Weather Eye: Chilly February’s gone; it’s time to look toward spring

Happy first day of March!

February went out with a chilly reminder of winter here in Clark County, especially above 1,000 feet. Upwards of 5 to 7 inches of snow fell in elevations up to 2,000 feet and over a foot in the ski areas Wednesday.

I noticed during a brief clearing period Wednesday afternoon that snow covered hills west of Portland down to very low elevations. The National Weather Service officially recorded no snow for Portland on Wednesday, but a foot of snow fell at its radar site on Dixie Mountain near Scappoose.

Seattle suburbs had a dusting of snow, and quite a bit fell in the Hood Canal region. If this would have been early January, we might have stood a better chance of a snow cover here in the city. But now that it is March, I think we are more than ready for a taste of spring.

Wet snow was mixed in at city levels, with a few neighborhoods getting some slushy minor accumulation early in the morning, especially on grasses and rooftops. But there were quite a few showers with “chunky” rain falling.

Of course, I don’t have February’s weather statistics yet because of the leap year thing, but I can tell you that for the first 28 days of February, Vancouver was running 1.38 inches below average in the rainfall category. The total was 2.65 inches, and with the showers Wednesday, we added to that a bit, but it still will go down as a month with below-normal rainfall.

Temperature-wise, we should end up right about normal, so no surprise there. The temperature extremes were a high of 58 degrees on Feb. 21 and a low of 26 degrees on the 6th. Some Vancouver neighborhoods reached the 60 degree mark in February.

A busy month March is. Daylight saving time begins March 11, and then there’s the first day of spring, the Ides of March and the beginning of spring breaks for schools.

Patrick Timm is a local weather specialist. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Reach him at http://weathersystems.com.