Blizzard-like blast rips through region

By MIKE PATRICK

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — Apparently, the beatings will continue.

Monday afternoon’s wintry hissy fit from Mother Nature led several upset citizens to call Mr. Cliff Harris, describing in colorful language blizzard-like conditions out on the highways and byways of North Idaho.

“Some of them said they had to pull off the road because it was so bad,” said the longtime Press climatologist and senior half of the Harris-Randy Mann weather duo. Mann is a meteorologist who provides The Press daily weather report.

As Harris explained, his weather station on Player Drive, next to the Coeur d’Alene Public Golf Course, had measured 5.3 inches of snow for October. That was within a snowman’s nose of threatening the all-time October snowfall record of 6.8 inches, which fell Oct. 22-23 in 1957.

Committing a flagrant foul on fall, Coeur d’Alene received 1.1 inches of snow the last weekend of September.

“It’s all coming in the back door from Montana,” Harris said of the freaky nature of these autumnal storms.

But the new observation emanating from Player Drive in Coeur d’Alene is that maybe the winter of 2019-2020 won’t be as dastardly as the lack of sunspots and additional cooling of Pacific waters suggest. Maybe, Harris said, the record-setting snow window will shut sooner rather than later.

His logic goes back to February of this year, when Coeur d’Alene was buried under a record 56 inches of snow and outlying areas like Rathdrum and Spirit Lake saw 70 or more.

“It started so early, maybe it won’t be so heavy on the other end,” he said.

While further long-range forecasts are literally still up in the air, Harris is certain that Monday’s snowfall will be followed by unseasonable cold the next few days, including a mighty chilly Halloween night.

“This may or may not end up being the snowiest winter,” he said, “but it will most certainly be the most unusual we’ve ever had.”