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As if you didn’t need another reason to hate the year 2020, add the crappy weather we are having in the PNW. The old saying around here is that summer starts on July 5th (because we have crappy weather on most July 4th days). This isn’t true many years but we always seem to go through a period in June we like to call “Juneuary” around here because we often have some nice warm, sunny days in April and May and then the June Gloom rolls in and the first week of July it the summer high pressure builds over Washington state and we have glorious hot and long days.
But not this year. The year seemed to start fairly normal but the jet stream just didn’t move over enough and the middle of the country is baking, the west coast is in a deep chill. This is good for the reservoirs and wild fires, it’s not good for the grapes. The grapes started flowering around June 20th at my place, which is a good start but as cold and rainy weather settled in, it has delayed the flowering process and I still have some vines flowering on July 9th.
The growing degree days measured at the WSU weather station near my house here in Woodinville isn’t too far from the average over the past 12 years. The GDDs for July 8th, 2020 at Woodinville is about 668. Which only puts it about 3 days behind the average of 711 (we get about 20 degree days a day right now). But far above the 408 we had in 2011 and far below the 1044 we had in 2015. This is a El Nino neutral year and these years can be unsettled not really know where to go. 2015 was a strong El Nino and 2011 was a strong La Nina.
Then there is the rain. On paper it doesn’t look like a lot of rain, but then this time of year we get almost no rain. July is usually bone dry. I read somewhere that we have had rain every weekend through the first week July for 8 straight weekends. It’s not a lot of rain. Enough to keep the weeds growing and is giving us all mildew headaches but it is slowing things way down. Unfortunately the medium range forecast is for more of the same. Unsettled and slightly lower than normal temperatures. The climate prediction center is saying that we might move into a really hot and dry pattern for the west coast starting in a few weeks. We can use it!
