Weather Eye: Hang in there as winter exits, spring arrives

Welcome to the first day of meteorological spring and as luck would have it, we should have a rainless day. It will still be on the cool side however. Saturday a cold front moved through the local area with many reports of snow covering the ground in our foothill communities. The higher up you went, the more snow.

I’d say February went out like a winter magnet with a few reports from some of you of brief, but intense hail or graupel showers. Add some blustery winds and a few peeks of the sunshine to round out the day.

The high was only 48 degrees Saturday in Vancouver which was six degrees below average. Add the wind chill and it was a raw day. Rainfall as of 4 p.m. Saturday totaled about a quarter of an inch, which will insure us of being over an inch and a half below average for the month.

Looking ahead to the first week of March I see more showers through midweek and Thursday should be the best day of the week with dry sunny weather and highs well into the 50s, near 60 degrees.

But then another strong cold front is forecast by some time Friday and over the weekend. Snow levels drop once again and our higher foothills may see more snow on the ground.

Yes, it is now March but be patient, it is a slow process from the tentacles of winter into the pleasantries that spring weather can bring. We are onto the path to a different weather pattern than the dark winter months. Hang in there.

The threat of low elevation snow disappears quickly outside of a chance of brief wet snow showers that come and go quickly. March of 1951 was one exception when Vancouver had 15 inches of snow that month. That’s more than twice what we would expect in an entire winter.

We’ll settle for some gentle spring weather in between winter’s last gasps.