We are looking back to the very beginnings of climate reporting in the Portland area, circa 1874.

Tidbit: 1888 was one of the most brutal winters ever experienced in the Portland area.

Tidbit: Frozen Rivers! There are several instances in the historic records of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers freezing over, with ice jams and icebreakers at work on the rivers to keep the Port of Portland open! There are even pictures of cars being driven across the icy Willamette River in downtown Portland, eg. December, 1924.

Winter 1949 and Winter 1950

The winters of both 1949 and 1950 provided residents with two back-to-back horrific winters, which shattered many records for both extreme cold and deep snowfalls. Most of those marks were so extreme that they are still standing today, eg. the average daily low in January 1949 was 21.0 degrees, and in January 1950 it was 21.2 degrees-- the only thing even approaching this cold was 18 years ago, in January 1985, when the average low was 26.8. The really outstanding event of Winter 1950, however, was that it included two out of the three times in history that Portland has been below zero!

Portland's all-time record low was set on February 2, 1950 at 3 below zero. Salem's second-coldest all-time low of 10 below was set on January 31, 1950 (Salem's absolute lowest is 12 below).

Deep and long-lasting snows! The winters of 1949 and 1950 gave stunned residents the experience of living in true "Snow Belt" cities, with weeks-long snow on the ground, and many very cold days with snow deeper than 10 inches on the ground..... Also of interest regarding the winter of 1949 is the little-known fact that a very unusual early-season cold invasion occurred approx. October 19-21, 1949, setting all-time record lows for the dates that in 2005 have still not been beaten-- such low temp. records are found for cities ranging all up and down the West Coast, from Olympia, WA (23 degrees), to Portland, Oregon (27 degrees), to Medford, Oregon (20 degrees), to Sacramento, Calif.(35 degrees)-- and even as far south as Douglas, Arizona on the Mexican border (31 degrees)....This type of major cold air invasion was similar to the range and power to the Siberian Express of February, 1933, which set all-time cold records across several States that have never been beaten.

Ice Storm 2004 was decidedly puny in comparison to many of the cold and snow events in Portland's historic record, for example January of 1950, or the winter of 1968-69 (see below)....The winter of 1919-1920 is still a record-holder in some categories (see below)

1950--- During the brutal winter of 1949-50 there was an entire month when the Portland area lay under a deep blanket of snow over a foot deep. Janary, 1950 buried the City with a total snowfall at the Airport of 41 inches! The unbelievable month ended in a record-setting cold wave, which on January 31 gave Portland a new all-time record low of 2 below zero, then promptly broke that on February 2, freezing the City with Portland's all-time record low of 3 below zero. Here are some quotations:

(January, 1950) "Temeratures over the entire State were far below normal, and precipitation was much above. The major portion of this precipitation fell in the form of snow and sleet even in the western division (eg. Willamette Valley). In Portland a total of 32.9 inches of snow fell during the month (41 inches at the Airport)...Severe blizzard conditions on the 13th and a heavy sleet and ice storm on the 18th-19th together caused several hundred thousand dollars worth of damage and virtually halted traffic for two or three days over widespread areas, particularly in western Oregon...." George Taylor adds, "...All highways west of the Cascades and through the Columbia River Gorge were closed due to large snow drifts." (First quote is from the 1950 Annual Climatological Summary, written by E.S. Ellison, and second quotation is from The Oregon Weather Book by George Taylor. ) And Portland was mild compared to what was happening eastward up the Columbia River Gorge, where the cold and snow were worse yet, with Cascade Locks buried under 92 inches of snowfall for the month, and the town of Hood River nearly shut down with 94 inches.

1968-69--- Finally, bringing us to a more recent time, let's not forget the winter of 1968-69. This winter featured a brutal double-whammy of snow in late-December-January.... In total there were 18 days with one inch or more of snow on the ground, with snow up to 9 inches deep during the first period, and up to 10 inches deep in the second! Kids were in heaven and snowmen almost out-numbered people by the time the long snowy period ended.... While temperatures were not as extremely cold as in either 1949 or 1950, they were substantially colder than Portland's Ice Storm of 2004. eg. Dec. 30, 1968 had a high of 14 and a low of 8, and Dec. 31, 1968, had a high of only 19 and a low of 9 degrees; in contrast, the coldest recorded during Ice Storm 2004 was a comparatively mild 18 degrees.

December 9-11, 1919. December of 1919 still holds various records for both extreme cold and for deep snow. What may be Oregon's record for "The most snow in 24 hrs. in an actual town" was probably set on December 10, 1919, when 40 inches smothered Parkdale, a small town in the apple-growing region above Hood River. Also of note was Parkdale's 63 inch storm total from the three-day storm. Completing the horrendous winter picture, weather observers of the time noted that the Columbia River was frozen!

Has Global Warming been the Culprit?

1990-- the last really cold December recorded in Portland. Coldest day had high of 20 and low of 12.

1980-- the last really cold January recorded in Portland. Coldest day had high of 32 and low of 13.

1989-- the last really cold February recorded in Portland. Coldest days were Feb. 2 and 3, with frigid highs of 15 and.18, and lows of 9 and 11..... (amazingly, January 30th had had a high of a balmy 56 degrees, and early January had gotten as high as 60!)

Below are some interesting early and late dates of hot and cold during Portland's weather year cycle:

Earliest mid-70's temperature: March 13, 2005, 75 degrees, during a long spell of nearly cloudless similar days!

Earliest mid-80s temperature: April 26, 1947, 86 degrees.

Earliest 90 degree temperature: April 30, 1998, 90 degrees.

Latest mid-80s temperature: October 11, 1991, 86 degrees.

Latest 80 degree temperature: October 15, 1991, 80 degrees.

Latest 70 degree temperature: November 13, 1991, 71 degrees.

Earliest frost: October 8, 1985, 32 degrees (Seneca was 4 degrees!).

Earliest 20 degrees or less temperature: November 12, 1978, 19 degrees (Seneca was 8 below zero)

Earliest 15 degrees or less temperature: 13 degrees on November 15, 1955 (east of the Cascade Mtns., Pendleton was 4 below zero, while Seneca fell to an unbelievable 31 below zero! Meanwhile in Washington State an astounding 3 degrees was recorded on the shores of Puget Sound in Olympia----comment: the early season cold wave of November 1955 caused much damage because it was so early and so severe that few people had yet properly winterized their homes, vehicles, etc.)

THANKSGIVING COLD: Cold Wave of November, 1985---- in Western Washington, Olympia had a low of zero on November 23, a real frozen turkey day! Meanwhile Portland recorded an cold but unremarkable 17, while Seattle had a chilling 10 degrees, and east of the Cascades Yakima was 13 below zero...Oregon's Arctic King, Seneca, fell to 31 below zero during this early-season cold wave event.

Oregon Mountains can experience severe snow droughts! Eg. winter 2004-2005