March is a beautiful month. Highs in the 50s, lows in the 30s. Warm enough to be able to go outside without more than a sweater but definitely not close to the heat we experience in the summer.
That is, except for this year.
So far this month, we have broken four daily record lows as well as shattered the monthly record low. Yesterday (the 4th), we also broke the record for the lowest high temperature for that day. On top of this, we broke the snowfall record for last month. With another round of snow on the horizon, I’ve been asked several times, “what is the snowfall record for March?”
I too was curious, so I reached out to John Peck, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Pendleton, who informed me that the record snowiest March for the Tri-Cities was 2.5 inches. This 2.5 inches was measured in Kennewick in 1916. As of when I write this, we are under a Winter Weather Advisory with a possible 2-4 new inches of snow by Thursday. Of course, this means we stand a pretty decent chance of breaking the record. That said, it will depend on where the heaviest parts of the snow set up across our area.
So what was March 1916 like? I can firmly say that the first five days of the month were nothing like we’ve had this year. The first few days of the month brought highs in the 40s and lows in the 30s. They even had rain for a lot of the first days of the month. The 2.5 inches they got that month fell on a single day (the fifth) and had completely melted by the 6th. This year we have already unofficially beat the record snow depth for March, which was also set in 1916.
While the data won’t be made official for quite some time, it appears that as of today this is the 2nd longest period of time on record that we’ve had snow on the ground. Based on data from the Naval Ice Center, we’re at 28 days in a row, which beats out the 22 from the winter of 2017. We are approaching the record of 33 set in the winter of 1929, but it’s hard to tell whether we will beat it or not. Temperatures will be getting above freezing pretty consistently after tomorrow.
As far as temperatures go, so long as we don’t reach 32 this afternoon, this will be the latest in the season that we’ve ever seen ten or more consecutive days with highs at or below freezing. The current record is for a ten-day period that ended March 3, 1993. After that late-season cold spell, temperatures rose above 40 and didn’t look back. The average high for March 1993 ended up being 51 degrees, which is about eight degrees below normal.
It seems likely that we will break that record since the airport peaked at 23 today and is already on its way back down for the evening. We probably won’t go beyond ten days for this stretch, with highs expected to get up to the 30s for the second half of the week.
As shown on this map from the Climate Prediction Center, we are expected to remain below average for quite some time. Darker colors here don’t necessarily correspond to colder temperatures, but instead to a higher chance of below average just in general. With average high temperatures in the mid-50s, we could warm up by 25 degrees and still be firmly below average.
With that, the Climate Prediction Center also has us in a moderate risk for well below average temperatures on March 12 (next Tuesday). Well below average is considered to be the lower 15th percentile, which would mean we have a moderate chance of lows below 26 on that day. In a more typical year that would seem a bit extreme for mid-March, but it’s hard to feel like that’s extreme when the high today was below it.
As we look beyond the next couple days, it seems possible that another round of wintry weather will move in early next week. This system may be warmer, which could give us some sort of mixed precipitation for the lower elevations (rather than just snow), but I’ll keep you updated on that and on our current system over at Tri-Cities Weather on Facebook.
Finally, it is important to remember as we talk about records that this year’s records won’t be made official by the National Weather Service for several months, and possibly even a couple of years, so all the new records I’ve discussed here are considered unofficial for the time being.
The featured image for this post was provided by Infinite Series Photography in Boardman.
