In Portland, There’s No Use for a Forecast

You need rain if you’re going to get rainbows!

That worn-out bromide appeared recently on a chalkboard at one of Portland’s neighborhood pubs. It was signed with a happy face. None of the patrons seemed much lifted. As any resident can explain, rainbows only come when you get a shot of sunlight with your rain.

It has rained in Portland on 95 of the last 122 days. No need to reach for the calculator: That’s approaching 80% of the time. Seattle has been only marginally better--with three fewer rainy days.

This is the worst it’s been since they started keeping records in the Northwest. Even back in the awful winter of 1955-56, it rained only 75% of the time.

Except for the qualifiers--heavy, intermittent and showers--there is no vocabulary to distinguish one day from another. Weather forecasters have run out of ways to say gray and wet. Or, for tomorrow, see today. If there is a language that has 45 words for rain, it is not widely spoken in the Northwest.

Some meteorologists predict that stormy weather will continue until May.

How wet is it?

They canceled rowing classes.

The Lake Oswego parks department said the Willamette River, which runs through Portland, was dangerously high.

They canceled skiing. Too much snow closed Mt. Baker Ski Area in the Cascades north of Seattle. It took two days last week to dig out the chairlifts.

Attempts to make light of the weather pass the e-mail rounds.

What do people here say to the Pillsbury Doughboy?

Nice tan.

What does daylight saving time mean in the Northwest?

An extra hour of rain.

Searching for the flimsiest of silver linings, the weather report on Tuesday promised “a brief but welcome respite of fog before rain returns later today . . . “

It did.

Since November, the longest spell without rain has been five days. That happened once. By comparison, 26 consecutive rainy days have been recorded. On Wednesday, a steady 40-degree rain and 40-mph millrace of clouds scudding at rooftop level brought the current soggy streak to 12 days, with still more rain forecast.

This is supposed to be a time of high spirits in the Northwest, marked by the blooming of daffodils in a place that is crazy about its flowers. A gardening columnist for the Oregonian newspaper advised against panic:

“Although your plants might seem brown and lifeless, it’s really too early to fret. . . . Even plants that normally don’t die down but did this winter could come back.”

Some residents are game for trying. At Portland Nursery, Lar Matson purchased 40 golf umbrellas to shelter anxious shoppers who insist on laying in supplies of fertilizer and seedlings.

Down but not yet drowned, other Northwesterners still manage the feat of bowing their heads to the rain while simultaneously sticking their noses in the air when it comes to life elsewhere. In seeming desperation, a local editorial cartoon this week dredged up the oldest wheeze in the Northwest playbook: depicting freeway traffic in Los Angeles with motorists complaining about smog.

Likewise striving for the point that things could be worse, the Seattle Times on Sunday devoted its travel section not to the enticement of a far-off beach but to Iceland, “where things are always collapsing, melting or exploding.” Message: Stay home and quit complaining.

There are ominous sides to the wet. Parts of western Oregon and Washington have suffered localized flooding and mudslides, as if the entire region were loosing its starch. School closures are announced daily on the radio, the same as during snowstorms in the Midwest.

Low-lying communities, like Portland, can only wonder what awaits them when the record Cascade snowpack comes pouring off the mountains this spring.

So far, coastal areas of Oregon have absorbed the worst of winter storms.

A month ago, a gale drove the 639-foot freighter New Carissa ashore near Coos Bay, spilling perhaps 70,000 gallons of fuel oil, killing birds and threatening the local shellfish industry.

The sight of the ghostly hull and salvage crews battling an almost daily barrage of storms has become symbolic of the battering all Northwesterners feel they are receiving this winter.

Finally, a huge tugboat pulled the 440-foot bow section off the beach on Monday. The plan was to tow the wreckage and its estimated 130,000 gallons of remaining fuel oil more than 200 miles offshore for deep-sea burial.

But after steaming for 50 miles, the tug ran into 30-foot swells and 70-mph winds from yet another storm. A towing bridle snapped. The storm drove the bow back onto the beach Wednesday morning, this time near Waldport, 75 miles north of Coos Bay, where the stern section remains mired in sand.

Salvage officials battled fresh rains and winds Wednesday to prepare the dead ship and its oily cargo for towing again.