Author: bryanweather

January and February 2021

On By bryanweatherIn 2021, Archives, Extra!!, Monthly reports, Weather Year 2020/2021Leave a comment

Between moving into a new house, my brother’s wedding, and our crazy ice storm I realized I never published a recap of January. I had it written up all nice & neat and ready to go, but it never got published. So, I figured I might as well combine it with February for a special two for one deal hahaha!! If you’re looking for a forecast than hang tight. I’ll have a forecast out real soon as well. 🙂

January 2021

It may seem like distant memory, but the first 12 days of January were stormy, wet, and windy. Salem picked up 6.72″ during this time frame. The most significant storm arrived on the 12th bringing 1.93″ of rain, 45mph wind gusts to Salem, and localized flooding in both the Coast Range and along the coast itself as powerful waves crashed ashore. Flooding with this storm was particularly bad on the Mary’s River down near Corvallis where heavy rain stalled out for a longer period of time causing a sharp rise in that river.

This chart from January 15th shows the sharp spike on the Marys River near Philomath (west of Corvallis). This area was hit especially hard by flooding.

The second highlight was the much warmer than normal temperatures which dominated the majority of the month. Salem had 18 days with highs in the 50s. Low temps reached or fell below freezing 9 days, but the coldest temp for the entire month was only 26°. Salem ended the month 2.48° above normal – a very mild January for sure! A brief cool spell near the end of the month offset some of the warm weather, but it also set the stage for the 3rd and final highlight of January 2021.

A surprise snowstorm hit Salem early in the afternoon on the 26th. If you live east or north of downtown then you might not call what took place a snowstorm, and for those parts of town it really wasn’t; however, for areas west and south of downtown what took place was about as legit of a snowstorm as we get around here. Heavy wet snow dumped during the afternoon hours of the 26th leaving behind 3 to 4 inches of snow in both south and west Salem. Snow quickly covered roadways making for treacherous driving conditions specifically in the hilly parts of Salem. Downtown had just shy of 2 inches while Keizer and areas east of Lancaster saw accumulations of an inch or so at most. Locations west of Salem and down towards Dallas & Corvallis picked up 3 to 5 inches of snow as well. It was a very localized event which favored the western Willamette Valley, but for some of these locations it was the biggest snowstorm since January 2017. The snow melted away quickly though as we returned to more mild January weather the very next day.

Snow accumulates in south Salem near Liberty Road.

Summary

January 2021 was quite mild ending 2.48° above normal, and wetter than normal with 8.5″ of precipitation in total giving us 143% of our average precip for January. In the snow department we had an unofficial snow total of 2.5″. Quick reminder that snow totals are no longer kept track of at the Salem Airport making it difficult to obtain official snowfall totals for Salem.

February 2021

Officially no snow was recorded in Salem this month. With that said, February brought us our coldest high temp of the season 0f 30° on the 12th. A whopping 21° colder than normal for that day! This was the same airmass which also brought copious amounts of freezing rain.

I’ve been making the case for awhile now that February has become our snowiest month of the winter. Sure there was no snow this February here in Salem, but the cold and freezing rain still helped to solidify this idea that February has become an increasingly cold and wintry month – much more so than in the past. Same story for Portland with the biggest difference being they actually saw snow (ten inches in fact) from the storm this past month. Looking at this graphic produced by Mark Nelson over at Fox 12 Oregon, I find it interesting how 3 of Portland’s snowiest Februaries ever recorded (records go back to 1938) have taken place during the past decade. If we were to expand this graphic a little more, February 2019 would be on there with 6.5″ of snow making that 4 of Portland’s snowiest Februaries occurring in the past ten years….

There definitely seems to be a trend for snowier and colder Februaries around here, and the same goes for March too. I have one more weather graphic from Fox 12 showing measurable March snowfall in Portland over the past 50 years. Again, seems like March has over performed in the snow department during this most recent decade.

It seems like winter is taking longer to get going in recent years with less snow in November and December, but once winter finally gets its act together it’s been slower to leave resulting in colder and snowier weather in February and March than compared to what we use to see. Curious to see if this is something long term or just a temporary trend….

Moving on lol, the only other highlight from around the region would be the big snow totals seen up in the Cascades during the second half of February. Hoodoo Ski Area closed out the month with around 103″ of snow at their base. No shortage of snow up there!

Summary

Other than our brief and intense blast of cold weather and freezing rain storm, the rest of the month was very tame. Salem had nearly 120% of our average February precipitation making for a slightly wetter than normal month. This is typical during a La Nina winter, so no big surprises there. As far as temperature goes, Salem had 7 days which reached or went below the freezing mark, and we ended the month 0.6° below normal. February 2021 goes into the books as slightly cooler and a bit wetter than normal.

We will see what March has in store for us, but I suspect above normal precipitation with lots of mountain snow as this would be typical of a La Nina winter and typical of what we have seen in recent years, but time will tell.

Take care!

End of month forecast

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

February 2021 is coming to a close and March is just around the corner. Here’s how the next 7 days are looking:

HIGHLIGHTS

1.) Friday: Cool and breezy with rain and hail showers, sunbreaks.

2.) Saturday morning through Sunday night will be dry. I can’t help but feel like someone was praying really hard for a dry weekend, because that is exactly what we have on tap. Temperatures are going to be chilly in the morning hours; however, the late February sun should help keep things more reasonable during the day.

3.) I’m calling for rain for Monday with breezy winds of 20 to 30mph – a stormy day. Some of the weather models have this day totally dry which is why I’m not as confident about this forecast, but for now plan on it being a wet day.

4.) Tue – Fri should be dry. Watching for the chance of rain on Friday, but other than that, most of the work week will be dry and mostly sunny! I wouldn’t be surprised if some locations in the valley hit 60 this week either Thursday or Friday. Yes, spring will be trying to make an appearance this week. 🙂

The Cascades

Up in the Cascades snow levels will hover around 1500 – 2000′ with tons of fresh snow up there over the next 36 hours. This chart is showing 1 to 2 feet of new snow now through Saturday afternoon depending on elevation. This is in addition to the several inches of snow which fell all day long today. It’s going to be quite the snowstorm up in the mountains as winds will be gusting 25 to 35mph creating near whiteout conditions at times on Friday. Not a good time to travel up there. Saturday and Sunday will be much better, especially after around noon on Saturday.

Have a fantastic weekend and take care!!!

Ice Storm 2021 Recap

On By bryanweatherIn Extra!!, Weather Year 2020/20211 Comment

This post has been a work in progress for several days now as I’ve gathered pictures and a few stats all while dealing with no internet up until this past Sunday. I wanted to do a detailed review of our historic and destructive ice storm including an overview of the events which took place, some photos and reports from around the region, and a few thoughts going forward. This was definitely a historic storm and deserves a post like this for reference in the future.

TIMELINE

A combination of very cold arctic air pouring south from Canada and two very moist pacific systems led to what ended up being the worst ice storm here in decades. Around two tenths of an inch of freezing rain accumulated Thursday night as temps fell below freezing. A few snowflakes and a little bit of sleet mixed with the freezing rain specifically in areas north and west of downtown; however, for the most part it was freezing rain. I threw in this graphic again to illustrate why we saw freezing rain instead of snow despite temperatures being 28 to 32 degrees the whole time.

In short the cold air over Salem was just not deep enough to change the rain back into snow with this storm.

Friday was brutal with light freezing rain on and off all day long and a high of 30°. I still need to do some more digging, but it appears Salem tied its record for coldest high temp that day. BRRR!! Then a second and much stronger pacific storm rolled in right at sunset bringing around an inch of additional freezing rain which froze onto all elevated surfaces in the Salem area. A lot of widespread totals 1 – 1.25″ with a few isolated locations reported up to 1.5 inches of freezing rain when all was said and done! That is a ton of extra weight for trees and power lines to hold up which is why we saw so much destruction. To make matters worse the Portland area continued to see freezing rain Sunday through early Monday morning which led to thousands of outages up in that area as well turning this into a region wide disaster.

WHY SO BAD?

The shear amount of ice was hands down the main reason this ended up being a historic event here in the mid Willamette Valley, but there is a little more to it than that. The Salem area picks up somewhere close to a quarter inch of freezing rain ever few years with the winter of 2016/2017 being the last time we saw any. December 2008 gave parts of the Salem area a fairly major ice storm with around .75″ of ice. One has to go back to January 2004 for the last time any part of Salem received totals of an inch or so of freezing rain, and you have to go much further back (several decades) in time to find accumulations around here which come close to 1.5″ of ice!! So it’s been a very long time since we have seen a major (inch plus) ice storm. The long period of relatively “tame” weather has allowed our deciduous trees to grow and grow and grow much lager than they otherwise would be. Plus it’s not like Oregonians are known for keeping their trees trimmed lol. Something we could discuss another time… Anyway, the combination of overgrown trees and a historic amount of ice coupled together to give Salem and parts of the Portland metro area one of the most costly, darkest, and longest power outage disasters in decades.

THE STORM AND THE AFTERMATH

At the peak of the storm, more than 350,000 PGE customers here in Oregon had no power at the same time with over 5,000 power lines and three substations down! In total PGE had nearly 490,000 customers lose electricity at some point during the storm. Those stats do not include smaller utility companies, so when we add in the outages reported by companies like Salem Electric and Pacific Power, the number of customers without power goes up an additional 50,000 or so. A point of clarification, a customer is either a household, apartment complex, or business, which is one reason why it’s difficult to know exactly how many people ended up losing power. I imagine final numbers will come out eventually, but regardless, there were an awful lot of people without power, and the fact that there are still a few without electricity goes to show just how destructive this storm was.

THE STORM IN PHOTOS

Below is a slideshow of photos which for the most part were shared with me by some wonderful followers, friends, and family members showing the ice and destruction from this historic freezing rain storm. This will be the storm we measure up to for years to come no doubt about it.

A FEW THOUGHTS ON STAYING PREPARED

Finally, I would add that between the shutdowns from COVID, the fire and smoke disaster this past September, and now this ice storm, it’s definitely (if you don’t already) a good idea to have at all time extra food, water, essential toiletries, medications, light sources, and sources of heat. I’m not promoting hording. In fact, hording is something I think people should avoid lol; however, there is something to be said about keeping some extra supplies on hand and gas in the car for when disaster strikes. While Salem does not received the sever weather that parts of the plains and gulf states receive, it is still remarkable looking back through history as a weather enthusiast and seeing the shear lack of extreme weather here in Salem (floods, snow or ice, and wind storms etc) over the past decade when compared to previous decades prior to this past September when we had the historic east wind event which helped spread the fires. Regardless, it would be foolish to think we will somehow be disaster free now for long time to come. There is no one season in which all disasters strike, and they can happen at anytime, so be prepared, be ready, and let’s all hope and pray that we are in fact done with these “once in a generation” events for awhile.

Bottom line is we never know when something could happen, so be ready. As the storm drew near it become clear we would see a “top tier” ice storm and we did, and while power outages were predicted, but I never would have guessed that so much of Salem, Keizer, and the northern Willamette Valley would end up without power for multiple days to over a week!

Lastly, let’s also hear it for the utility companies and related work forces who have worked incredibly hard restoring power and internet!! I’ve seen their trucks rolling around town at all hours of the day almost every time I’ve wondered out.

Quick update

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area ForecastLeave a comment

It has been a LONG several days. Internet and electricity have been scarce and hard to come by, and after putting out so many forecasts last week it was nice being able to just relax and take a little break now that the weather has slowed down again. I’ll be writing a more detailed post with a look back at what ended up being a truly historic and extremely destructive ice storm later this week. My initial thoughts are that the forecast ended up working out pretty much as anticipated with only a few minor changes/surprises. As the storm got closer and closer it became evident a major ice storm was coming, and it was absolutely shocking to see it fully materialize the way it did!!

Looking ahead we have fairly “normal” February weather on tap with periods of rain, showers, occasional sunbreaks, and lots of mountain snow. Temperatures will be running a few degrees below normal now through Saturday, but not enough to bring wintry weather back into Salem for now…

Wednesday will be the driest day of the next 7. Saturday could end up being mostly dry as well. Expect rain and showers Thursday and Friday.

There you have it!! Stay safe out there and I’ll catch you all in a day or two with a look back at our historic ice storm plus a more detailed extended forecast.

Friday afternoon update

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area Forecast, WEATHER ALERTSLeave a comment

We have just under 2 hours of okay diving conditions before things turn bad and roads freeze over this evening. I want to emphasize again how this “second” storm will have much more of an impact than the one last night. Salem never rose above freezing today and we won’t. In fact we will probably cool off 2 – 4 degrees this evening back into the upper 20s. Brrrrr!!!!!! Here’s another temp update as of 4PM. Notice the bitterly cold air east of the Cascades and the sharp contrast in temperature from Salem to Roseburg where it’s a balmy 53 degrees!! It’s always amazing to see just how powerful the gorge can be in bringing cold air into the northern Willamette Valley.

Freezing rain has been slowly accumulating on elevated surfaces and objects all day long as temps have not gone above 30. There’s a lot of freezing rain coming with this next storm system and I expect roads to freeze up quickly as soon as the sun goes down. I’m thinking half an inch to almost an inch of freezing rain will fall between now and noon Saturday which is going to take a major toll on trees and powerlines. I fully expect lot of power outages and downed trees tonight and tomorrow. Below is an estimated radar image for 10PM this evening. The dark pink and purple coloring around Salem indicates heavy freezing rain and with temps in the upper 20s. This is definitely going to end up as a top tier/historic February ice storm for Salem!

  • Freezing rain should extend down to Corvallis and Albany, but I’m thinking those locations may warm up a little bit sooner on Saturday which could keep them from seeing as much ice as Salem.
  • Snow could still mix in at times here in Salem the way it did last night in areas west and north of downtown, but overall freezing rain will be the main precip type.
  • Roughly Wilsonville northward is still on track for some heavy snowfall. There will be areas of Portland that end up buried under a foot plus of new snow by this time tomorrow! This is shaping up to be a truly epic February snow and ice storm for our region!!
  • Salem should rise above freezing Saturday afternoon at which point we should stay above freezing and begin to melt/thaw out.
  • Portland may not thaw out real well until Monday, especially parts of the metro area that are located close to the gorge.

Okay, I think I covered everything. Be safe out there!!

Friday morning update

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area Forecast, WEATHER ALERTSLeave a comment

From what I can see out there we still don’t have any major surprises going on yet which as a forecaster is always a relief lol. There is a nice layer of ice on basically everything outside here in Salem. Trees, plants, and cars are all coated in a glaze of ice. Our major roadways are looking okay; however, most of our sideroads and parking lots still have a lot of slick spots of ice on them. Be very careful out there and drive or walk as if there could be ice even if it looks just wet. Here are regional temps as of 8AM:

You can very clearly see the influence of the Columbia River Gorge with very cold air moving west right into the northern Willamette Valley. Roads should thaw out slowly and driving conditions shouldn’t be all that bad on the main roads thanks to our limited “heating” of the day, but don’t be fooled into thinking we are all done. This second storm moving in is juicy and will be packing quite a punch. Unlike last night where the freezing over process was slow, main roads tonight will freeze over very quickly between 2 and 5PM depending on temps and how heavy the precip falls this afternoon. It’s worth pointing out that some of the side roads around town may not even truly thaw out before this next round of freezing rain and snow moves in.

Freezing rain will again be the dominate precip type later today through Saturday morning with sleet and a little bit of snow mixing in at times. As mentioned, this storm has a lot of precipitation with it, so the potential is there for some serious ice accumulations. Tonight and Saturday morning will be the “main event” of this whole wintry weather ordeal. This is also the time frame that some of you may lose power due to what could end up being heavy freezing rain.

Portland is still on track for a major snowstorm later today through Saturday morning. I’m thinking 6 to 14 inches up there depending on location. A crazy big snowstorm for them!

In theory Salem should begin to thaw out Saturday afternoon – at least some. This is subject to change of course, but as for right now that is the plan.

Alrighty, there you have it! Plan on main roads being okay for the middle of the day, but turning bad quickly late this afternoon/early this evening, and plan on power outages tonight with lots more freezing rain tonight and tomorrow with varying amounts of snow and sleet mixed in.

Stay safe and enjoy our wintry weather!

Thursday winter storm update

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area Forecast, WEATHER ALERTSLeave a comment

Happy Thursday everyone! From what I’m seeing it appears as though the train is still on the tracks for now. Hahaha!!! Check out regional temps as of 11AM:

As you can see there’s a lot of very cold air east of the Cascades which is blasting through the gorge straight into the northern Willamette Valley. Next take a look at the satellite view of the storm rolling in. It’s a beast of a storm!!

The greater Portland metro area: All of Clackamas, Washington, and Multnomah counties, as well as parts of Yamhill County are looking at what will probably be a major top tier snowstorm. Locations further south like Wilsonville and Newberg may only pick up 2 to 6 inches of snow, while cities both close to Portland and cities north and east of Portland could easily see – and I’m not kidding – well over a foot of snow between now and Saturday afternoon! Plan on Portland being an absolute mess through Sunday, perhaps even into Monday with Portland metro roads freezing up and turning snowy before the PM commute this afternoon.

THE SALEM AREA

TIMING: Salem falls below freezing tonight. The cold air is currently spreading down into our region at a more “aggressive” rate than what some models were initially showing. Due to this fact, I’m feeling confident that Salem drops below freezing between 7 and 10PM tonight. This is a little bit sooner than what I said in my last update.

What to expect: For today we will only see cold rain. I’m still thinking we end up with a brutal mix of freezing rain, some sleet, and a little bit of snow at times beginning late tonight and lasting on and off through Saturday morning. My concern is that freezing rain will be our dominate precip type for the duration of this event. This could end up being an extremely hazardous and dangerous ice storm for the immediate Salem area. I’m thinking lots of trees, tree branches, and limbs coming down.

Because we are so close to the deeper cold air, it is very likely that we switch back and forth between freezing rain, sleet, and snow over the next two days. Being right on the edge of the cold air will cause us to do a lot of switching between precip types. I want to illustrate why this forecast is so tricky. This first pic shows estimated total snowfall in inches ending Monday morning.

If this model is correct, Portland will end up with 12 to 18 inches of snow while Salem sees maybe an inch or two at most (I’m accounting for the cold air being slightly further south than what this model predicted.) In this scenario Salem would see a better part of an inch of freezing rain!! This could easily be one of the more serious ice storms we have seen in at least a decade. HOWEVER…… 🙂 Check out this next map from the other major weather model. It shows what could happen if the cold air is even more aggressive in moving in, with Salem receiving over 10 inches of snow and only a little bit of freezing rain.

If you take a blend of these two models, which is sorta what I’m doing, you end up with a lot of freezing rain and a little bit of snow. As much as I would like a ton of snow, I’m leaning more towards the freezing rain outcome being correct with just some snow here in Salem. I do recognize, however, that if things trend a little bit colder we could still see a big snowstorm here as well!

Either way Salem should stay close to or below freezing tonight through Saturday morning/early afternoon. This time of year it’s possible roads could be okay to drive on during the peak daytime hours on Friday if precip lets up and if we get a break in the clouds, but don’t bank on that. Drive as if they are still icy, stay safe, and plan on roads being a mess beginning late tonight through Saturday morning. At some point Saturday afternoon we should warm up above freezing and begin the melting process here in Salem. Portland will take longer and may not thaw out until Sunday afternoon.

I will continue to check real time observations to see if we are running warmer or colder than expected, and there are always little surprises that happen which simply can’t be forecasted and it will be interesting to se what actually transpires. Anyway, no promises on when the next update will be, but keep an eye out and plan for an icy few days with more snow the further north you go.