Monday morning update

Good morning! We have a wild 24 hours of weather in store. Here’s my latest thoughts and your extended forecast.

Expect a wide range of showers and downpours today with hail, rain, and graupel (mix of snow and hail) falling at any point with sunbreaks in between.

More cold air moves in tonight while a batch of organized showers moves through giving us a chance for a couple inches of snow. More on this in an update tonight, but plan on Tuesday morning’s commute being potentially snowy for a number of areas around here.

We dry up and “warm” up Tuesday afternoon into the low 40s which means afternoon and evening plans should be mostly good to go.

Very cold night Tuesday night and dry for the rest of the week.

The Cascades will see a foot of new snow or more in some spots through Tuesday morning, and snow will also begin to cover the Coast Range this evening, so keep in mind if you are needing to travel through these regions.

Okay, happy Monday everyone!!! 🙂

A cool Valentine’s Day

Happy Saturday! I have a quick update regarding the potential snow for this coming Monday night and Tuesday. Here’s the day by day breakdown for you.

Sun: Very similar to today’s weather. Still chilly, but with afternoon sun and signs that the seasons are changing and spring is getting closer. Enjoy the nice weather outside if you can! 🙂

Mon: a cold front moves through bringing numerous showers and breezy winds. Some of the showers could be heavy and could contain hail or graupel enough to briefly turn the ground white.

Mon night – Tuesday: Colder air will continue to pour onshore dropping snow levels near the valley floor. Models are indicating that a batch of more organized showers could move through during the overnight hours Monday night/early Tuesday morning. This batch of snow showers will have the potential to drop 1 to 2 inches of snow across the Willamette Valley or at least parts of it. I will have an update Monday evening with the latest.

For now plan on snow possibly effecting your life Tuesday morning. This will be a wet slushy snow, so by lunchtime (if it even snows at all), roads will be totally fine I’m thinking. Again, look for one more update Monday early evening with the latest details as we get closer to the event.

Wednesday morning will begin in the mid 20s and highs will top out in the mid 40s making for a chilly, but sunny and dry day.

That’s all for now. Busy with family today and cleaning house, but wanted to give you all a little update as I know rumors about snow have been all over the place lately.

Take care!! 🙂

Colder weather this weekend

Happy Friday to you all. 🙂 It’s been several days since I first mentioned the possibility of colder weather coming, and colder weather is definitely still on track to move in this weekend; however, it’s looking like it will be a quick hitting blast with minimal impact on your daily life. Details below:

Today: A lot of clouds around with a few isolated showers, but still mostly dry.

Saturday: Showers increasing during the afternoon and evening hours. Winds will eventually switch to the north bringing in colder air. Sadly (for all of you snow people out there – myself included), it is currently looking like we dry out pretty quickly once the cold air begins to move in. Honestly I don’t expect more than a few flurries.

Sunday: Some roads could be icy Sunday morning, but even this day should go on as normal.

Monday and Tuesday: Cold, but dry. Overnight lows will dip into the lower 20s (upper teens even in some areas). Highs in the upper 30s to around 40°. Lots of sun at least 🙂

Basically nothing super wild. Colder for sure, but for the moment it looks like it won’t be effecting our daily lives all that much unless your plans take you into the mountains where 5 to 10 inches of snow will fall over the weekend.

Take care and look out for more updates should anything change. 🙂

Dry week ahead

We have a chilly, but dry week on tap. Expect to see lots of fog, frost in the mornings, and not much warmth. No rain this week through Thursday with rain moving back likely on Friday or Saturday. Nothing going on this week…..

There is one (possibly major) thing which is beginning to catch my eye, and that is a pattern change to much colder weather. The type of pattern that sometimes gives us snow and ice.

Nothing certain yet, but keep in the back of your head the possibility that the weather could disrupt your life and regularly scheduled plans starting as early as Sunday (the 29th) and lasting through the first week of February. I suspect I’ll be posting a little more often here in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for updates. No need to panic, freakout, or cancel plans yet. Just wanted to give my loyal followers/viewers a heads up that signs are growing indicating big changes could be coming.

Have a wonderful week!!!

Soggy northwest weather

Happy new year to all of you! There is nothing special or really crazy going on with our weather in the near future. We have mostly dodged the worst of the storms lately as they have been aimed at California. I imagine you’ve heard about some of the wild weather they have seen down there with heavy heavy rain, gusty winds, and feet and feet of mountain snow.

Here in western Oregon, Salem is on our 7th day in a row of seeing rainfall, and yet we are running about 40% below average for the month. The rain we have seen (so far) this month has been light with plenty of dry breaks in between. Again, most of the action has stayed to our south.

The remainder of today will be breezy with some heavier showers moving through.

Monday will be similar to today with some gusty winds and bands of showers.

Tue & Wed: More dry weather than wet. In fact most of the daytime hours both these days should be dry with rain coming back to the valley late Wednesday afternoon/early evening.

Thu & Fri: Fairly wet days.

See? Nothing exciting. Just regular Oregon rain.

Have a wonderful week!

Big storm approaching

Quick post tonight. We have a massive and very powerful storm heading our way. Bottom line it that beginning tonight and lasting through most of Tuesday, we will experience the strongest winds we have seen in years. Gusts 50 to 60mph are likely here in the Willamette Valley and up to 80mph at the coast. Additionally we will see well over 2 inches of rain within the next 24 hours. Flooding is a concern for all areas near small and mid sized creeks and streams. Here’s the estimated rainfall totals through Tuesday evening.

Expect 2 plus inches here in the valley and up to 4 inches along the coast. Expect power outages (possibly widespread) due to the heavy rain and powerful winds. Furthermore, highway and road closures seem like a good bet especially along the coast and in the mountain ranges. Snow levels will be high to begin with resulting in rain up in the Cascades and on the ski resorts.

The rest of the week will feature snow levels 3000 to 4000 feet which means the ski resorts will quickly regain any lost snow.

Some 5 to 6 feet of snow will fall Tuesday afternoon through Saturday with more on the way for the first week of January!

Expect to need chains traveling through the Cascades every day beginning Tuesday afternoon with snow falling each day.

The weather has been rough lately, but we are making it. We avoided lots of power outages with the ice storm thanks to more of the precip falling as sleet (ice pellets) and very little falling as actual freezing rain, plus precip was not all that heavy. Of course it was so dang cold that, as predicted, that the roads were awful Thursday night through Friday night before we thawed out Saturday morning.

Bottom line is make sure you bring in things that could blow around/over and just know that it has been several years since we experienced winds this strong, so be ready for downed trees and power outages. Winds will pick up late tonight. Hang in there and stay safe!!

Frigid weather and our approaching ice storm

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! It’s 25° outside at 10AM with a steady breeze and full cloud cover. Extremely impressive for our region to be so cold like this! Here’s the temps for the rest of the region as of 10AM:

Highlights

1.) Cold air will continue to blast through the Columbia River Gorge giving us a steady supply of arctic air. This means we will probably stay frozen until Saturday morning. We will NOT warm up above freezing until we see a switch in wind direction.

2.) A wintry mix of sleet and freezing rain will begin at some point this afternoon. Really hard to say when it will begin as a dry airmass like this can take longer than usual to saturate enough before the precip actually makes it all the way to the surface. Best guess is the sleet and freezing rain will start between 1 and 4PM.

3.) This is a colder but slightly drier version of the February 2021 storm. This is good and bad news. The good news is I expect less damage and fewer power outages. A number of people could still lose power – so be ready, but it will almost certainly be on a smaller scale as I’m thinking we see closer to half an inch of ice this time versus one and a half inches like last time. The bad news is our atmosphere is colder this go around which means roads will be terribly icy through Friday night most likely. It’s only 25 degrees during one of the shortest days of the year. It does not get much colder than this around here and the rain will have no trouble freezing onto the road surfaces when it arrives.

4.) We warm up Saturday; however, Portland and the gorge stay frozen until Saturday evening or even Sunday.

Lots of rain and wind next week, but again, let’s deal with one thing at a time.

Take care and be super safe out there!!