Anacortes Washington Weather Station Provided by Mt Erie Fire Department

Weather Essays

The following weather essays are weather columns written by weather columnist Vince Streano for the Anacortes American. You can read his current column by clicking here, and then going to the “Weather or Not” column.

Banana Belt or Rain Shadow?
Copyright Vince Streano, 1999

Nestled within the Olympic rain shadow, just west of the Cascade mountain range, Anacortes enjoys unusually mild weather for a community that shares its latitude with Newfoundland. Described by many as the banana belt of Western Washington, the area has mild winters, an exceptionally long spring, and summers that end too soon. Since I haven't seen a banana tree since moving here, I prefer to describe our weather as mild because of the influence of the Olympic rain shadow.

When my wife and I moved here in March of 1989 from Southern California, we were gloriously ignorant to the sudden mood swings our weather can exhibit. In Southern California the weather is extremely predictable, bordering on boring. The rainy season is from November to March, and it's sunny and warm the rest of the time. Before we moved our friends kept asking how can you move to someplace where it rains all the time?
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First Snow Fall
Copyright Vince Streano, 2005

So, there I was Thursday morning, the first day of December, waiting for the first snowflakes to fall like a kid waiting for Santa to drop down the chimney. The National Weather Service had predicted snow for late in the afternoon, but I was hoping it would come earlier, so I could take pictures. By 10 AM the skies to the north were almost black. Overhead the clouds were heavy with moisture and the color of pewter. I checked the radar and could see the beginnings of snow falling to the north and west of Fidalgo Island.

Just after 10:30 the first flakes began to fall. Tiny little flakes you could barely see. Gradually they got larger, and larger, until the flakes were the size of half dollars, floating gracefully to the ground. I was awestruck by the beauty of what I was seeing. I was afraid it might be a brief flurry with a sudden ending, but the snowfall kept getting heavier. My weather station said the temperature was 36 degrees, which explained why the flakes weren't yet sticking on the ground. After twenty minutes of what I would call heavy snowfall, I called the National Weather Service on the Weather Spotter hotline to report what I was seeing. They were surprised it was already snowing in our area. The forecaster asked me the temperature and the dew point, and thanked me for the update.

I guess the reason I love watching it snow is because, as a child growing up in Southern California, I rarely had the opportunity to see snow. We lived along the coast, and it was a two to three hour drive to get up into the mountains. I can't remember ever making the drive during the winter months. My first experience with snow was during college when a girlfriend tried to teach me to ski. That turned out to be disastrous, so I never got that wondrous feeling about snow until I moved to Anacortes.

After an hour of watching the snow fall at home, I decided I wanted to photograph the farm fields in the Skagit Valley. I loaded up my equipment and headed east. As I crossed Fidalgo Island, I found the snow was heavier in some spots, and almost non-existent in others. I crossed over the Swinomish Channel and into the Skagit Valley. At first I found very little snow on the ground. I continued into La Connor and then headed east. The further east I traveled, the more snow I found on the ground. I'm not talking piles of snow, but at least enough to make the ground white.

My first picture was of a Bald Eagle high in a snow covered willow tree. In the picture you can see snowflakes falling in front of the bird, and all the branches of the tree are covered in a white crust of snow. A very stark image for a cold winter day. I continued driving, and came across a field of blueberry bushes. The rows of dormant red twigs with the white snow made a great pattern shot.

I ended the day at a dairy on Beaver Marsh Road. I parked the car and talked to the workers tending the cows. I got the feeling they weren't quite as excited about the snow as I was. The snow made the milking and feeding the cows much more difficult. The temperature was now below freezing, and the breath from the cows created a fog that hung over the cattle pens and the milking barn, making the whole scene very surreal.

As I headed back home, the snow had stopped falling. It wasn't enough to impact the roads, but many areas were covered in a white winter blanket. Some of the higher elevations on Fidalgo Island got up to three inches of snow, while most of the rest of the island got an inch or less. All in all, I consider that Thursday a perfect snow day. Not so much snow that is causes problems, but enough that it can be enjoyed and create beautiful winter scenes.

Has this ever happened to you? You get in your car on a bright sunny morning for a drive to Seattle. The weather is great, and you're looking forward to an easy drive down I-5. As you progress south on the freeway, the weather ahead looks a little gray. Around Smokey Point the clouds begin to thicken. Then you get to Everett and the weather changes to a pounding rain. What happened? It's almost like you entered a parallel universe. Everything looks the same, except the weather. Then, about fifteen miles further down the road, the universe shifts back, the sun is shining, and everything is back to normal.

What happened is that you entered the dreaded Puget Sound Convergence Zone. Florida has its Hurricanes, Oklahoma has its Tornadoes, and we have our convergence zones. The PSCZ is the most consistent, and produces many fascinating weather phenomenon. I've often wondered how convergence zones are formed, and what causes them.
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Keeping weather statistics is both a curse and a joy. A curse because you have to be compulsive about faithfully entering the records at the end of each day. If I take a trip, I have to find someone I can trust to record the records for me until my return. It's a joy when I can look back over the records and begin to discern patterns and anomalies that crop up throughout the years.

As we begin our summer season I thought it might be interesting to go back through my records and try to predict when it might be sunny and when it might rain, based on my records for the past five years. I was surprised at a number of facts I discovered while doing my research.
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I was walking around downtown Anacortes the other day in a pouring rainstorm. Suddenly it dawned on me. No one was carrying an umbrella! Over the next couple of days whenever I went to town in the rain, which was most days, I did a mental umbrella survey. I still haven't seen one. What is it with Anacortes residents disdain for the bumbershoot? Personally I don't carry one either. Usually the rain isn't that hard, and a hat and jacket keeps me relatively dry. But lately it's been raining cats and dogs, and still no umbrellas. Maybe it's a macho thing. Are Anacortes residents too tough for umbrellas?

Since November and December are historically the wettest months of the year, you'll probably be seeing a lot more damp residents traipsing around town as they try to complete their holiday errands. This brings up the old argument of whether you stay dryer by walking or running in the rain? In an effort to keep our holiday shoppers as dry as possible, I've done a little research on the subject that I think you'll find interesting.
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The first tendrils of fog came slithering through Deception pass like a giant octopus searching the seabed. The fog crept along the northern edge of Whidbey Island, flowed over the water until it reached Skagit Island, then retreated back to the pass. Eventually it dissipated altogether leaving behind a brilliant sunny day.

As I sat watching the fogs advances and retreats, I knew that while I was basking in bright sunshine residents on the west side of the island were shivering in the fog. That got me thinking about the various micro climates we have here on Fidalgo Island.
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