The view out many a window in the region was clouded by record October rainfall of 6.21 inches.
Retired Eastern Washington University meteorology professor Bob Quinn just can't fully be pushed out the door. He's been hired part-time for spring quarter 2017 to teach one of his true loves, a wetlands class.
And from all indications, having just completed the wettest October on record at the National Weather Service at Spokane International Airport, Quinn and his students will not have to search too far for their outdoor classroom.
As October shifted to November, the monthly rain total sat at a robust 6.21 inches, topping the previous high for the month of 5.41 inches in 1947, and easily breaking the all-time mark for any month of 5.87 held since 1897. There was rainfall on 21 of the 31 days in the month.
It took combining the past six Octobers - 2010 through 2015 - to exceed what fell in the past 31 days, a total of 6.46 inches.
By contrast, October of 2015 saw just 1.14 inches of precipitation.
"What's happening here in October is kind of an early warning if you will, and a forerunner of what you'll see," Quinn said.
And while he cautioned against doing so, "I should never say this, but I will," Quinn said. "You never engage in these extreme forecasts, but I think you'll see one of the top two or three wettest winters on record."
It's not necessarily going to be snow, however, even though the winter ahead will be driven by the return of La Nina.
A recent report predicted snowfall of over 5 feet for the upcoming winter. But Quinn, who retired earlier this year from EWU after a 49-year career teaching, among other things, weather and climate, does not buy that number.
The La Nina is, "not a particularly strong one," Quinn pointed out. The pattern tends to be both cooler and snowier than normal caused by lower than normal sea surface temperatures.
But the factor that makes this one different is the entire Northern Pacific Ocean is warmer than normal, Quinn said. "It's about 2 degrees warmer than normal, which quite frankly is a lot," he added.
Even though the weather pattern will form a fairly cool West Coast trough that would bring cooler and snowier weather, in this case it taps into warmer water.
"So the storm would come down from the Aleutians, Gulf of Alaska - occasionally out of the Northwest Territories - the first two scenarios would have to move over the warmer water," Quinn explained.
That leads him to predict no "monster low elevation snow events," this winter.
The freezing level will vary from 2,500-3,000 on the low side to 4,000-5,000 on the high side. That means there will be a snow event and two days later it will rain.
"We may end up with that total snowfall being around that 45 inches or so," Quinn said, referring to the average coverings seen in the lowlands of the area.
Turn back the clock to a year ago at this time when a warmer ocean, an El Nino, was in place. It was the second of back-to-back such winters and delivered approximately 34 inches of lowland snow. The winter of 2014-15 had just 17.6 inches of the white stuff.
The memorable winters of 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 were La Ninas with significantly cooler ocean temperatures, the result being dumps of 93.5 and a record 98.1 inches of snow.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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