Urban Landscape, Native Landscape: March in Seattle

Friday, April 12, 2013

March in Seattle

Narcissus on Beacon Hill in March 2013

Madison Park in March 2013

Prunus serrulata (flowering cherry) in Mt Baker in March 2013

Rainier Valley in March 2013

March 2013 was warmer & drier than normal. The mean temperature was 47.9F/8.8C. The normal mean temperature is 46.5F/8C. The lowest temperature was 32F/0C, the highest 69F/20.6C. Total precipitation was 2.74 inches. Normal precipitation is 3.72 inches. There were 5 days with rain, 19 days with light rain, 1 day with sleet, 16 days with fog (3 of them at a visibility of less than 1/4 mile), 2 days with haze, 17 cloudy days, 11 partly cloudy days & 3 fair days.

March felt chilly & the skies were mostly dark with clouds. Light rain fell from time to time. Arctostaphylos columbiana (hairy manzanita) Clematis armandii (evergreen clematis) major Narcissus (daffodil) Prunus serrulata (flowering cherry) Pulmonaria (lungwort) & Ribes sanguineum (flowering currant) began to bloom. Around the middle of the month, leaves began to appear on Pyrus calleryana (Callery pear), Salix babylonica (weeping willow) & Syringa vulgaris (common lilac). Buds swelled on many other shrubs & trees. The last day of winter came on March 19. The winter chill had diminished a week before. The last 3 days of the month were much warmer & sunny. Temperatures reached 65F/18.3C on 3/29, 68F/20C on 3/30 & 69F/20.6C on 3/31.

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About This Blog

This blog began in 2008 as Metropolitan Gardens to provide information on gardening in Seattle & places like it. Click on Gardening in Cascadia. The blog expanded to include Parks P-Patches Public Gardens in the US, Canada & Europe. Then Nature was added. (The difference between nature & gardens is intent. Nature happens. Gardens are planned.) Many recent posts are not about Seattle, or even Cascadia. They are Urban Landscape: streetscape & architecture. Cascadia is the region including the Cascade Mountains of Washington & Oregon. If you want to contact the blogger, leave a message in comments. Comments are moderated & private messages will not be posted.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.