Weather Eye: A look outside confirms that it’s November

While there may be a few of us not behaving, I can truly say the weather is behaving as it should be for November. Rain and winds and snow in the Cascades. Welcome to a typical month for a change. Just look out the window and you’ll know it’s November.

As the month rambles on, so will the weather be fitting for the season. Translation is the chance of showers today, rain Monday and Tuesday, showers Wednesday, etc. Temperatures warm up as the new week begins back into the 50s with high snow levels. Of course, this will reverse itself as the week goes on, and snow levels will be back down where they should be.

The ski areas received 2 feet of snow as of early Saturday, and more falling. With warmer air aloft Monday and Tuesday, much of that will soak up rain and compact. Then more snow later in the week. It is not unusual this time of the year for the freezing level to be spatially on the wild side.

It is still too early to have a good idea how the weather will be Thanksgiving week, but I bet our current pattern will persist with continued unsettled weather and, of course, always a few dry hours thrown in.

We are now two weeks into November, and rainfall in Vancouver stood at 2.87 inches as of 4 p.m. Saturday. We are ahead of the game in that department, no worries. We had a false sense of reality as the month started out on the warm side. But alas, we are running 1 degree below average. Those days in the 40s are chillers.

I love November, watching nature shed its summer and autumn attire. Birds scramble from bush to bush, oh so few red berries left. Squirrels dare their acrobatic antics. A walk on a crisp morning brings a crunching sound amid the fallen leaves. Darkness comes early and daylight sleeps in. Frost in the garden covers the deceased plants and vines. Fires warm inside. Watch gray skies for the first snow. The earth prepares for a winter’s rest until woken by the glimmer of spring.