Happy day-late Fall Equinox to all! The actual moment the Sun crossed the celestial equator this year, was 12:50am Sunday morning, September 23. It’s quite common for the Pacific Coast equinox to occur on the morning of the 23rd, in the year before a leap year. The fall equinox basically means that we’re halfway from “light” to “darkness” in terms of the annual cycle of daylight and sun angle. From now until March 19, the Sun is in the southern…
Wow….and we thought February was cold. The past two nights east of the Cascades, and in the Columbia Gorge, have set all-time records for March cold. Yesterday’s morning low at DLS was 8 F, the coldest March night in the airport’s 70-year history. This morning was 6 degrees, which will destroy the old record of 14F from 1955. Airmass temps over The Dalles bottomed out between -14 and -15 degrees C, on Sunday into Sunday night: That would be a…
Hello again! As you probably know, I don’t live in The Dalles anymore, but here’s one more Gorge-related post before I switch over to a new East Metro Blog. Whew..what a February! After nothing but boring and mild for the first two winter months, we’re sure ending strong. The running temps at DLS in Dallesport are 9.3 degrees F below normal for the first 20 days of the month. At PDX the cold anomaly is 5.5 degrees, making it the…
I hope you all had a very happy Thanksgiving this year! I was fortunate enough to be able to spend the evening with a group of dear friends from White Salmon. I’ve been going to potlucks with this “circle” for several years now, and plan to keep close ties with them in the future. We had a wonderful time telling stories and discussing our life plans. Which brings me to an announcement: I am moving to East Portland, very near…
Well this has been nice. The last two days in the Pacific Northwest, including the Columbia River Gorge and the Portland Metro, have had just about the most beautiful weather you can hope for in November: mostly clear skies and not a drop of rain to be seen. And we have at least another 5-6 days of mostly dry conditions on the way. Tomorrow Friday afternoon, there might be a few passing sprinkles as a very weak system brushes by…
It’s that perfect, magical time of year to have an extended stretch of clear skies, cool nights and warm days. And this year, we’re going to be incredibly blessed. After enduring an unusually cool and gloomy start to October, the middle of the month has turned decisively gorgeous. Today Saturday was our third sunny day. Yesterday Friday I took a drive up the Hood River Valley, to enjoy the turning leaves and the tranquil setting. I was not the least…
September is over and October is here, so let’s take a look at the numbers for DLS. The averaged high temperature was 78.2 degrees F and the averaged low, 49.6. That makes for a mean temperature of 63.9 degrees, which is 2.2 degrees cooler than the 30-year average. Believe it or not, this was the coolest September in The Dalles since 1986. I was four years old at the time. We had a string of very chilly Septembers back in…
Even though the astronomical calendar says we still have 10 days to go, I think most of us in the Pacific Northwest can now agree that summer is over and done with. We’ve been having consistently cool nights for a couple weeks now, with temps dropping into the low 50s whenever there isn’t too much wind in the Gorge. This morning was the coolest so far, at 48. Yesterday’s high temp was only 73 in The Dalles, and 69 in…
The calendar has turned to September, and with it comes the end of summer – as least as weather geeks define it. Meteorological summer is defined as the entirety of June, July, and August in the northern hemisphere. This is done mainly for calendar convenience. If you go by daily average temperatures, then summer in the Pacific Northwest and Columbia Gorge, runs roughly from June 15 through September 15. Other parts of the country see summer “peak” a week or…
The last several days in The Dalles, I’ve noticed the feeling that we’ve moved past the “peak” of our summer season. We’ve had a few nights with low temps in the 50s now. That always seems to start at some point in either the middle or late part of August. The heat hasn’t been too bad for the past week, but that may only have been because of thick smoke. Temps last week were slated to touch the low 100s…