Say goodbye to winter! The spring equinox is on Thursday, March 20th, officially at 201 AM Pacific Time, and highlights the start of the spring season. Given the earth’s 23.5 degree tilt as it rotates around the sun annually, that moment early Thursday morning will be when the sun’s direct rays cross the equator from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere.
Since the winter solstice back in late December, each day has been getting longer. This is the peak time of year when each day is gaining about 3 and a half minutes per day. The length of each day just crossed 12 hours of daylight earlier this week. This pace will now gradually slow as the calendar rolls into April and May, reaching the summer solstice in late June with close to 16 hours of daylight.
We may be waving goodbye to winter, but winter weather is not going away through this weekend. A series of Pacific weather systems driven by a 150 mph westerly Jetstream across the North Pacific will maintain rain and cool temperatures with mountain snow through Sunday. The Jetstream is a ribbon of strong winds at an altitude around where jets fly at cruising altitude – around 30,000 feet or so.
Showers are expected to taper off Monday as higher pressure aloft builds toward the Pacific Northwest. Tuesday looks to offer some spring-like weather with sunshine and warmer temperatures.
Everett – Paine Field hit 64 degrees on February 27th, and Tuesday’s high temperature will quite likely top that, reaching into the mid or perhaps upper 60s – the warmest so far this year.
The latest weather outlook for the North Sound from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center heading into April indicates around average temperatures with the odds tipped toward wetter than normal conditions.
As the calendar rolls over for the start of the spring season Thursday, at least there will be an appearance of spring weather early next week. Visit the Everett Post Weather page for the most up to date info.
