Happy New Year! Hard to believe another year has come and gone. This past year was one of the driest years we have had for nearly 25 years. Good news is we get a little rain later today and tonight, and the Cascade passes will get a little snow. I mean a little as in an inch or two, not much. Freezing levels remain way too high for this time of the year. When they do drop after whatever weather front moves inland, the precipitation is lacking. Same old pattern continues.
At least we lost our stagnant air advisory yesterday, although things may worsen in the next few days. Vancouver ended 2013 with only 26.60 inches of rain (68 percent of normal), which makes it the fourth driest year on record. The driest was 23.88 inches in 1929. These records go back to 1890. If we hadn’t had that record rainfall in September of 5.24 inches, we certainly may have set a new record for the driest year ever.
Washington had two reported tornadoes last year; do you remember where? One was in Pierce County on Sept. 30. It was one mile in length with wind speeds to 110 mph, on the ground for about five minutes, causing roof damage and blowing over several empty railcars. It was an EFI tornado. The second one was a brief EF0 tornado on March 21 here in Clark County, two miles northeast of Hockinson. There was also a funnel cloud that appeared over Clark County for about five minutes on June 19.
NASA released this short YouTube video showing the coldest spots in Antarctica. Link: http://tinyurl.com/q2elkan.
Bottom line: Rain today and tonight, then mostly cloudy and foggy through the weekend. Highs in the 40s lows in the 30s, except upper 20s in outlying areas under any clearing skies.
