Around here spring can look a bit different

Monday was Groundhog Day, and you probably heard the news. According to Punxsatawney Phil, there will be six more weeks of winter. Just by looking at the calendar, I could have made such a prediction, as spring doesn’t start this year until March 19 just before midnight. We all know of course that Mother Nature doesn’t pay much attention to the calendar, nor does she apparently pay much attention to the groundhog, which the Climate Prediction Center says has only been right 39 percent of the time.

All of this hype about when spring weather might arrive got me thinking about the climatology of the vernal equinox. The term spring engenders the vision of blooming flowers, April showers, and an end to the snowy weather of winter. Those visions actually come to pass in many lower latitude cities. Spring has a different look in the northern latitudes, however, and one which often more closely resembles winter.

Take last year for example. The first day of spring brought the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene area around 2 inches of snow. There was more than that all together if you counted the snow (a bit more than an inch) that fell in the two days prior. High temperatures were in the lower 40s with nighttime temperatures in the upper 20s. Similar temperatures occurred on the first days of spring in 2006 and 2007, minus the snow, though highs had been up into the 60s the week before in 2007. Average temperatures for the last week of March are highs around 50 degrees and lows around 30 degrees. Though 50 degrees sounds awfully balmy compared to what we’ve been getting lately, it definitely doesn’t encourage much in the way of blooming flowers. What about an average first day of spring across other cities in the U.S.?

How do their “averages” compare to ours?

It looks like a more active weather pattern will set up across the Inland Northwest for the upcoming week, bringing some fresh powder to area mountains, and several chances for rain and snow across the valleys.