The surprise wasn't the temperature, nor trying to compete with Florida weather. It wasn't that it was "warm" in March.  It was that of all the places in the west that had abnormally warm winter weather, they picked Yakima. 

But if we want to talk weather in NORTHERN states, we didn't have winter.  We'd see reports of the northeast, midwest, even into the south sometimes, of snow, ice, etc.  It's never as bad here as in other northern tier states, but this year was just flat out weird.

The abnormal warm started in February. There were a couple of days when I turned the heat off in the house because it got too hot. Remember my stove has no thermostat other than "warmer and cooler". No auto on and off to stay at a specific temp.  An outside temperature in the upper fifties to sixty makes the inside go up into the 80's.

It was 70 degrees on March 9 and 75 on March 27!  There were only 7 days in February when it was below 50 as the daytime high.  It was 62 on Valentine's Day.

Bruce and I were doing geology tours in perfectly clear skies and temps in the 60s in Portland on Feb 21 & 22!  Unheard of!