An unusual early-Autumn weather pattern that brought incredible late-September snows to the northwestern U.S. (over 40″ in parts of Montana and 14″ at Oregon’s Timberline Ski Area on Mt. Hood) also pushed very chilly air and valley rain all the way to the Pacific Coast. Under continuous cloud-cover, Maximum temperatures struggled to even make it to 50° in the Portland-Vancouver Metro Area, resulting in the coldest readings ever seen in, at least, 147 years. The Portland Airport (official records back to 1938) only made it to 52° on Sept. 29, not only breaking its daily Low Maximum record of 56°, set in 1971, but also tying the all-time September record (also set on Sept. 26, 1948).  Even colder was the official downtown station at KGW-TV that only reached 49°, setting its all-time coldest September Low Maximum, barely surpassing the previous record of 50° from Sept. 23, 1934. This was also the earliest sub-50° reading, besting the former earliest of 49° set October 12, 1881, a full 13 days earlier. This 49° Maximum on Sept. 29, 2019 also broke that date’s former daily Low Maximum record of 54° set in 1971 and 1891. Official Downtown temperature records date back to Nov. 1871.

Please click the titles, below, for a pdf version of the data tables.  

PORTLAND-DOWNTOWN EXTREME LOW MAXIMUM & HIGH MINIMUM TEMPERATURES

PORTLAND AIRPORT EXTREME LOW MAXIMUM & HIGH MINIMUM TEMPERATURES

Cover photo courtesy of Inc.com