Weathercatch: Fickle February requires patience and flexibility

Cold and snowy. That’s February. Mild and sunny. That’s February as well.

It’s a transitional month, a bridge that spans weather conditions of both late winter and early spring. Sometimes it’s a gentle segue from bitter cold to mild. Oftentimes, however, it’s notoriously flighty.

Outside your window, it could just as easily be snowing as raining. Perhaps the season’s first crocuses are poking through the soil. Or maybe they’re blocked by a sheen of ice.

February 1996 is the poster child of fickle weather. The month began with a historic arctic outbreak that stretched from the Inland Northwest to the eastern and southern United States. On Feb. 2, Spokane’s low dropped to minus-24 degrees, the city’s chilliest weather in three decades. The stretch of cold also brought winds, ice and snow.

Remarkably, a surge of warmth arrived a few days later. Spokane’s snow depth went from 13 inches on Feb. 4 to zero on Feb. 7. On Feb. 8, the high temperature approached 50 degrees and the low hit 37 degrees. Where hypothermia was a big concern a few days earlier, suddenly spring was in the air.

February 2018 was a different story. The month started out springlike, with unseasonably warm temperatures for nearly two weeks. On Feb. 8, the mercury soared to 58 degrees in Spokane and 54 in Pullman. Pleasant conditions 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.

Last year’s pattern was similar. The first two weeks of February delivered above-average temperatures and plenty of sunshine. Conditions turned wintry on Valentine’s Day, although not as extreme as in 2018.

Also, although January is typically a snowier month than February, we’ve seen some notable exceptions in recent years. Despite February having fewer days, its snowfall totals exceeded January’s in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. Most unusual was February 2019, when 29.9 inches of snow fell in Spokane, compared to 5.2 inches in January. In 2021, 11.8 inches of snow fell in February, compared to 3.5 inches in January.

Why this has happened in recent years – drawing on 130 years of snowfall records – is likely a fluke of natural variability, and not suggestive of a permanent pattern change where February becomes the biggest snow month.

As for 2023, Spokane got 6.1 inches of snow in January, less than half of the month’s average snowfall amount. So unless this February is a snow dud as well, it won’t be hard to surpass.

Due to variations from one February to the next, along with weather variability within a given February, it can be a month of springlike conditions or hardcore winter, and oftentimes both.

Right now, we’re looking at fairly quiet conditions into the weekend. Highs should run in the low to mid-40s and lows in the low to mid-30s. Not surprisingly, Spokane will remain on the edge of late winter and early spring conditions.

Nic Loyd is a meteorologist in Washington state. Linda Weiford is a writer in Moscow, Idaho, who’s also a weather geek. Contact: ldweiford@gmail.com.