As we enter 2009, we can look back on a very interesting weather year in the mid-valley in 2008. In summary, it was a cool year, drier than average, with a surprising amount of snow.

Early 2008 was dominated by "La Niña" conditions in the tropical Pacific. A La Niña, the "cool phase" of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, is characterized by cooler-than-average ocean temperatures off South America. In our area, La Niña winters tend to start late, be cool and wet, and produce abundant mountain snow.

That's pretty much what happened. The winter of 2007-08 began in earnest in early December, with a big wind storm and some serious rain (which caused serious flooding, especially north of us). Heavy December rains continued after the first of the year.

Late January saw several low-elevation snow events. Temperatures dropped as low as 19 degrees, and more than 2 inches of snow was reported at our official weather station, the Hyslop Experiment Station. January's average temperature was about 2.5 degrees below normal and precipitation almost 2 inches above normal.

By the way, when climate folks talk about "normal" we mean a 30-year average. Currently we use an average from 1971 through 2000 for such purposes.

February, March and April saw below-normal temperatures continue. February was rather dry, but March and April had near-normal precipitation. Meanwhile, snow piled up in the Cascades, producing one of the deepest snow packs on record. The National Guard was called out to help folks in places like Idanha, where snow was so deep that some roofs collapsed.

And then we had the single most surprising and newsworthy weather event of the year. On the morning of April 19, snow fell in Corvallis and Albany. Not much, mind you - only about a half inch. But there was none at the Hyslop station. The next day, however, snow returned, and this time Hyslop received some - an estimated 0.3 inch.

Okay, a little bit of snow - so what?

That day we set a record for the latest measurable snow in the area. The old record was set in 1911, when an inch fell on April 11. I always thought that that was one record we would never see broken, yet here it was - by nine days! What an amazing event.

Finally, warm weather arrived in May. The 94 and 92 degree temperatures on the 17th and 18th were so warm and abrupt that they felt very strange - but welcome! May was the first month of the year with above-normal temperatures.

June was back to cooler than average, despite a record-setting 98 degree day on the 29th. July and August were pretty typical summer months - warm but not excessively hot, and very pleasant. In fact, they typified was I consider a classic Oregon summer: warm days, pleasant nights, and dry.

September and October were pretty close to normal.

And I expected winter to begin with a vengeance in November. Wrong! November was very mild (about 3 degrees above normal) and dry.

But as if on cue, winter arrived at the beginning of December. With it came the coldest stretch in 10 years, with temperatures as low as 11 degrees, and a lot of snow. Compared to Portland, which had the biggest December snow storm ever, ours wasn't much - a "puny" 5 inches. Even so, this was the biggest December snow total since 1985.

And our total snowfall for the year reached 7.55 inches, the largest since 1993. Normal is 4.89 inches. On the other hand, annual precipitation (34.04 inches) was more than 8 inches below normal.

Finally, the average annual temperature was 0.6 degrees below normal. Seven of the 12 months were cooler than normal.

Put it all together and you get cool, dry, and snowy. An interesting weather year indeed.

New Years' blessings to you in 2009!

George Taylor operates Applied Climate Services of Corvallis. He can be reached at taylorgh@

comcast.net.