So long, winter! The season by the numbers: Coast

SEATTLE- Nowhere is winter wetter or windier in the Northwest than along our Pacific Ocean beaches and communities. The wet chill is nearly constant. It's the first stop for every front that comes off the Pacific Ocean. Where a "dry" day is one where it's usually just drizzle and fog with no measurable rain to show for it in the record books. There's a reason Lewis & Clark's Corps of Discovery's first stop on the Washington Coast in 1805 was abandoned a more sheltered site in the Oregon Coast Range. The name they gave that spot on the Washington coast still lasts to this day: Cape Disappointment.

Officially winter ends  with the Vernal Equinox at 9:30pm Saturday in our time zone. And what a 90 days it has been.  There are two climate data locations for the National Weather Service: Hoqiuam on the central coast and Quillayute (near Forks) on the northern coast. Officially winter ends  with the Vernal Equinox at 9:30pm tomorrow in our time zone. And what a 90 days it has been. Here is our winter by the numbers...

Hoquiam: Our warmest day this winter got up to 66 degrees (February 9th) and our coldest morning was 28 degrees (January 2nd). We saw only 2 days below freezing all winter and 3 mornings were right at 32 degrees on the central coast. 66 of the 90 days of winter had measurable precipitation, but many more saw the drizzle and misty kind of weather that only comes out to a trace for the record books. It was incredibly wet on the Washington coast: 2.52" for the winter part of December, 14.30" of rain in January, 8.19" of rain in February and 10.67" of rain for the winter portion of March. That's a grand total of 35.68" of rain: that's nearly 3 feet of rain.

Quillayute/Forks: Our warmest day this winter got to a whopping 73 degrees (February 9th) and our coldest morning was a very frosty 20 degrees (January 4th). We saw 15 days at or below freezing this winter on the north coast. 66 of the 90 days of winter had measurable rain.  The rain total for this winter was staggeringly soggy. 45.95" of rain! Yes, that's nearly FOUR feet of rain.