An unusually wet start to the New Year? It’s true. Vancouver’s seen 1.41 inches so far this year, which is 148 percent of average. But honestly, it’s a whole lot better than last year. We’d already measured 3.52 inches of rain at this point in 2009. That was a whopping 370 percent of average. Now, that’s what I call wet!
A year ago, rain totals were also unbelievable along the west side of the Washington Cascades, which drain into the I-5 corridor. There aren’t a ton of weather stations up there, but those clustered around the slopes of Mount St. Helens measured 9.30 inches at June Lake and 7.10 inches at Swift Creek Station.
That was then; this is now. And the impressive numbers this week in 2010 are across the Midwest, which has just been hammered by another blizzard and is seeing many lows this morning below zero. Plus, the cold air has raced all the way south to Florida and the far reaches of the southeast. The rest of us sometimes forget it, but this is winter for those guys, too. At least occasionally it is, anyway.
Also this week, the first recorded Northern Lights of 2010 were documented above Baffin Island, Canada, which is way up north. I posted that photo to my Facebook weather page, which anyone can check out.
