Last February brought with it a snow day for the record books, with 10.8 inches falling at PDX over the course of 24 hours on February 22. On the heels of a January storm that left hundreds of thousands iced in, more snow is daunting, not magical. Is it time to batten down the hatches once again?

Recency bias—the cognitive tendency to prioritize the meaning of recent events—has us especially nervous about February’s prospects, but for a peek at the month to come, we’d be better off looking at this unseasonably warm weekend, rather than January’s brutal ice storm. If current National Weather Service forecasts pan out, we’re likely to see a warmer-than-average month with pretty typical precipitation. February’s “climatological normal” low of 36 degrees (an average based on the 30-year period between 1991 and 2020) is not exactly a recipe for serious snowfall—or any snowfall at all.  

“We’re not out of the woods for snow in February,” or March, or even April, says Rebecca Muessle, meteorologist at the NWS’s Portland office.  She notes that April 11, 2022, holds the record for the latest in the year we’ve seen over an inch of snow, proof that you shouldn't ditch your emergency kit. 

Last February turned out to be—forgive us—a perfect storm. The city’s second snowiest day on record blew past our normal inch or so of monthly snowfall, with frigid easterly winds and a warm, wet front that parked right on top of Portland. “It was that annoying person at the grocery store where you’re waiting to get their spot and they’re just not moving,” Muessle says. 

Might Portland break a different record this year? “We can’t say, Oh, the warmest temperature in February is going to be fill-in-the-blank,” Muessle says. But January's record-setting in Oregon gives us reason to dream. Portland’s high to beat is a balmy 71 degrees, recorded on February 28, 1988.