Weathercatch: Warm, sunny weather ruled February until Valentine’s Day – again

Where did winter go during the first two weeks of February? With sunshine, bluebird skies and above-average temperatures, the season seemed to turn into a shadow of itself.

The warmest period was Feb. 9-11, when overall high temperatures ran roughly 10 degrees warmer than average. Temperatures approached near 50 degrees in Spokane (compared with the normal high of 38), while hitting 57 degrees in Pullman, the mid-60s in the Tri-Cities, and 70 degrees in Yakima.

And it wasn’t just the Inland Northwest that experienced a temperature surge. The mercury nudged to 60 degrees in parts of Puget Sound. Portland hit 67 degrees on Feb. 11, breaking that date’s record high of 62 degrees set more than 50 years earlier. In Southern California, the National Weather Service issued what may be the first heat advisory during wintertime. Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI in Inglewood felt more like early summer than February, reaching 82 degrees by the game’s kickoff.

The warm stretch was strikingly similar to the first half of February 2018, when Spokane reached a high of 58 degrees on Feb. 8. “Mild weather conditions led many people to think winter was over,” we wrote in our column.

An upper-level ridge of high pressure parked off the West Coast drove that period of warm weather four years ago – the same weather pattern responsible for the mild spell we’ve enjoyed this February.

In 2018 and 2022, a large persistent high-pressure ridge centered off the California coast blocked the jet stream delivering winter weather systems from the Gulf of Alaska to the West.

Even more interesting is that four years ago, the warm spell came to an abrupt end on Valentine’s Day when 7.3 inches of snow fell in Spokane. Then, on Feb. 21, the mercury plunged to a low of minus 3 degrees, the coldest day of the year. You’ll recall that springlike weather conditions abruptly turned wintry on Monday this week, which just happened to be Valentine’s Day as well. The turnaround, however, wasn’t nearly as dramatic as in 2018.

With a week and a half left of February, it’s looking highly unlikely we’ll get heavily doused in snow or smacked with frigid temperatures. The high-pressure ridge shifted and broke up a bit, which allowed a weak storm system to move into the region on Valentine’s Day. Even so, the pattern remains anchored over the Pacific Ocean like an invisible wall. The question is how impenetrable it will be.

As of now, it’s looking like fairly benign conditions through late February, with episodes of sunshine punctuated by occasional spurts of rain or snow as weak disturbances push through. Also, temperatures are expected to run slightly above normal.