By Rod Hill on 2014-11-17
This morning's hard freeze and killing frost is the first of the fall season. Portland did dip to 32 degrees back on November 12th, marking the first light freeze of the season. Unofficial low temperatures this morning include: 28 degrees at PDX, 21 at Hillsboro, Scappoose and Ridgefield. Salem dipped to 24 degrees and Vancouver 19 degrees!
This morning's cold was not record setting, in fact the record low at PDX for November 15th is 13 degrees back in 1955. Salem dropped to 9 degrees on the same date! The average first fall freeze for the Rose City is November 8th and the earliest on record is October 8th back in 1985.
The National Weather Service says Portland officially picked up a trace of snow on Thursday. No doubt that the wintry weather is a bit early, but not unprecedented. Portland has picked up November snow a handful of times over the years, including an inch on Nov. 10th back in 1911 and more recently, 3" on the 19th back in 1978 and .3" of snow on the 22nd in 2010. The earliest recorded trace of snow, fell on halloween back in 1955.
History tells us there is no correlation between an early November cold snap and the up-coming winter months. Current outlooks from the Weather Service keep the Northwest in the above normal category for temperatures through the month of January, when averaged over time. We will slowly pull out of the cold weather next week. A strong Pacific cold front tracking to arrive next Friday would scour out all remaining cold pockets.
Meteorologist Rod Hill
HIGH WIND WARNING FOR METRO VALLEY