If January was any indication, Tuesday’s Groundhog Day forecast for six more weeks of winter should mean that the North Olympic Peninsula will be nice and balmy.
Port Angeles broke an official record for January warmth while Port Townsend, Sequim and Forks were unseasonably mild, the National Weather Service said.
The average temperature in Port Angeles last month was 42.7 degrees — 3.1 degrees above average and a full degree warmer than the second-warmest January in 2006.
“The effect, of course, is due to El Nino, which around these parts causes warmer than normal conditions,” said Johnny Burg, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.
El Nino is a periodic warming of the equatorial Pacific that shifts the storm track south to California.
At the Quillayute weather station near Forks, the combined high and low for January was 46.3 degrees. That’s well above the 40.6-degree average and two-tenths of a degree cooler than the record set in 2003.
The National Weather Service does not keep official weather information in Jefferson County or in Sequim.
Burg said last month’s data from volunteer observers in Jefferson County is incomplete.
However, AccuWeather.com showed Port Townsend averaged 46.4 degrees last month — more than five degrees warmer than the historical average.
Sequim averaged 45.2 degrees last month compared to a typical 39 degrees, according to AccuWeather data.
Healthy snowpack
Despite the unusual warmth in the lower elevations, heavy precipitation has built a healthy snowpack in the Olympic Mountains.
Scott Pattee, Natural Resources Conservation Service water supply specialist in Mount Vernon, said the combined snowpack for the Olympics is 106 percent of average.
“The Olympic Mountains are the best area in the state for snowpack,” Pattee said.
“All the [weather] systems coming in are hitting the coast, stalling out and just dumping on the Olympics.”
The rest of the state isn’t so lucky.
Rivers and streams that feed the Puget Sound region have less than half their normal snowpack in the Cascade Mountains.
“Considering the doom-and-gloom of the rest of the Pacific Northwest, definitely the coast is going to be in good shape,” Pattee said.
Burg said the Olympic Mountains were one of the few places hit with a lot of snow.
“We’re doing better than last year,” he said.
“Forks got a ton of rain.”
Rainfall
Forks had nearly two feet of rain in January while Port Angeles had just 2.3 inches at William R. Fairchild International Airport, Burg said.
That’s a significant departure from monthly averages of 4.2 inches for Port Angeles and 14.5 inches for Forks.
Port Townsend was an half-inch shy of its January average of 2.2 inches of rainfall, according to AccuWeather.com.
Berg attributed the disparity to the southerly storm track caused by El Niño and the rain show caused by the Olympic Mountains.
The mountains blocked moisture coming from the south, keeping central and eastern Clallam County — and east Jefferson County — relatively dry.
Expect warm February
Burg said the effects of El Nino will probably linger into the early spring.
“In February, we’re looking for a 70 percent chance of above normal temperatures,” Burg said.
“For precipitation, it’s looking like a 60 percent chance of drier than normal. It’s looking to be warm and dry.”
Longer range models for the North Olympic Peninsula show a likelihood of warmer and drier weather persisting through April, Burg said.
Unlike the rest of the state, Pattee said the Olympic Mountains saw plenty of precipitation last month.
Details of snowpack
The snowpack telemetry site at Waterhole in Olympic National Park in Clallam County is 126 percent of normal, he said.
That areas feeds water into the Lillian River, which flows into the Elwha River and provides drinking water to the Port Angeles area.
Pattee said the snowpack in the rain-driven Dungeness River basin is 76 percent of normal, but the total precipitation last month was 253 percent of normal.
Much of the snow that fell in Dungeness headwaters was melted by the rain, he said.
Upstream from Forks, the latest readings from the snowpack telemetry site in the Quillayute River valley is 165 percent of normal, Pattee said.
The snowpack telemetry site at Mount Crag in Olympic National Forest in Jefferson County, which feeds the Dosewallips River system, is 116 percent of normal.
Pattee said the Big Quilcene River, a source of drinking water for Port Townsend, is above its average snowpack.
One of the few places where snow depths are below average in the Olympic Mountains is Hurricane Ridge, where a telemetry station recorded a 76 percent of normal snowpack.
For the entire mountain range, total precipitation was 184 percent of normal in January and 154 percent of normal dating back to Oct. 1 of last year, Pattee said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
