Author: bryanweather

Crazy

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area Forecast, The Mountains and Beyond, WEATHER ALERTSLeave a comment

Record warmth has gripped the region exactly one year after (to the date) we experienced our worst ice storm in decades. Seems like distant memory right? We also tied our coldest high temperature ever recorded for the day on February 12th, 2021 with a high of 30°. But what a huge difference a year makes. We are now in the middle of a historic “heatwave” for mid February. I borrowed this graphic from Fox 12 Oregon showing some of the record highs set on yesterday (February 11th).

Temperatures as of 1PM look like this:

60s dominating the region again today both along the coast and in the valley. The only exceptions are locations near Eugene and south towards Roseburg where low level clouds and fog have limited the warming a bit.

Sunday will also be very warm as we see a third day of 60 degree temps. Really incredible!

Monday will probably feel like a slap in the face with highs in the upper 40s along with clouds and frequent showers. Close to a foot of snow is expected to fall in the Cascades and the valley should receive nice little soaking.

Maybe a leftover shower Tuesday before drying back out for Wednesday through next Saturday. Highs most of next week will be in the low to mid 50s.

Have a great weekend!

January 2022

On By bryanweatherIn 2022, Monthly reports, Salem Area ForecastLeave a comment

January was a bipolar month with extremely wet conditions the first 7 days before abruptly switching to a mostly dry pattern for the remainder of the month. 3.71″ of rain fell in just the first week, but less than an inch fell in the remaining 24 days of the month.

January 2022 started off with a major rain and mountain snow storm January 3rd. This storm brought 2.34″ of rain in only 24 hours to Salem causing local flooding along creeks and on some streets. Heavy snow fell with this storm in both the Coast Range and the Cascades where nearly 3 feet of snow accumulated. The Willamette River in Salem topped out at 22.12′ which was the highest level in a few years. Flooding was extremely minor though and was limited to some parks and a few rural areas.

Things calmed down and stayed calm the rest of the month. Overall it was an incredibly “boring” month with very little weather action.

The only other highlight worth mentioning was the number of days with very chilly mornings. Salem reached the freezing mark 13 days in January. The coldest temp occurred on the 29th with a frosty low of 23°. Our warmest temp was 60° on the 12th.

Precip ended at 4.5″ which is 74% of normal making for a drier than average month. January 2022 ended just 0.1° above normal which is basically as close to average as you can get. Both the really chilly nights and the “mild” afternoons all balanced out quite well to give us an average month.

Looking ahead

So far February has been extremely tame and calm as well. We will be dry through Sunday (at least) with highs approaching 60 degrees several days later on this week and into the weekend. Of course this is nice for being outdoors, but terrible for the snowpack, and it only makes the continuing drought conditions worse than they already were. We really need a wet and cool second half of February and March to make up for the lost ground. The cooler weather in January helped preserve the snowpack fairly well despite the lack of precip, but I noticed more areas are beginning to slip below the 100% mark, and with mild temperatures in the forecast and no additional mountain snow coming for at least the next 7 days, these numbers will only drop more.

No need to freak out yet, but if we need to see a pattern change fairly soon…

That’s the scoop on January 2022.

Enjoy your evening and take care!

A small change of pace

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area Forecast, The Mountains and BeyondLeave a comment

Last night a quick moving, but somewhat powerful cold front raced through the region bringing a burst of heavy rain, gusty winds and a big drop in the snow levels. Snow levels are down to around 1500 – 2000′ right now, and are expected to drop even more tonight. Expect showers and sunbreaks today and again tomorrow. A few showers could have some ice pellets or even wet snow mixed in – specifically early Tuesday morning. Showers will also be widely scattered, so not looking at a big washout by any means.

Watch for icy roads tonight and Tuesday morning. This is always a concern with these setups when we have both a cool airmass in place and showers around. Definitely something to watch for, so be extra careful driving tonight and early tomorrow morning.

After getting a few inches last night, the Cascades will pick up another 8 to 12 inches of snow over the next couple of days which is great news as the snowpack up there has been slowly, but steadily receding due to the lack of stormy weather the past 3 weeks now.

No big storms in sight. We will continue to stay in a quiet weather pattern with chilly nights, alternating days of fog, sun, and occasional days with a few showers, but overall nothing major at all. Happy last day of January!

One more week

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area Forecast, The Mountains and Beyond, WEATHER ALERTSLeave a comment

We have had a long stretch of really calm weather, and looking ahead it seems clear this calm weather is here to stay for about 6 more days. Check this 24 hour precip chart for Salem.

Looking at this I can say with confidence our dry weather ends next Friday as we head into a much wetter weather pattern. Until then it should be nothing but fog and sun! Speaking of fog and sun, check out this awesome video showing how the east winds from the Columbia River Gorge ate away at the fog earlier. Really really cool to see!

By the time 3PM rolled around most of the Willamette Valley was in the sun. This satellite image shows fog hanging out south of about Albany with sun to the north.

The bottom line is we should continue to see either sun or fog now through next Thursday. It’s tough this time of year because it’s still winter time and the sun angel simply isn’t high or strong enough to break up the fog unless we get help from the wind – like we did today. This makes forecasting the high temps difficult as a foggy day could very easily stay in the 30s; however, the days we manage to breakout of the fog (like today) have the chance to reach the lower 50s. Excellent weather along the coast for the most part during this time as well.

Fairly strong signals we will move back into a much cooler/colder weather pattern by the time we enter February. Way too far out to mention much about snow, but I’ll be watching things closely. Just something to keep in the back of our minds as we close out the month….

Okay, take care and have a great rest of your weekend!

Tame and mild January

On By bryanweatherIn Extra!!, Salem Area Forecast, The Mountains and Beyond, Weather Year 2021/2022Leave a comment

After an active December and first few days of January, the weather has really really slowed down. Tame and uneventful weather looks to continue for the next 2 weeks! There is no sign whatsoever of any cold or snowy weather, nor is there any sign of a big rain or wind storm. This image showing 24 hour rain totals illustrates this calm weather pattern quite well.

As you can see, no big rainstorms in sight.

What you can expect over the next 2 weeks:

Now through Monday: Mostly sunny and dry. A few clouds here and there, maybe some patchy fog, but totally dry. Highs 48 – 52° and lows in the low to mid 30s.

Tuesday – Thursday of next week will feature a few light showers. Enough to wet everything down a bit, but nothing more than that. These will all be very weak systems with no real impact on our daily lives.

Next Friday through much of the following week will be mostly dry, lots of sun with highs in the upper 40s to low 50s, and lows in the low to mid 30s still. Like I said, very uneventful, and extremely tame.

What does this calm weather mean for the rest of winter? Well nobody can know for sure; however, I looked back at previous La Nina winters that also had slow/tame weather in January, and just about all of those years had big switches back to cooler and wetter weather in both February and March. So, I would say we are far from done with winter here. Sea surface temperature anomalies also indicate that both La Nina and the cold pool of water south of Alaska (both of which affect our weather) are still going strong. These areas of cooler water show up very well on this map.

There you have it. Calm and fairly “mild” weather will rule the day for the foreseeable future. Enjoy it while it lasts because history tells us February often times brings much different weather to our region…

December 2021

On By bryanweatherIn 2021, Extra!!, Monthly reports, Salem Area ForecastLeave a comment

It was a wild ride through December. I’ve got a timeline of the major events followed by a look at how we stacked up in the precip and temp departments.

Believe it or not, we had a high of 65° the very first day of the month. This image from Fox 12 Oregon shows a compilation of just some of the record high temps set on December 1st.

Nothing else interesting happened the first 10 days of December. We gradually cooled down and the snowpack very slowly began to build. Then on the 11th and 12th a powerful storm rolled in bringing gusty winds (a peak gust of 47mph to Salem), heavy rain, and mountain snow – tons of it. Within 4 days Hoodoo went from just a few inches of snow to almost 40!! Snow also fell down into the Coast Range.

Heavy rain showers lasted through the 13th. Skies cleared up and temps dropped quickly that night leading to widespread black ice Tuesday morning (the 14th). Many area schools had a 2 hour delay that day due to the icy roads. The picture below shows fresh snowfall up at Mount Hood after the storm had passed.

A second powerful and extremely dynamic storm system moved in on the 18th. Heavy precip on the cold side of the front dragged the snow level down to the valley floor in the Portland metro area dropping a couple of slushy inches of snow. Salem missed out on the snow and saw nothing more than a cold rain for this storm. Heavy rain continued through the 20th with a grand total of 4.78″ of rain in only 3 days! Lots of localized flooding along ditches, small streams and creeks.

Cold and snow dominated the final 8 days of the month. A storm system dropped straight down from Canada bringing with it cold temperatures and snow showers. Neighborhoods around Salem picked up anywhere from 5 to 10 inches over a 3 day span. This cold snap gave Salem 4 days in a row with highs only reaching the 30s. A couple of pictures of the snow cover over at Western Oregon University in Monmouth and some neighborhoods in Salem.

A heavy snow shower rolls through Independence Oregon Dec 26th, 2021.

Salem ended the month with 9.90″ of precip which is well above our average rainfall for December. This made it one of the rainiest Decembers in years coming in at 142% of normal for the month! This map shows total precip in inches for December across the region.

From looking at this you can see it was a great month for the entire west coast in terms of rainfall/precip. The graphic below shows just how far our snowpack came over the month of December.

Our warmest temp for the month was 65° on the 1st, and our coldest temp was 26° on the 31st. Salem only dropped to or below freezing 6 days this month even with the cold snap. Overall we ended December 2021 just 0.8° above average.

That officially wraps up December 2021. It was wild, but we made it! Things have really calmed down for now and they look to stay calm for the foreseeable future. Expect a small chance for just a couple of light rain showers both Tue & Wed. Thursday could end up being a little bit wetter during the morning hours, but then we dry out for Friday through at least next Monday. No sign of any big storms or snowy/icy weather.

Losing its mind

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area Forecast, The Mountains and Beyond, WEATHER ALERTSLeave a comment

Seems like the weather has gone postal. Salem is experiencing it’s wettest day in years, possibly decades??? Hard to know as we still have 6 more hours to go before the day ends. As of 6PM the airport had recorded 2.27″ of rain!! Fortunately the snow levels were low or else flooding could have been much worse. Even so, I see many of the local rivers including the Mary’s River, Pudding, River, and Luckiamute River are all rising quickly today. The Willamette here in Salem is also forecast to top out a good 10 feet higher than it is right now by the time Friday rolls around. I could see the road from the Independence bridge closing for a couple of days if the water gets high enough. And then there was the wind. A number of power outages were reported last night with the gusty winds. Gusts reached 45 to almost 50mph in some locations.

Meanwhile I-84 through the gorge has been closed since last night due to heavy snow and freezing rain. Some locations out near Hood River and Cascade Locks have picked up close to 2 feet of snow!! Highway 20 (Santiam Pass) is also closed due to heavy snow. In fact at this point it would be wise to check your route before going anywhere far as we have cool air moving in tonight causing snow levels to drop back down close to the valley floor again…

Anyone could see a slushy inch or two of snow tonight with the heavier showers. I’m not expecting it for most of us, but know it’s a possibility.

We for sure switch to regular rain by tomorrow mid morning at the latest. More rain Tuesday, showers on Wednesday, and another powerful and very moist storm moves in for Thursday and Friday. By the time we reach Sunday we could be looking at a grand total of 5+ inches of rain for the week (counting today’s total)! I hope you all own boats….

Stay safe out there! You just endured one of the darkest days we have had this winter. Very minimal sunlight this time of year anyway. Add in heavy rain most of the day, and it’s no wonder there was not much sunlight making it through the clouds, so treat yourself to something nice tonight haha, you made it!