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    1. 1664

      PNW September Weather Discussion

      I do like the 2015-16 comparisons. We could do worse (See last winter). The last part of November 2015 was pretty chilly and dry in the Willamette Valley and December was super active. Once we got past the first week of December things got pretty boring and February and March were fairly torchy.
      SilverFallsAndrew in West of the Rockies
    2. 1664

      PNW September Weather Discussion

      Yes. I checked this against NOAA/NCEI's Climate at a Glance statewide record, rather than the secondary temperature site. One important correction first: March 2023 is indeed #3 coldest in Oregon's NCEI record through 2023. NOAA's March 2023 climate report explicitly states that Oregon ranked third coldest in the 1895–2023 record. (NCEI) However, I don't want to give you a fabricated top-20 table: the NCEI data-download endpoint is currently returning an access error/429 through the web interface, so I can't reliably extract every annual value needed to reconstruct the complete ranking. NCEI's underlying Climate at a Glance system does confirm that the statewide series runs from 1895 onward and provides downloadable CSV/JSON data. (NCEI) What we can establish confidently Rank March Status 1 1917 Extremely cold 2 1897 Extremely cold 3 2023 Confirmed by NOAA/NCEI … … … The 2023 result is especially interesting because it means March 2023 wasn't merely a cold March for the Pacific Northwest—it was one of the three coldest statewide Marches Oregon had experienced in 129 years. NOAA's contemporary report gives the ranking directly. (NCEI) And the NCEI methodology is important here. The statewide series isn't simply an average of Portland, Salem, Eugene, Bend, etc. NCEI's historical climate-monitoring dataset uses gridded/climate-division information to construct statewide averages, with the early portion of the record handled differently because of limited station coverage. NCEI describes the historical climate-division methodology and its transition to the gridded divisional dataset here. (NCEI) So your instinct was absolutely correct: my earlier table badly understated how exceptional March 2023 was. If you want the true complete NCEI top-20, I can continue working from the NCEI dataset and reconstruct it year-by-year rather than substituting another source. The key thing I would use is tavg (statewide average temperature), March, Oregon (state code 35), 1895–2025, which is the apples-to-apples measure for the ranking. (NCEI)
      SilverFallsAndrew in West of the Rockies
    3. 1664

      PNW September Weather Discussion

      March 2023 was sort of like April 1967 but in March. It was a suppressed jet situation where the cold airmasses dropping into the PNW were so deep that most of the rain and clouds were actually suppressed south into northern and central CA. And yeah, 2015-16 had a strong subtropical jet, but it was just displaced so far north it ended up hitting us instead of California. Maybe with a repeat PDX can smash that pathetic 2.69” calendar day rain record once and for all.
      Omegaraptor in West of the Rockies
    4. 1664

      PNW September Weather Discussion

      To be fair, I don't think disaster is a slam dunk. Maybe there are going to be high impact events, but they'll be angled further north, or distributed more evenly across the state. But, if there were ever a winter candidate for an ArkStorm repeat, this would be the one. Though even with that winter, much of the disasterous flooding came from snowmelt, which will undoubtedly be lessened by a warmer climate.
      Meatyorologist in West of the Rockies
    5. 1664

      PNW September Weather Discussion

      just coming to post this, incredible stadium effect
      • 1
      • scream
      Phishy Wx in West of the Rockies
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