By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Back-to-back systems mean we will see rain and rainshowers the rest of this week, thru the weekend, and into the start of next week. The rain moved in today with the first in the series of systems, associated with a warm front that is spreading rain and winds across the area. In addition to it bringing rain and southerly winds 10-15 gusting to 30 tonight, it will also push the snow level up to near 4000’ as the low tonight only falls to near 42.
Tomorrow, Thursday, we see a cold front pushing in heavier rain and stronger winds. This looks to bring somewhere around ¾ to 1 ½” of rain to the coast, maybe 1 to 3” to the coast range. Winds tomorrow are southerly 15-20 gusting to 30 with gusts to 35-45 possible at the beaches. High temperatures tomorrow near 53. Tomorrow night the rain continues, heavy at times, winds southerly 10-20 gusting to 30, becoming westerly 10-15 gusting to 25 after midnight, lows near 42.
On Friday, we transition to post-frontal showers, winds southerly 5-10 gusting to 18, the high near 48. Friday night the shower chance will have decreased but the rain and winds return after midnight with the next system, lows near 44.
The models now show the weekend looking cloudy, and rainy with breezy winds, the high temperature near 54, lows near 42.
As for the start of next week, well, cloudy with showers and breezy southerly winds, highs near 50, lows near 37, and the snow level dropping to near 2700’ Monday night and near 2100’ Tuesday night.
For those that have been around a while, you know that there have been times where we get abundant snow in the Coast Range, then warmer systems that push in warm, heavy rain that, when combined with the melting snow runoff, cause some river flooding issues in the coastal basin. Well, this does NOT appear to be one of those cases. The rain amounts are not sufficient enough to cause any flooding concerns with these systems. The rivers do increase their flow rates some, but nothing alarming.
Next, just to give you an idea of when we will warm up. First, the longer range models are suggesting we might see some warmer, dryer days later next week. Looking at climatology the National Weather Service found that, using Portland airport as a gauge, the first day of the year it reaches 70 or above is April 2nd, the latest it sees 70 or above is May 8th. In quick dig into the pages of climo data for something closer, I was able to find that the first day Astoria hit 70 or above was 2/15/1996.