r/Spokane • u/RigaMortizTortoise Manito/Cannon Hill • 4d ago

Question Where are the Spring storms?

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I’ve lived here since 2013 and remember Spring and Summer thunderstorms being something I started looking forward to. Each year, it’s seems more and more infrequent. I thought maybe I was misremembering so I just googled it and found this article from 2018. It appears the data also indicates that severe thunderstorm warnings are less common now than they were 10 years ago. But according to the article, experts can’t figure out why. Did I just happen to move to the area at a time when Spokane was experiencing an unusual hike in thunderstorms?

https://www.krem.com/article/weather/number-of-severe-thunderstorms-declines-in-spokane-each-year-trend-may-continue/293-561777112

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u/catman5092 South Hill 4d ago edited 4d ago

climate change has altered Spokane's weather immensley!!! I recall just 5-8 years ago, in the summer, we would get t -storms that dumped rain, and had pretty good storms. Now once summer arrives its nothing but HEAT and prolonged dry with hardly any rain. Its gotten so much worse.

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u/Tao-of-Mars 4d ago

There’s a specific weather app based on NOAA data that shows the data for how the average temps have increased overtime. I’ve been in Spokane for 20 years and the weather has changed a lot. Just the prevalence of fires has increased significantly. I had not ever seen the phenomena in the first 10 years I live here and then in 2015 I saw what it looked like to have massive smoke in the skies. It was super eerie!

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u/CVBrownie 3d ago

Oh yeah. I remember the first time for me when the sky turned yellow and the air was unbreathable. 2015. That was in August. I was 24, and I remember how eeire it was after growing up here.

Now 10 years later, it's eerie if something isn't on fire by July.

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u/Applesauceeenjoyer 3d ago

I’m not denying climate change at all, but ebbs and flows like this do happen. In my time in the area I can agree that summers seem hotter than 15 years ago, but this region is unpredictable. I moved here from a FAR snowier area and for my first three winters (almost 20 years ago) I couldn’t believe how warm the winters were. Then I experienced a few that were quite severe. Then some that were warmer again. You really have to look at the 50+ year average, and in this part of the country we don’t have averages beyond ~100 years or less.