Spokane7
53°
March 3, 2010 in City
El Niño expected to keep weather moderate until spring
It was a beautiful day for a ride Tuesday. Last year Hangman Valley and Baltimore roads were still under several feet of snow, but this year bicyclists and runners are out in full force to enjoy the scenery of the popular recreation route along Latah Creek.
(Full-size photo)
By now it’s no secret. It’s been a mild winter.
So mild, in fact, that the first two months of this year ranked as the fourth warmest January and February in Spokane since record keeping began in 1881.
In addition, snowfall totals are on pace to be among the lowest recorded in the city.
Mild weather since the start of the year underscores a prediction that El Niño warming in the tropical Pacific will be kind to the Inland Northwest after back-to-back brutal winters.
Forecasters said El Niño’s influence is expected to continue for now.
“There is no sign of stopping it,” said Ron Miller of the National Weather Service in Spokane.
The early-season prediction of moderate El Niño has actually become a borderline strong El Niño, strengthening the trend toward mild conditions and lower snowfall amounts in the Pacific Northwest as well as heavy precipitation to California and the Southwest, Miller said.
Spokane had an average temperature of 36.4 degrees over the past two months, which is 6.6 degrees above normal.
Similar mild winters occurred in 1934, 1953, 1958 and 1983, with 1934 being the mildest with an average temperature of 38.4 degrees over the two-month period.
The city has seen only two other winters that brought less snow, according to records.
Spokane International Airport, the city’s official weather-monitoring site, has reported 13.7 inches of snow this season.
If no more snow falls this season, it would be the third lowest total since snowfall measuring began in 1892.
It also would be the lowest snowfall total since the official monitoring site was moved from Felts Field to Spokane International Airport in 1947. Observations were taken downtown from 1892 to 1931.
Meteorologists said the higher elevation at the airport at 2,372 feet results in greater snowfall amounts. Downtown is at about 1,850 feet.
Two lower snowfall totals were recorded in the 1933-’34 season, when 9.5 inches fell, and in the 1904-’05 season, with 11.1 inches.
Returning farmland to a state of nature 
smarg on March 03 at 10:36 a.m.
Stop with the global warming agenda, please. Remember, just a few years ago we made national headlines with the record snowfall. Thanks.
masomenos on March 03 at 11:27 a.m.
What about this article represents an agenda? All that it is stating are the facts that are found on record - no discussion of trends. All of this lines up with what can be expected during a moderate El Nino event.
And yes, we have had two years in a row of exceptional low elevation snowfall…Not exeptional for overall snowpack, but defintiely a great deal more than we are used to in the valleys.
But to find an agenda in raw data…not even in interpretation of said data, is a stretch at best. Sometimes data is just data…not politics.
MrNatural on March 03 at 11:57 a.m.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
Try and learn something instead of espousing to the Glen Beck book of paranoid delusional despotism…sheesh!
toadman on March 03 at 12:03 p.m.
@Mr. Natural - don’t you get it? It’s the new fashion. It’s all part of the new “willful ignorance” in America.
MrNatural on March 03 at 12:18 p.m.
Ah Yes!…how silly of me to be so out of step with fashion…now if I can just make it to my grave before my point of view is woefully shattered…oh wait…that can’t happen as long as I stay willfully ignorant…la de doo dah!