Author: bryanweather

Foggy days

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

Right on track the fog showed up today and kept temperatures down across the valley. We made it to a sizzling 41° for our high. We cool back down tonight. Saturday will likely be a near repeat. No reason to expect the sun will magically break through the fog this time of year – at least down in the valley.

Up in the Cascades it’s a whole different story in a pattern like this. Lots of sunshine over the fresh coating of snow. Check out these beautiful images from Hood and Hoodoo today!

The next 7 days

Fairly high confidence in the forecast for the next several days. Thursday (Thanksgiving) should be mostly dry, but there is a slight chance for an afternoon shower or two. Lower confidence for that day.

In case you need a refresher, I enjoy using different colors to represent the confidence I have in the forecast. For example a difficult forecast with a high probability of changing is going to be highlighted yellow while green highlighting indicates high confidence in my forecast staying on track.

The Cascades will have a little bit of snow Sun & Mon, but overall not too bad for traveling. Tue night through Thanksgiving morning will be pretty snowy with another 10 to 15 inches of new snow for the ski resorts.

Have a great weekend!!!!

Midweek update

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

Another stormy day out there today. Winds have not been too crazy with gusts no higher than 30 -35mph, but plenty of rain. As I write this we have a band of rain rolling through with a peak of sun making for a pretty neat to scene. 🙂

Wednesday & Thursday: Showers & sunbreaks, breezy at times with brief downpours. Maybe even a thundershower or two with some small hail mixed in. Wednesday will be the wetter of the two days.

The Cascades

Snow levels fall down below pass level late tonight. 10 – 15 inches of new snow for ski resorts by the time Friday rolls around. Since I don’t have my own graphics department lol, I borrowed this from Mark Nelson at Fox 12 Oregon. You can see just how healthy the snowpack is compared to the past 10 years for this early in the season.

Friday & Saturday both look dry, so a nice two day break from the rain before another system rolls in on Sunday. I should note there will be a fair amount of fog and clouds on these two dry days – not exactly a super sunny period, but dry nevertheless.

Thanksgiving week is the week after (already!!!) and it’s looking stormy and wet with more mountain snow & valley rain.

According to plan

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

Fox 12 Weather provided this nice graphic showing peak wind gusts from our storm Friday morning.

My forecast of 35 – 50mph turned fairly well and in the tricky world of forecasting I will jot this down as a win. 🙂

Storm number two is rolling in now. The rest of today is going to be very wet with steady rain increasing through the day and turning heavy tonight. Expect well over an inch of rain to fall by this time tomorrow. Southerly winds pick up tonight as well with gusts 30 – 40mph.

The Next 7 Days

1.) Sunday still looks like the calmest day with scattered showers, sunbreaks, and fairly light winds.

2.) Monday: Rainy through the early afternoon. Mild and breezy. Temps will likely top out around 60°.

3.) Tuesday: Still watching the potential for another round of strong winds and heavy rain, but lots still up in the air with this system. Very stormy along the coast.

4.) Wed & Thu: Showers, breezy, and lots of mountain snow. Assuming businesses are allowed to operate, ski resorts should have one of the best starts to the ski season in years with close to 30 inches of snow currently being reported at Hoodoo and more on the way later this week. There will be some melting Sun – Tue with the milder weather, but overall it looks like we are off on the right track in the snowpack department!!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Stormy weather

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

There is a lot going on in the weather department, so let’s jump right in.

1.) Tonight/Friday, windy with heavy rain at times transitioning to showers during the afternoon. Maybe even a late afternoon thundershower. Gusts should top out around 40 – 50mph which is not super “wild”; however, that’s stronger than any storm we saw last winter. Expect a few power outages.

  • Rainfall will end up over an inch by the time Saturday rolls around which means localized areas of minor flooding is possible.
  • This chart shows peak wind gusts in knots at 4AM Friday morning. The 47 over Salem translates to 54mph which I think is a little overdone, but we will see. Either way it’s going to be quite windy tonight and Friday morning.

2.) A second (not as intense) round of rain and wind moves in Saturday afternoon/Saturday night. Gusts with this storm will be closer to 25 – 35mph.

3.) Sunday will be a sort of in between day with both a few showers and a few sunbreaks at times. Sunday night – Monday more rain & wind. This third storm contains a lot of moisture. We could easily see well over an inch during this timeframe. Will monitor this storm also as time gets closer.

4.) Yet another strong storm is possible Tuesday & Wednesday bringing the potential for more heavy rain and strong winds.

5.) Over 4 inches of rain are forecasted by next Thursday morning. Even if this is overdoing the rainfall by an inch we still have an extremely wet stretch of days ahead.

THE CASCADES

Very poor travel weather starting late tonight through Saturday night with heavy snow and high winds. Great snowpack building weather though with 18 – 24+ inches of new snow falling, but terrible if you wish to travel over the passes. Much better conditions on Sun & Mon.

THE COAST

  • Along the Oregon coast expect lots of big waves, like 40 plus foot waves at times, powerful winds, and high surf to be the rule of thumb over the next week or so. Add in some heavy rain (3 – 6+ inches over the next several days) with the high surf, and coastal flooding is going to be an issue in places.
  • Sunday looks to be the calmest day, and even that day will prove to be showery and breezy at times, but with a few glorious sunbreaks scattered in between.
  • Wind gusts will also be higher at the coast, as is usual, gusting 60 to 70mph with this first system. Gusts above 50 are likely with some of next week’s storms too.

Like I said, lots going on. Okay, happy Thursday and stay safe!!

Cool and wet

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area ForecastLeave a comment

Well, we kicked off November on a warm note with highs in the 60s the first 5 days of the month, but things have cooled off dramatically and will stay cool through the week. This morning was particularly cold with lows 24 – 27° across the mid valley. Brrrrrrrrr!!!!

Salem’s 7 day forecast

HIGHLIGHTS

1.) Tue – Thu: Showers possible each day with some good mountain snow (12 – 20 inches by Friday morning). Tue in particular will have fairly vigorous showers with hail possible. The driest day this week is going to be Wed with only an isolated shower or two.

2.) Watching Friday/Saturday for the development of a powerful wind & rain storm. Keep both eyes open for updates as this system has the potential to bring some very stormy weather to our region.

3.) Sunday and much of next week look wet. Rain or showers almost every single day, windy at times too with additional rounds of mountain snow.

Warm weather & rain moving in…

On By bryanweatherIn Salem Area Forecast, WEATHER ALERTSLeave a comment

It’s lunchtime which means I have just enough time to squeeze in a quick update lol. 😉

The past several days have been quite warm for November. Yesterday was 15 degrees above normal with a low of 58 and a high of 68!! Look at how warm the state as a whole was. These were temps as of 3PM yesterday.

Very warm, in fact record breaking warmth for a number of cities. Today is still fairly mild, but rain is approaching and this storm will usher in much cooler weather.

As of 11:40AM you can see the rain approaching from the NW.

Link to the radar (updated every ten minutes courtesy of Fox 12 News) http://lmgcorporate.com/kptv/weather/web_radarnwor.jpg

Bottom line: it’s going to be a rainy couple of days.

Happy Thursday and stay safe!

Election Day 2020

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

We finally had some rain today after a very dry October. Looking ahead we have a bit of weather action coming up this week to cover including some mountain snow.

Highlights

1.) Thursday & Friday will be especially wet. Expect a little more than an inch of rain over these two days.

2.) Much cooler weather. Highs will be in the 40s Sun – Tue and lows will once again drop into the 20s Monday morning.

Here are a couple of maps showing both the total precip and total snowfall measured in inches through Saturday night. Main take away is it’s looking wet down here and snowy up in the Cascades with generally 10 to 15 inches expected starting early Friday morning as the snow level slowly drops down to near 3000′.

I’m very glad to have you all as faithful followers. You may notice I avoid posting anything political in my forecasts, or at least I try to. My desire is to keep it that way as it’s extremely nice for a change reading about something that isn’t political, polarizing, frustrating, or upsetting as most political things are; however, I think active involvement in our system is very important, so if you have not voted yet, be sure to fill your ballot out and drop it off by 8pm tonight!!

Okay, take care, happy election day, and remember, at the end of the day we are all still God’s children. 🙂