If you are here for the forecast, then I have it right here first. Basically we should have highs 90 to 95° each day through Monday the 7th before cooling back down closer to average with highs in the lower 80s next Tuesday and Wednesday. No sign of rain for now…

Up in the Cascades we do have a shot of seeing thunderstorms during the later PM hours each day Friday through Sunday. I will keep a close eye on this threat as it will be happening over the weekend. For now I’m thinking the storms stay close to the crest of the Cascades and the Cascade peaks, they should stay east of Detroit Lake, Green Peter, and the other major reservoirs. The valley and coast should stay nice and dry. That’s it for the forecast.

Okay, so it’s only the second day of August, and there is plenty of hot summer still to go; however, I thought it would be interesting to take a peek at our up coming fall and winter season. The waters off the western coast of South America near the equator have switched from cooler than normal to warmer than normal over the past 6 months. The warmer than normal waters give us what we call an El Nino pattern.

Believe it or not, the sea surface temperatures thousands of miles away really do have an effect on our weather, and I’ll go through what those impacts could look like. Just keep in mind anytime I talk about an upcoming winter season I’m providing more of an “educated guess” than an actual forecast. Basically, I look at previous years which had similar El Nino conditions, and I go from there.

So what do the odds favor for the coming fall and winter? Well, there are 5 things which really stand out to me as being more likely during this up coming El Nino winter.

1.) Higher chances for late summer/early fall rains. Do you remember last fall how we scorched during the month of September and even the first two weeks of October? I sure remember. I remember cooking in my classroom at school. The odds of something similar happening again on a similar scale this year are smaller. We could very likely still see late season heat, but odds favor that such heat would not last for weeks on end through the fall like it did last year.

2.) El Nino winters tend to give Salem near average precipitation, but in a more “boom or bust” type fashion. El Nino winters often times produce significant rainfall over short periods of time leading to some flooding. You may recall me saying in the past that La Nina winters are the ones which give us our largest floods, and that is still true. The most important difference between many of our El Nino floods and La Nina floods is the snowpack in the mountains. The mountain snowpack during a La Nina winter tends to be pretty healthy (above normal), so when heavy rains arrive, there is usually plenty of snow to melt which adds to the flooding. El Nino winters tend to have a smaller snowpack due to warmer than usual temperatures. This minimizes the flooding usually just enough to prevent major widespread flooding. Clear as mud right?? 😉 🙂 Bottom line: expect some significant rainstorms this fall and winter and some flooding issues, but hopefully any major flooding can be avoided.

3.) Warmer overall. I expect this winter to end up being on the mild side. A cold El Nino around these parts has happened before, but is very, very rare. Again, for comparison, last winter was colder than normal when all the months were accounted for. We could easily have a cold arctic blast this winter, but in the end, I imagine we would still end up milder than average.

4.) Most El Nino winters end up producing a close to normal snowpack in the mountains, but because these winters tend to be milder, the snowpack rarely exceeds average by any significant amount. The bad news is that due to the warmer rain events, the snowpack does not typically stay “in tact” throughout the entire winter as well as it does during a La Nina. I’ve seen a healthy snowpack disappear quickly during an El Nino winter, before slowly building back up weeks later. Plan on a decent ski season, but probably not top tier.

5.) Speaking of snow, snow in the Willamette Valley is a huge wildcard during El Nino. During a La Nina winter, snow in Salem is a basically a guarantee as just about every La Nina produces at least some measurable snowfall here in Salem. The same cannot be said about El Nino though. We are closer to 50/50 when it comes to snow during an El Nino winter, so we will see what happens.

Again, these are all just guesses and trends I see based off of what took place in previous El Nino winters of similar strength to the one we are expected to see. It’s always exciting to see what actually unfolds, and of course it’s even more fun when you’re tuned in to Salem’s best and most handsome forecaster. 😉

Thankfully it’s back to summer for now, so enjoy it while it lasts.