I hope you all are enjoying the holiday season! Even with everything going on there is still much to be thankful for and much to enjoy. Just some quick words of encouragement from your local weatherman. 😉 Okay, moving on we have several dry or mostly dry days ahead with no sign of any big storms or arctic blasts, so with not much going on I figured it was a good time to recap November.

Highlights

November 2020 was not real exciting in terms of weather events. We had several days of wind & rain including a peak wind gust of 43mph on the 13th, but very few really wet storm systems. Perhaps the biggest highlight of the month was the good start to the mountain snow season up in the Cascades. It’s been several years since we have seen an early start like this. As of Monday, Hoodoo had 34 inches of snow which is well above normal for the end of November!! The final thing worth noting from the month would be the higher than normal amount of dry days (both foggy and sunny) which helped to keep our precipitation for the month slightly below normal.

Temperature

Warmest high temp was 68°  November 4^th   

Coldest high temp was 39°  November 27^th  

Warmest low temp was 58°  November 4^th

Coldest low temp was 24°  November 9^th

8 days with lows at or below freezing.

It’s been awhile, but we finally had a cooler than normal month.  November 2020 was 1.1° below normal.

Salem had 19 days with measurable precipitation with most of the action taking place mid month, but as mentioned, not very many wet storm systems at all. The wettest day of the month was the 13th with 1.21” of rain.   We ended November with 5.89″ of precip which is 90% of our average for the month, so yet another drier than average month.

Looking ahead

December is typically our wettest month of the year and one of our coldest. We will see what happens, but early indications are hinting at a cooler than normal month. As far as snow goes, December has not exactly been a big snow producer around here as of late. In fact, over the past decade February has actually been our snowiest month on average. Curious to see if that stays the same this year or if we get some good snowfall during December or January instead. Anyway, check out this graph of December snowfall going back to 2004.

Really only 2 years with any decent snowfall on this chart. I’m sure a lot of you remember 2008 when it snowed and snowed and snowed leading up to Christmas.  More recently in 2016 we had a nice December snowstorm, but overall December snowfall has not been all that common lately.  With that said, our chances seem to increase slightly during a La Nina.  Take it for what its’ worth, but I’m thinking we see some snow this December.  Just my gut feeling…   😉

Happy December!!!

May 2020 is over and it ended up wetter than average, and despite the extra rain, Salem was still 1.6°F warmer than average for the month.  I graphed out the total May rainfall for each year going back to 1997.  The dark blue bars are years when May ended with above normal precipitation, so by process of elimination you should know what the yellow bars mean.  😉

One could say that Salem was “overdue” for a wetter than average May considering our last wetter than normal May occurred back in 2013.

Look ahead

Unfortunately, I have bad news for those of us who prefer/enjoy sunny weather this time of year.  Keep in mind this week will still be mostly dry; however, it won’t be all that warm.  Nicest days this week will be Wed & Thu. 

Details 

Mon:  Basically dry with lots of clouds around.  Slight chance of a sprinkle/quick shower.  Highs in the mid – upper 60s.

Tue:  Gray and wet – especially during the afternoon.  Highs around 65°.

Wed:  Partly cloudy with highs in the mid 70s.  Very slight chance for a shower.

Thu:  Partly cloudy.  Highs around 77°.

Fri & Sat:  Showers return along with cooler temps.  Highs 63 – 67°.

Peace out and have a good week!

Greetings!  It’s been quite some time since I last posted.  Being a first year teacher has been a wonderful experience, but it sure does take up a lot of time.  Anyway, before looking ahead to what should be an exciting weekend, I want to take a minute to review some highlights from January.  January 2020 has gone down as one of the warmest ones we have ever seen here in Salem.  The month ended 4.2 degrees above normal which is significant.  For a comparison on the other side of the scale, the cold February we had last year was 4.39 degrees below normal.

And how strange that for the 3rd year in a row we have seen a warmer than normal January only to have some sort of snow event in February or March.  2017 was the last time we had snow in January.  I’m currently working on a couple of graphs and I’m not finished with the data yet, but it appears as though February has been a snowier month than January during this past decade.  Interesting don’t you think???

Now onto something I think you will find far more interesting – we have a chance for snow now through Sunday night.  Details below:

Tonight through Saturday morning:  Here’s what the satellite from around 4:40pm looked like.  You can see a nice comma shaped storm off the Oregon coast.  This sucker is going to send moisture over us tonight while pulling in cold air in through the Gorge.  If things come together just right there is no reason why anyone couldn’t wake up tomorrow morning to a coating of snow.  Lows around 32 degrees.

Saturday:  I expect snow showers (maybe some ice pellets and rain mixed in during the afternoon) on and off through the day.  Sunbreaks at times should help “warm” us up into the low 40s.

Saturday night – Sunday morning:  Similar to tonight’s weather only colder and slightly drier which means anyone could see a dusting of snow.

Forecast Summary

I like our odds for seeing a little bit of snow (better than anything we have seen this winter), but around here even when the odds are good it’s still not a slam dunk.  Finally, like the vast majority of our snow events this one is very marginal.  We could easily end up with nothing, or things could come together just right for a “surprise” 2 or 3 inches.  It’s the weekend, and there is no school next week which means I’ll be on top of this storm with updates should things change.

I’m personally hoping for snow as it would be a nice break from all this virus stuff going on, plus who doesn’t like a good snow event???

You can use this link to track the satellite:

https://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-17&z=3&im=12&ts=1&st=0&et=0&speed=80&motion=loop&map=1&lat=0&opacity%5B0%5D=1&hidden%5B0%5D=0&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=0&mouse_draw=0&follow_feature=0&follow_hide=0&s=rammb-slider&sec=conus&p%5B0%5D=geocolor&x=6725&y=2674

Click on this image from Mark Nelson’s weather page to see the regional temps:

Have a fantastic evening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!