By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
We have a couple more days with the dominating ridge of high pressure before a pattern change is expected. This means we can expect another night of clear skies with calm winds that promote radiational cooling, pulling the low temperatures back down to near 34 again tonight. This also happens to be the dewpoint so patchy fog is again possible.
The fog and stratus will burn back tomorrow morning leaving partly sunny skies, the winds becoming westerly 4-8, highs up near 52. We will also have a disturbance dropping southward into the area tomorrow that gives us increased cloudiness in the afternoon so we can expect cloudy skies by tomorrow night, light westerly winds, the low near 41.
Early Friday morning the disturbance also brings an increasing chance of showers with showers likely later Friday morning, and becoming breezy with westerly winds 10-15 gusting to 20, afternoon highs near 49. Still cloudy with a chance of showers Friday night, the snow level drops to near 2800’ with lows near 40.
Another colder disturbance drops down into the area Saturday bringing breezy conditions with more showers along with cooler temperatures, the highs only near 46, and the snow level drops to near 2300’. Saturday night is when things start to get a little tricky as the temperature drops to near 32. The shower activity does start to slowly diminish in the early morning hours when the temperature is falling down close to freezing which means with any remaining showers we also see a chance of some low level snow.
So, there is a slight chance of some rain and/or low level snow in the morning hours Sunday with the snow level down around 300’ or so, and we see mostly sunny skies with some breezy winds. This does mean that with the afternoon high only reaching near 41, the winds it will make it feel like the 30s. The models now agree that a low pressure area will drop southward along the coast by Sunday night not only bringing some clouds, but also some stronger and colder east winds as the low drops south of the area. With the early morning lows down in the low 20s, and the strong winds, the windchill would drop down into the single digits.
Monday the low continues to move south and continues to pull in the colder temperatures from the east, the afternoon high only makes it to around 38 degrees. To make things a little more interesting, it looks like some moisture returns Monday night giving us a slight chance of some snow showers as the low drops back down to around 24.
We see a better chance of showers by Tuesday morning so again we see the chance of low level snow until the temperatures climb, pushing the snow level up as the afternoon high hits around 41.
Remember, if you have travel plans across the Coast Range passes, they will be seeing snow in any showers starting after sunset Friday and the threat of accumulating snow persists thru Saturday into Sunday. If you should get stuck up near the summit, highs temperatures there over the weekend will be in the 20s with the lows in the teen, and with the winds, the windchill could be close to Zero! Know BEFORE you go, looks at tripcheck.com and weather.gov/Portland before heading out the door.