March weather extremes are worldwide

Until recently, the weather here in the Inland Northwest has been colder and wetter than normal. Many stations in our area reported the wettest March in recorded history. By contrast, thousands of cities east of the Rockies saw their warmest March temperatures ever.

The winter weather conditions were severe in China’s southwest Sichuan province. As of early April, there were food shortages, traffic and phone service disruptions, and electricity outages due to persistent heavy snows and record cold temperatures for so late in the season.

On April 3, heavy snows once again buried parts of northern Japan where the winter of 2011-’12 was the harshest in at least 400 years, with record amounts of snow reported since November.

In the Scottish Highlands, nearly a foot of snow fell last week. A few days earlier, there were record-breaking high temperatures in the mid-70s.

Back in North America, Whistler Mountain Ski Area in British Columbia had its snowiest March on record with 12.5 feet. This broke the record of 11 feet in 2003.

Crystal Mountain in Washington gauged more than 14 feet of snow this past March, also a new record for the month. This ski resort may be open this spring well into June.

The state of Hawaii experienced its coolest March on record with mountain snows, rare large hail, torrential downpours and lowland flooding.

But the biggest weather story of the past several months has to be the snowiest winter in recorded history across much of Alaska. Many stations there received more than 200 inches of snow. Anchorage had trucked away a record 240,000 tons of snow from its streets as of April 1. Its plowing budget was higher than it normally is over a three-year period.

By extreme contrast, however, the Atlantic Ocean side of the Arctic has seen far less ice than normal as temperatures have been as much as 6 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit above normal since November.

All of these examples point to our cycle of wide weather extremes, the worst in at least 1,000 years. And there’s no sign it’s going to let up soon.

As far as our local weather is concerned, it’s possible that we may see afternoon highs in the lower 70s by Saturday, as high pressure builds into the Inland Northwest.

The extended outlook through the end of June still calls for a sun and showers weather pattern with plenty of warm and pleasant days.