Punxsutawney Phil Was Wrong: Springtime Warmth Expected for Western US

In a blow to professional meteorologists, a recent poll of 2,000 Americans showed that 58% of U.S. adults believe that Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow is an accurate indicator of whether there will be winter, with one quarter of Americans “strongly agreeing” with this statement.

Unfortunately for America’s favorite groundhog, his forecasts verify even worse than those of our medium-term climate models. Phil’s predictions come true about 38% of the time, while medium-range climate models have a little accuracy for temperature but are essentially a coin flip for precipitation.

But each year is different, and there have been plenty of years when Phil has bested even our finest computer models. So who will win out in 2022: rodent or machine?

Only time will tell who will ultimately have the best weather prediction this year. But so far, all signs are that Phil’s forecast is off to a bad start. Models have consistently been advertising a much warmer-than-average February for the majority of the nation – and the Western US in particular – due to persistent, large-scale ridging in the Northeast Pacific and Lower 48. It’s quite a departure from the damaging snow and freezing rain over the Pacific Northwest – and the catastrophic cold over Texas – in mid-February 2021.

In this blog, I review some of the weather we’ve seen over the past month and look at the forecast for the next two weeks. But before I delve into the details, here are four main points:

Summary:

1. The past 30 days have seen a very atypical pattern for a La Nina winter, with persistent ridging centered along the West Coast. This ridging has brought well-above-average temps to some of the higher elevations of the Pacific Northwest, but the Pacific Northwest lowlands have mostly seen inversions and near or even cooler-than-average temperatures.
2. Strong ridging will persist for the rest of the week over the Western US. Unlike January, solar angles are now high enough to burn off most surface inversions and Western Washington/Oregon should see mostly sunny skies, with the weekend being particularly nice.
3. Southern California will experience Santa Ana winds and near-record temperatures through Sunday, with highs in many locations reaching the upper 80s.
4. The Pacific Northwest will see a weak front Sunday night into Monday, but weaker ridging will rebuild next week, giving continued drier and calmer-than-average weather through late February with a well-below-average chance of storms and lowland snow.

Last 30 days: Ridging and Inversions

Let’s start by taking a look at the temperature and precipitation anomalies over the Western US for the last 30 days. After the frigid weather and lowland snow to end 2021 and the extreme mountain snow to ring in 2022, precipitation has been well-below-average and temperatures have been near or slightly above-average. They would have been well-above average if it weren’t for the persistent inversions we saw in the latter half of January that kept Western Washington in the low 40s while places like Paradise Ranger Station on Mt. Rainier soared all the way to the mid 50s.

This dry and mild weather was courtesy of a large ridge centered just off our coast for the past month. The sinking air associated with this ridge warmed the upper and mid atmosphere, but the surface was still radiating more heat out to space than it was receiving from the sun during this time, leading to the development of strong, persistent inversions over Western Washington, the Willamette Valley, and much of the Inland Northwest.

These inversions can be seen as the low stratus and fog on satellite. The below image was taken on 1/23, and on that date, Seattle was shrouded in fog and only hit 38 degrees while Paradise Ranger station, all the way at 5,400 feet, hit 60 degrees! 60 degrees is exceptional for a station at 5,400′ in the middle of January, but such temperatures are not unheard of when an extremely strong wintertime ridge moves overhead, even though sun angles are still very low and days very short.

Looking Ahead: Warm With Fewer Inversions

As has been the story for much of the past month, a very strong, blocking ridge of high pressure remains stationed just off the Pacific NW coast. Conditions have been pleasant in Seattle today, but we did not have the bluebird sunshine that we saw last Sunday. However, other parts of the West are indeed experiencing springlike conditions this week, and Southern California has a “Heat Advisory” in effect through 4pm Thursday for temperatures up to 90 degrees courtesy of strong Santa Ana winds there. Similar temperatures are expected to persist through the weekend, and I believe this Heat Advisory will be extended accordingly.

Thursday and Friday will feature partly cloudy conditions as this ridge slowly moves onshore, and we should see sunny skies and highs ranging from the mid 50s in the Puget Sound lowlands all the way to the low 60s towards the Southern Willamette Valley as this ridge moves directly overhead for the weekend! For those in Portland, this will be an amazing weekend to head up to Forest Park and look for the first buds of spring on the deciduous trees there. If I’m not hiking in the mountains this weekend, I will be doing the same thing in the Seattle arboretum.

A weak cold front will likely move inland on Sunday night followed by weak troughing on Monday, but more ridging should return next week, albeit it will likely be weaker than the ridging this week. As the GFS ensembles below show, precipitation should continue to be well-below-average, and no ensemble members show any sort of arctic outbreak like last year.

But perhaps Punxsutawney Phil is right this year and will put the National Weather Service to shame! As February 2018 and 2020 showed us, February can still deliver plenty of surprises.

– Charlie