Are Oregon's coolish summers just a part of history now? (Medford: 2015, to move)

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Radio Flyer

None of that scares me....I live in Maine.

Then you should feel right at home. Oregon's original preservationist organization was the James G. Blaine society, named after a US Senator from Maine.

James G. Blaine Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Radio Flyer]

Thanks for that link. I enjoyed it. Maybe it's fate....I'll move to Oregon in honor of ole James Blaine.

BTW, the Maine governors' place of residence is named "The Blaine House". I just researched a bit and low and behold, it's named after the very same Mr. Blaine.

Learn something new every day.

[jamies]

Originally Posted by gray horse

I'm a Californian living in Portland,

Doesn't that make you an Oregonian? Or a carpetbagger?

[FVWinters]

It is perfectly true that weather is cyclical. It wasn't that long ago that we had a several year stretch of absolutely impossible springs followed by tepid or downright cool summers. 2011 and 2012 were the worst.
I made a prediction based on the intensity and projected length of the negative "half" (negative meaning cooler and wetter) of the long range PDO cycle. At the time I was waxing lyrical about our rotten weather in '11 and '12, we were about 5 or so years into what most climatologists projected to be a 20 to 30 year negative PDO cycle. I said then there would be many more years of having to deal with uncharacteristic chill and damp. For many of us in our 60's and 70's we might not live long enough to see things turn around.
I also made the observation that in spite of a strong overall global warming signal, temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and Canada's Pacific Southwest were holding flat or decreasing. A check with Environment Canada and the Western Regional Climate Center validated that observation up to about 2013. Since then, though.....
So, what's going on? The PDO is still in a negative phase even if it is becoming more positive far earlier than projected. El Nino is still pretty weak and while it is expected to strengthen over the summer, it isn't enough to explain the Northwest's sudden climate reversal. We're warmer, sunnier and dryer - and we shouldn't be based on present ocean circulation patterns.

I believe there are ocean and wind patterns apart from the PDO and ENSO interactions that influence our climate from far away. I also believe the world wide warming we are now seeing (whether natural or man-caused) is beginning to overwhelm the chilling effects of a hostile PDO and a presently weak El Nino. If this is true, then all bets are off as far as predicting when/if we will return to what has been historically considered normal - if, indeed, we can even define what "normal" is anymore.

I think we'll see a return to cooler and wetter but perhaps the "cooler" won't be as cool and the "wetter" will not be quite so wet.

[Larry Caldwell]

The world's best supercomputer weather simulations aren't accurate more than three days in advance. The long term weather forecast changes daily. The weather does what it will, until it won't. We had a much dryer drought in 1976. I was working outside all winter in the low Cascades, and it was glorious! The summer of 1977 the Willamette turned into an 80 degree stagnant bathtub and Portland was down to a 1 week supply of water in Bull Run. Droughts come and go. Floods come and go. It was only 5 years ago that all the resorts opened ski season in October, and we were having almost record cold temperatures. It was really cold, but 1973 was really, really, really cold so we didn't break many records.

Weather is a chaotic system that can't be predicted.

[CanuckInPortland]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

already in a pretty severe drought. If you live in Portland, have you looked at Mt. Hood lately? No snow cap. It's ash gray, and that's the tallest mountain around. Did Government Camp ever open for skiing last winter?

There's still snow on Mt Hood visible from Portland, more so on the north and east side than the west side. It's an extremely light snow year, but there's still snow above 6000 ft(there was also some late season snowfall higher up). Timberline and Meadows had ski seasons this year, Ski Bowl never opened really but that's at 4000 ft elevation. The last time it was this dry on the mountain was back in 2004-05. I was talking to an old skier/climber friend of mine and he said he remembered some years like this back in the 1970s too.

I'd say the mountain looks like it usually does in August at this point, so conditions are about two months ahead of what they usually look like. Freezing levels have been extremly high(above 15,000 feet) for the last couple weeks, so it's melted fairly quick.

[Fiddlehead]

The Willamette is actually quite a bit like Sacramento in summer. I recall temps as high as 104F in Corvallis, with fires starting everywhere. But with the coast only an hour away through a rather porous coast range, the coastal influence eventually arrives. It is impossible to sustain triple digit heat without causing an onshore flow. The only exception is when a high pressure system stagnates over the state and causes offshore flow for several days. This does occur every summer, but onshore flow predominates through the season. Sacramento is pretty much the same. When the Central Valley really gets cooking in the north and south ends, it is only a few days before the delta flow kicks in and cools it down a bit in the delta region.

The really hot places are those areas with large mountains blocking the coastal breezes, like Redding, California, or Medford,Oregon. Both of those places can get hot and stay hot for weeks (I recall 118F in Redding, and > 100F occurs every summer). The Willamette does not do that. And places too far east and too low (ideally deep valleys behind tall mountains) for the coastal influence and too far west for the monsoon, are the hottest of all. I will use Death Valley as a perfect example, the average July high there is 116 F, I believe.

[gray horse]

Originally Posted by Fiddlehead

The Willamette is actually quite a bit like Sacramento in summer. I recall temps as high as 104F in Corvallis, with fires starting everywhere. But with the coast only an hour away through a rather porous coast range, the coastal influence eventually arrives. It is impossible to sustain triple digit heat without causing an onshore flow. The only exception is when a high pressure system stagnates over the state and causes offshore flow for several days. This does occur every summer, but onshore flow predominates through the season. Sacramento is pretty much the same. When the Central Valley really gets cooking in the north and south ends, it is only a few days before the delta flow kicks in and cools it down a bit in the delta region.

The really hot places are those areas with large mountains blocking the coastal breezes, like Redding, California, or Medford,Oregon. Both of those places can get hot and stay hot for weeks (I recall 118F in Redding, and > 100F occurs every summer). The Willamette does not do that. And places too far east and too low (ideally deep valleys behind tall mountains) for the coastal influence and too far west for the monsoon, are the hottest of all. I will use Death Valley as a perfect example, the average July high there is 116 F, I believe.

Having lived in both the Central Valley and the Willamette Valley, the Central Valley is WAY hotter in the summer.

[PNW-type-gal]

Originally Posted by Fiddlehead

The really hot places are those areas with large mountains blocking the coastal breezes, like Redding, California, or Medford,Oregon. Both of those places can get hot and stay hot for weeks (I recall 118F in Redding, and > 100F occurs every summer).

Medford has roughly 4 weeks in summer where the average high is 90°, with a peak late July average high of 92° - but we also average 10-12 days over 100° a year. It is hot and dry in the summer.

In Redding the average high is above 90° for roughly 4 months, the average July high is 99°, with an average 30-40 days a summer over 100°.

Medford is hot enough, but it usually about 10°-15° hotter in Redding (pretty much year-round).

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

Medford has roughly 4 weeks in summer where the average high is 90°, with a peak late July average high of 92° - but we also average 10-12 days over 100° a year. It is hot and dry in the summer.

In Redding the average high is above 90° for roughly 4 months, the average July high is 99°, with an average 30-40 days a summer over 100°.

Medford is hot enough, but it usually about 10°-15° hotter in Redding (pretty much year-round).

That's an average. I think it was '95 or '96, not long after I moved to Douglas County, that we had 25 days with a high over 100 degrees. That was right before or after the winter they had 54 feet of snow at the Crater Lake rim. Weather changes.