Out Of Season High-Pressure, Low-Pressure Clashes Bring Wind, Flooding, Balmy Days

When November comes to the Inland Northwest, most people expect the days to turn cold and the rain to become snow.

This year, it’s been the exact opposite.

November started with a low of 15 degrees on the 1st. By Wednesday, a temperature of 47 was recorded overnight, making it one of the warmest nights ever for the date.

Snow fell only once all month, and melted the next day. For the entire month, the average temperature in Spokane was 38.5 degrees - 3.4 degrees warmer than normal.

Starting today, however, traditional frosty weather should kick in.

“We should cool off some,” said John Livingston, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service in Spokane.

The cooling trend will be good news for those concerned about flooding in North Idaho. The snow level is expected to fall to 4,000 feet by Friday afternoon, and that should slow the runoff from mountain streams.

The colder weather can’t come soon enough for anxious skiers.

A day after Schweitzer Mountain Resort announced tentative plans to open the Sandpoint ski hill by the weekend, its snow disappeared.

This week’s blustery weather is more typical of late October.

So as the month ends, residents are cleaning up downed limbs and trees, fixing fences and patching torn roofs.

The damage is being blamed on a strong flow of sub-tropical moisture being drawn north in a classical atmospheric clash. A low-pressure area over the Gulf of Alaska is pulling wind out of a strong high-pressure area to the south.

A gust of 47 mph was recorded by the National Weather Service in Spokane at 10:18 a.m. Wednesday.

By evening, wind-related damage left about 2,000 Washington Water Power customers in Spokane without power for several hours.

Two trees fell onto separate feeder lines. One was in the Nine Mile area. The other was in an area west of Division Street between Buckeye and Garland, said Dana Anderson, spokeswoman for Washington Water Power.

In Kootenai County, power flickered on and off in homes and businesses throughout the afternoon from numerous brief outages, said Catherine Parochetti, spokeswoman for Kootenai Electric Cooperative. Trees tumbling into power lines caused longer outages.

Forecasters are calling for periods of rain through the weekend, but the daytime temperatures will drop from the 50s to the low 40s.

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