What started out as a moderate La Niña last fall, turned extreme in the winter and then hung on through spring. Out of 117 years of record keeping,
Oregon's spring ranked 116th, which means only one year in all that time was wetter, according to statistics gathered by the National Climatic Data Center.
Only the spring of 1993 was wetter. Below average temperatures also made it the fifth coolest spring in Oregon on record.
Snowpacks that usually peak on April 1, kept growing well into May. Heavy spring rains and snowmelt sent the Columbia River near Vancouver at and over flood stage for weeks.
While these and other records (Portland's latest first-60 degree day finally came on March 31) led to lots of complaining ("I'm in Portland, Oregon where it is once again winter," tweeted Denise Rothman of Portland last week) canceled baseball games and led to dozens of cloudy, cool days, the rest of the country truly suffered.
Typically, La Niña, the abnormal cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean waters, fades away with the spring equinox. But not this year. The jet stream stayed farther south, and according to Dr. Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground, "blew more strongly, with wind speeds more typical of winter than spring."
According to the National Climatic Data Center, Washington state-along with Wyoming, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee and Vermont had their wettest springs (March-May) in 117 years. Oregon, along with Montana, had their wettest spring in 116 years.
While much of these extremes can be tied to La Niña, Dr. Master said global climate change may have played a factor.
"It is difficult to disentangle the two effects without doing detailed modeling studies, which typically take years complete and publish," Masters said.
While the long range forecast calls for below average precipitation for June, July and August, with average temperatures, the short term forecast is calling for mostly sunny skies into the weekend, and Portland's second 80 degree day of the year on Tuesday. There's a good chance we'll see many more before summer ends.