Rain, Cold & Snow: A Northwest April For The Record Books

You’ve gotta love it when you’re just a couple of days from May and you’re playing Lacrosse in the snow!

That’s what’s happening in this picture that Kim sent in from Sisters, Oregon during a game on Thursday April 28th.

It’s not the only unusual thing about April 2011. In fact, for the Portland-Vancouver metro area, most things were strange. La Nina often leads to a spring that is cool and damp. But this time we went to the extremes on both of these things!

Portland’s April Headed Into The Record Books
Here’s the list of Portland’s rainiest Aprils–we’re number 3 this year!

• #1 – 5.26″ – April 1993
• #2 – 5.12″ – April 1996
• #3 – 5.04″ – April 2011
• #4 – 4.72″ – April 1955
• #5 – 4.57 – April 1988

And no wonder we’ve been complaining that it’s just been ‘too cold.’ Steve Pierce in Vancouver (he’s the Vice President of our local chapter of the American Meteorological Society) came up with these nuggets:

• For February, March & April: the coldest average three month temperature since 1975
• More than 15″ of precipitation fell in Portland during February, March & April: the 4th wettest on record (1940-2011) for those three months combined

The cool and unsettled weather lead to some ‘cold core funnel clouds, too, like this one north of Seattle. These funnels usually appear and then vanish without touching down–but they’re still spooky!

 Seattle: Record Cool April

• Seattle’s average high in April 2011 was just 52.2 degrees. That’s the coldest on record–in a city where records go back to 1891! That takes some serious work to pull that off
• 27 of 30 April days in Seattle were cooler than average
• Seattle had its fourth wettest April

And for a really interesting read — check out my Friday interview with Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort in Bend, Oregon — an all time record snow total this season: more than 52 feet! La Nina winters are supposed to mean big mountain snow. But this year? The biggest for some spots.