Well, March might be remembered for starting with snow on ocean beaches, but February will be noted for just being wet. Very wet.
Coupled with a record-wet January, lots of rainstorms in February meant higher than average rainfall.
Two miles north of Yachats, longtime weather watcher Don Tucker measured 11.57 inches of rain in February, the second highest for the month in his 18 years of recordkeeping. His February average is 8.46 inches of rain.
Coupled with a wet January, Tucker has measured 31.90 inches of rain so far in 2024, his highest accumulated rainfall for the first two months of the year since 2017 by two inches.
There was rain on 27 of February’s 29 days. “Even if I didn’t count Leap Day, it would still be a record,” he said.
It was little different in downtown Yachats.
Gauges at the Yachats wastewater treatment plant recorded 9.23 inches of rain in February, for a total of 25.48 inches for the first two months of the year. The 10-year average for the first two months of the year is 16.24 inches of rain.
Weather watcher Adam Altson, who lives near the treatment plant, recorded 9.52 inches of rain in February with 24.44 for the year.
Julie Bailey, who lives at the 220-foot level of Horizon Hill in Yachats, measured 10.73 inches of rain in February and has 27.98 inches for the year.
There was more rain, of course, up the Yachats River valley.
Jim Adler, who lives at the three-mile mark, recorded 13.11 inches of rain in February – three inches more than his average for the month — and has 38.32 for the year.
It’s wetter the farther east you go.
Bob Williams, who lives eight miles up the valley, measured 16.33 inches in February for a two-month total of 49.63 inches – 10 inches more than Adler who lives just five miles away.
Other items of note:
- Altson: The high temperature in Yachats was 60.5 degrees on Feb. 22, the low was 36.8 degrees on Feb. 13. “Another month without terribly strong winds – the peak gust was 48 mph on Feb. 28 – the first time since 2016 that I did not have a 50 mph gust in February, and only the second time going back to 2014.”
- Bailey: Three days with over an inch of rain — 1.10 inches on Feb. 15, 1.40 inches on Feb. 28 and 1.44 inches on Leap Day, Feb. 29.
- Tucker: The temperatures, both high and low, continued to creep up for February. My average low temperature was 44 degrees, the highest average February low temperature and eclipsing the 42.6 degrees set in 2015.
- Williams: “We’ve had about 2 inches of snow so far this (March 1) morning.” OK, that doesn’t count for February.
Does anyone have any insight into why we get so many hail storms, at least on my part of the coast?
I live in Beverly Beach and when there are winter storm warnings or advisories for the Coast Range, and sometimes when there are not, we get lots of hail storms. I counted at least eight on March 5, with a couple of snowfalls in between. These are invariably intense, with small hailstones, but last only a few minutes.
I’ve lived in Portland, Eugene, Olympia, Seattle, Minnesota, New York City and Utah, and I’ve never seen so many hail storms in my life as I have in the last 6 years I’ve lived on the coast.
I’m wondering what about our geography or weather makes the area so conducive to hail.