Randy Mann

Talk about wild weather extremes. The western U.S. was reporting record warmth and rainfall earlier in the week while much of New England was digging out of more snow. Within the past month, Boston has reported more than 62 inches of snow, shattering the previous 30-day record of 58.8 inches set in 1978. So far the city has received nearly 77 inches of snow this season. The normal for a season is a little more than 40 inches, and with more snow in the forecast, there’s a chance Boston could get close to its record of 107.6 inches, set in winter 1995-96.

It was a tale of two extremes over Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving Day, the temperature soared to 55 degrees, nearly 20 degrees above normal at the Spokane International Airport. That mild reading tied the record, set in 1998 and 1883, for the warmest Thanksgiving day in Spokane’s history. But it wasn’t a record for the date – the warmest Nov. 27 was 57 degrees in 1949.

After a delightful, warm and drier-than-normal summer and early fall, the weather pattern across the Inland Northwest has now gone to the wet and cool side. On Tuesday, the Spokane International Airport picked up nearly 0.2 inch of moisture. Coeur d’Alene got more than 0.40 inch from that particular storm system.

A new weather pattern has moved into the Pacific Northwest. The normally wet new moon lunar phase last week opened the storm door into the region. On Oct. 22, Portland reported record rainfall of nearly 2 inches, more than doubling the total rainfall for the month. On Oct. 23, a tornado was reported in Longview, Washington. Winds uprooted trees and damaged roofs on many buildings.

A rather strong solar flare on Sept. 10 headed toward Earth providing a dazzling light show across parts of the northern U.S. last Friday night. There were reports of some green and orange lights in our region from the effects of that solar flare. It was one of the largest events since 2006, but, fortunately, there were no major disruptions to satellite communications.

With the equinox, one of the coldest winter seasons in recent memory across much of the U.S., especially east of the Rockies, comes to an end. Ice coverage on the Great Lakes topped 92.2 percent this season. The all-time record was a 94.7 percent ice coverage that was measured in 1979. With forecasts of milder weather, it’s not likely that the Great Lakes will break that record.

As I’ve mentioned in last week’s column, solar activity, combined with La Nina, the cooler than normal sea-surface temperature event in the south-central Pacific Ocean, may be contributing to some of the wild and chilly weather over parts of the U.S., and the world since late last year. Earlier this month, a number of record lows were observed. For example, places like Fayetteville, Ark., have seen one the harshest winters in recorded history. The big storm last week dumped an incredible 26 inches of snow on Fayetteville. The total for the season is more than 42 inches, a record. In addition to the snow, temperatures plunged to 18 degrees below zero about a week ago.

A recent article published by my business partner, North Idaho climatologist Cliff Harris, talks about the possible impact of the sun on climate change. According to NASA, the sun’s output of energy was at its lowest level ever recorded by modern instruments at the end of 2008. Solar winds, which are the stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun, were at a 50-year low.

The new storm that brought record snows to the Upper Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast yesterday has been dubbed the Groundhog Day storm. It wasn’t because the system hit those areas on Groundhog Day, but many are saying that it felt more like the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day” as it seems like they’ve experienced this type of weather a hundred times this year. As of early Wednesday, more than a foot of new snow, combining with 20- to 40-mph winds, were leading to massive flight delays and other travel restrictions in many parts of the northern United States. Ice was also a problem across parts of the Midwest and the East.

With January coming to a close next week, it appears that the second half of this winter will see less snow than the first half. At Spokane International Airport, 50.3 inches of snow has fallen since November. Coeur d’Alene has measured nearly 80 inches of snow. However, the fast start to the snowy season has slowed way down in recent weeks. If we don’t see another flake of snow in the Spokane area, we’ll still be above normal for the season. During an average year, the airport receives 45.6 inches of snow.