after several hours of extended snow coverage. Dry and cold air took over behind the storm as you can tell by all the sunshine around the Space Needle.
 The Morning and Noon Meteorologist at KIRO7 – @MorganKIRO7 brought in a snowball from the station parking lot. Hopefully the IT guys don’t see this shot–I might have put the thing a little close to expensive technology!
 And finally, the month ended with another cold blast. This picture shows fresh Octopus on ice at Pike Place on Sunday November 30th. But it was so cold in Seattle that just putting it out on a plain table probably would have been good enough.
Sunday November 30, 2014 Temperatures:
Seattle: Low 23 / High 37
Portland: Low 26 / High 39
Monthly average temperatures were very slightly warmer than average for Seattle and very, very slightly below average for Portland. So our extremes basically balanced each other out!
Both western Oregon and western Washington had lots of wind during the cold times. But there was something missing this month: endless rain!
Portland had 2.99″ of rain – just 53% of average
Seattle had 4.84″ of rain – just 74% of average
I hope you enjoyed your ride on November’s weather roller coaster.
Now please get back on board because December’s ride is just leaving the station!
Hi Bruce: I could say basically the same things as you in regards to the weather here in “the other Vancouver’ for the past month: A real “roller-coaster”! One difference though: We had slightly above normal precipitation. My total of 9.56 inches made it the 3rd wettest November for the past 15 years.