After looking up all the numbers, I can confirm that we are now in 2nd place for the latest “first 60 degree temperature” here in Portland. Only one other year (1955) did we go beyond March 22nd with no 60 degree temp. That year it finally hit the magic “six zero” on March 27th. SO, if we make it beyond this Sunday without hitting it, we’ll be breaking a record similar to last year’s “latest first 80 degree temperature” in June. Of course it’s not really a “record”, but a cold milestone to be celebrated with a warm drink, hot tub visit, or large bonfire I think.
Hopefully this isn’t just the beginning of a long and cold La Nina spring…we just did that 3 years ago, and folks are still cranky about the wet end to last spring and the chilly summer. But that IS how we get averages…warm years even out with chillier years. And the odds are definitely stacked towards a cooler than average spring ahead. Luckily we don’t tend to average wetter than normal.
Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen
FOX 12 Weather Blog 
I love records like this. It makes up for those hideous 100 degree records and warmer than normal winter days. Hopefully we don’t hit 60 until April! 🙂
“Hopefully we don’t hit 60 until April!”
You might almost get that wish, although Thursday the 31st has an NWS forecast high of 61.
The record for latest spring 60+ degree temperature seems a lock, however. Hasn’t happened yet, and with an NWS forecast high of 52 today, it’s not going to happen today, which is the previous record for the latest 60+-degree high at PDX.
I agree with u Paul D…..I would love to have a summer like last year Perfect for this 50yr. old!!! LOL
I wish we had a radar in Bend for t-storm purposes.
Yep me too.
Had to take a nap from being sick earlier in the day (binged on soda, silly me), and to my surprise I actually didn’t miss a whole lot. Virtually nothing went on in SW Oregon in comparison to areas up north where there existed a little more lightning.
Tomorrow there does appear to be an equal chance (maybe even greater) for storms…. We will just have to see how this plays out. Well we already did sorta have a lot, this is only March afterall! So far this month is turning out to be more like a May than a March.
More like May than March?
Plese elaborate, Timmy.
I think he is speaking in terms of convection and severe warnings that we’ve already seen. I would have to agree with him.
AT 633 PM PDT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED AN
ISOLATED THUNDERSTORM OVER CENTRAL MARION COUNTY…OR ABOUT 16 MILES
NORTHWEST OF DETROIT…MOVING NORTH AT 25 MPH. OTHER LOCATIONS
IMPACTED BY THIS THUNDERSTORM THROUGH 715 PM PDT INCLUDE RURAL
SOUTHERN CLACKAMAS COUNTY AND RURAL CENTRAL CLACKAMAS COUNTY. SMALL
HAIL…HEAVY RAIN…GUSTY WINDS UP TO 35 MPH…AND DANGEROUS
LIGHTNING CAN BE EXPECTED IN THESE AREAS.
Yup, but weakening at the moment unfortunately.
Just had a strike from that storm. Did you hear it, Larry?
Ah whoops I meant to post that on Facebook. Sorry LOL.
…I was north and way west all day…drove thru some hellacious rain in the coast range a couple hours ago…
Wow. The storm southeast of Scotts Mills has rotation with it and rather persistent. Viewing the loop you can see how it wobbles and when looking at Base or Storm Velocities you can definitely see it! Impressive!
Ah last frame the rotation has slightly broken up.
Ahhh wouldn’t it figure. Appears to be weakening now.
Eye wish there be a way for Mark to do a quick scan every few days on the blog for behavior instead of just shutting off the blog period.
If Mark sees an argument/fight he can follow the bread crumbs and then go after the OP.
Or just mindlessly ban me and Rob. :p
Kidding of course.
😆 … ya.
That’d take too much time… It’s either let it go (no holds barred) or appoint a moderator.
But it would need to be someone who reads the blog all the time without getting too emotional about ‘this or that’…
Someone like Larry 🙂 He’d just toss a 5-7-5 at you and ‘poof’ you’re history.
🙂 …the power of haiku….
Fairly healthy looking storm east of Stayton moving north-northwest towards Molalla. I am detecting lightning on AM radio.
30 this morning, 59 for a high, not bad today up here in Longview. just starting to sprinkle now. have to wait to see if we “officially” hit 60. that would be an impressice 30 degree swing.
So excited to see 60+ next week on the 7 day! Everyone cross your fingers, knock on wood and whatever else you can think of, quick!
Fairly nice t-storm just southeast of Sweet Home. Nice amount detected too! http://www.cascadeaccess.com/~mnelsen/lightning2.jpg
Fox12 Live Radar with lightning detection
http://mfile.akamai.com/25578/live/reflector:49559.asx
60 in Salem today. 55 with a very light rain now.
Hey man! How’s your prediction for a VERY warm late winter/ early Spring going so far?
We should have like, 5+ days in the 70s under our belt at this point according to you.
Looks like SLE officially hit 59 today:
http://www.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KSLE.html
Hit 64 today outside of Woodburn.
Nice little bugger to the NE of Shady Cove…
Look at the convection fire up over SW Oregon…one lonely lightning strike too, so far.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?vis1km_west_full+6
Storms are firing east of Roseburg now…
How bout 69!?
I think PDX will hit 59 today!
Good call. Close but no dice.
Looks like its going to top of here at 58.
At least with a full hour of heating to go! 😮
Ahhhh… 60 feels nice. Don’t think PDX is going to make it though…
I’m seeing 53 in Molalla.
http://classic.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=Molalla%2C+OR&searchType=WEATHER
I wasn’t in Molalla at the time I posted this, I was closer to Canby/Aurora — actually within 3 miles of the 91 School Weather Bug station:
And from KUAO:
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/KUAO.html
I’d love this pattern in July or August. Great SE flow…some divergence.
it is so windy out here im tired of hearing it lol
****FOX 12 Blog Discussion Facebook Group********
There are now 50 weather bloggers in the group.
If anyone is interested in joining the group see below link:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_158533057538771&ap=1
There is also a possibility of convection tomorrow as well… I’ll have to look into that.
According to the latest SREF run, wind shear sticks around for the next 48 hours or so. And with this low in the most favorable position as well as warming temperatures, storms seems like a realistic possibility, even for tomorrow too.
12Z EURO isn’t buying the idea of a late-month warm spell, FWIW.
Ya it’s been very consistent with a trough over us or very nearby.
It was 33F for a low this morning in K Falls, I always wonder how much lower elevations can be colder than I am.
Anyways looking forward to seeing some convection “pop-corning” up this afternoon.
Mixing, cloud cover, etc.
But it doesn’t surprise me that you’d wonder.
Cold air does sink…
PDX is making me a little nervous. They spiked 10 degrees in the past hour and are up to 54 at noon. Will they hit 60 today? If there is a type of setup that can produce surprise warmth, this is it.
Those who want to see the “latest first 60” record fall better hope for some thick mid-level clouds to move in the rest of the day.
Echoes increasing on radar. We are not gonna hit 60.
Whew…Jesse you are safe I think. You know how the east wind kicks in, we get a big temp jump, then it levels out the rest of the afternoon. The increasing cloud cover and showers help too of course.
59 at PDX. Pretty close.
12Z GFS @ Troutdale… Is spring arriving next week?
Much warmer this run thank goodness..2 days in the 70’s and 3 in the 60’s. April 1st is the average first 70 deg reading at Portland. This run is now showing our first 60 of the year on 3/30 and our first 70 of the year 3/31.
my fingers are crossed…
Beauty of it is that we’d still break the record for latest first 60, then get some nice warmth a few days later.
I’m not buying it yet, though. The EURO shows us staying in a troughy pattern, and this is the first GFS run to show a ridge at the beginning of the month, at least within the semi-believable range.
Actually there were several GFS runs around last weekend that pointed to a brief warm spell around the end of March. Then last few days that warmth went away. So this is NOT the first run to show this. I do agree with you that the 18Z/00Z could easily erase this current optimistic trend.
Yes, last weekend there may have been a few. But I said “in the semi-believable range” last weekend was March 19-20, the 31st-2nd is not a believeable range on the models at that point.
Currently 39° after an overnight low of 30…Calm…With another low approaching northern California, the east winds should pick up again.
East wind just broke through here. Humidity went from 78 to 62%!
51 now with an east wind to 21 mph.
One thing about March frost…it is fleeting! The sun does a quick job of melting it away!
Mark is shutting down the blog today. There is an open facebook group that anyone can join during the next 10 days. There are currently 45 weather bloggers in the group at this time and everyone is invited.
“Fox 12 Blog Discussions”
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_158533057538771&ap=1
29.6 here for the low, but have picked up a NE wind now.
Lots of downslope component occurring over the Clark County foothills as seen on the mesowest page. http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/mwmap.php?map=colriver
It is going to be a windy one today probably spreading out to cover most of the Portland/Vancouver metro area.
32 degrees and very frosty this morning. I live on the north side of the bluff near Southwest Washington Med Center. Mildly sheltered I guess.
Before Mark goes off for a little time off and the blog is in a “read only” state, has this been posted yet? Found it very interesting…
http://weatherspark.com/#!graphs;q=Portland,OR,+United+States
Check out the main page for details: http://weatherspark.com
I’m not sure it has, but I bookmarked it! Thanks for sharing.
Click on any station in the map and then play with the controls in the right window and see the trends… Fascinating. ;o)
P.S. Found it interesting to see all the data from the blizzard of 78 (having grown up on the east coast). I remember the seemingly endless “snow days” from school back then.
I posted it last week I think, maybe 2 weeks ago.
@CBC-Tech, what part of the East Coast? I am from Massachusetts. And my husband and I were just talking about the blizzard of ’78 just the other day…
Down to 28 here this morning, a lot colder than I expected.
Looks like PDX is just a couple degrees off a new record low for the date. They’ve been down to 33 as of 5am. With a couple more hours of cooling they could break or tie the record of 31, set in 1954 and 1951.
IF the east wind doesn’t break through, yeah it seems possible. It’s developing here now and I see it’s near 30mph in Gresham and areas in Troutdale above the river.
Ah crud muffins! I’m up to 39.2 now! Stupid late March mixing. Darn east wind fuzzle sticks!
40.5 and rising… Poo n stuff!
42.8 with a very breezy NE-E wind.
745am temps Clark Co
27 in Brush Prairie
29 Downtown Battle Ground
43 BG Lake
46 Crawford (1.3 mile East of Lake)
LOL, I love how you always put Crawford on there. I always thought it was just an old RR stop.
Yeah that Crawford seems to get lots of east wind. Its off 202nd avenue and is usually the first station to see the mountain wave / cross cascade type of east winds. Not to mention that its just over a mile from Battle Ground Lake.
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PORTLAND OR
305 AM PDT WED MAR 23 2011
.SHORT TERM…WATER VAPOR IMAGERY SHOWS AN UPPER LEVEL LOW JUST OFF THE NORTHERN CA COAST LOCATED AROUND 40N 127W…AND IR SHOWS THE ASSOCIATED SURFACE LOW AROUND 40N 128W. THIS VERTICALLY STACKED LOW WILL SPREAD MID AND HIGH LEVEL CLOUDS ACROSS OREGON AS IT NEARS THE COAST THIS MORNING…BUT DO NOT ANTICIPATE ANY SHOWERS UNTIL THE AFTERNOON. THERE MAY EVEN BE A FEW POCKETS OF SUNSHINE LATE THIS MORNING. MODELS STILL INDICATE MARGINAL INSTABILITY THIS AFTERNOON AND HAVE MAINTAINED THE SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS FOR OREGON
THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING.
WATER VAPOR IMAGERY SHOWS THE NEXT LOW DEVELOPING IN THE GOA AROUND 54N 150W. THIS LOW WILL DEEPEN AS IT MOVES ACROSS THE NE PACIFIC TOWARDS THE PACIFIC NW. THIS LOW HAS A SIGHTLY NORTHWARD TRACK THAN THE CURRENT LOW AND SHOULD NEAR THE COAST ALONG THE OR/CA BORDER OVERNIGHT TONIGHT. THIS LOW IS ALSO AROUND 15 MB DEEPER THAN THE CURRENT LOW…WITH MODELED 500 MB TEMPERATURES IN THE LOWER 30S. THIS LOW WILL TRACK RIGHT ACROSS OREGON THU AFTERNOON AND PROVIDE BETTER DYNAMICS FOR THUNDERSTORMS. MODELED INSTABILITY PARAMETERS ARE FAVORABLE FOR THUNDERSTORM DEVELOPMENT ACROSS OREGON AND HAVE ADDED A SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS FOR THU AFTERNOON THROUGH THU EVENING.
2 days of potential excitement and you want to shut the blog down, Mark? Re-think this.
They said “Slight” not “severe” ..Let’s not count our chickens
I am disappointed also but I have to say I really can’t blame Mark.
Peace of mind…….PRICELESS!
I never mentioned severe, so not sure where you’re getting that from. As I posted earlier parameters look better for Thursday.
Testing
1
2
3
What made the spring of 2008 so aggravating is that we’d get just one or two days where temps got really warm, followed immediately by a plunge back into cold, raw, windy weather. However, the fact that the warm days were so warm dragged up the averages so it didn’t look brutally cold on paper when all was said and one.
Take April 2008 as an example. Bitterly cold winds the first couple days of the month, then we started to warm up but this was followed by a bout of really low snow levels and some graupel. Then the 2nd weekend of the month Eugene got one day in the low 80s, but two days later we were back in the 50s. Then we got the snow on April 20. The month ended up averaging 57 for the high and 37 for the low, only 3 degrees below historical norms. It was still the coldest April in over 30 years though.
The way I look at it is that 2008 was probably a fluke, even by La Niña standards. At least in terms of how frequently we got the nasty combination of cold temps and wind, as well as how cold the cold spells were.
Anyway I’m placing my bets that East Gorge soil moistures will be well above norms for at least April, and likely into May if not June. If we get enough rain at the proper time, our landscape could look like emeralds later this spring. Fortunately the rain is supposed to get heavy again this weekend. Let’s hope The Dalles gets a good soaking too!
A very frosty 34.7 here already!
3/22/2011 Oregon (All) Temperature Summary
Warmest:
High:61 at AGNESS2( 247 ft) & CW3932 Central P(1290 ft) & MERLIN SEED ORCH(1064 ft)
Low: 42 at CW3485 Port Orfo(400 ft)
Coldest:
High:21 at HOWARD Mt Howard(8150 ft)
Low: 8 at CROW FLAT (5130 ft )
Largest Diurnal Change: 35 degrees
ALLISON (47/12 ) (5320 ft )
CROW FLAT (43/8) (5130 ft)
Heaviest Rainfall:
0.59″ at QUAIL PRAIRIE LO(3183ft)
Thanks for helping me out Brian! 🙂 I owe you one.
I have an idea! Why not have a Fox 12 weather blog thread over at Western Weather temporary until this blog is back online.
Personally I do not blame Mark for shutting the blog off one bit as every time he goes on vacation it flares my anxiety attacks BIG TIME like being afraid to fly on an airplane kind of attacks.
I am tired of certain people cough jesse cough for stirring trouble but the more I think about it the more I wish Mark will make some sort of middle ground.
That is the only complaint I have about Mark is when he is upset he does not think *middle* other then that I do not have a problem. Also: I do not agree that everybody should be labled suspect just because of a few terrorist who decide to harm people.
Glad I could help Kyle. Come join the facebook group.
00Z GFS @ Troutdale
If this is correct, we are going to totally blow away that March 27, 1955 latest 60 record. Yikes!!
Darn, I hate that mean ol global warming ! what will we do now!???
First?
Yeah Mark, Looks like we are paying now for those gorgeous year 2004 and 2005 springs. It seems even worse to me this year because we are having back to back record cool/wet springs.
Actually I don’t mind it as much since we haven’t had a “teaser” to spoil us.
Last spring was the killer. Hoping we don’t do that again. Hey, I thought this blog was shut down for the next ten days!
Oops, D day is Thursday. Still time to post worthless information.
Such as what?
Thursday is my birthday = worthless information :p
Happy birthday!!