By Gordon McCraw,
Monday, April 10, 2023
Well, the forecast verified, the atmospheric river (AR) event gave us winds gusting from 25 to 30 at the airport yesterday with gusts from 40 to 45 at the beaches, and stations have reported from just under 1” to a little over 2” of rain except one personal weather station up the Miami River reported nearly 3 ½” of rain. It looked like South Fork recorded 1 ¾” of rain. This did cause a rapid rise in the rivers that all crested a little after midnight, several feet below Action Stage. The forecasts have them all continuing to drop over the next several days. At this point it looks like the event peaked last night and rainfall rates decreased as the AR drifted north and south during the day today.
So, this evening, the associated upper level trough of low pressure over the eastern Pacific will get closer to the coast and drag a cold front across which, besides bringing in more rain, will start to push the snow level lower, falling to near 2000’ tonight as the low temperature drops to near 39. The winds becoming southerly this evening 5-10.
Tomorrow, we see scattered showers with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Winds becoming westerly 10-15 gusting to 20, the high near 49. Now, tomorrow night it looks like a low pressure area will move into southern Washington and that would enhance the shower activity while bring westerly winds 10-15 gusting to 25, and also pull in some colder air, dropping the snow level below the summit level as it lowers to near 1200’ after midnight and possible even giving some flurries or a rain/snow mix at times down to 500-1000’ in the heavier showers.
Wednesday the wind and shower activity will slowly ease under partly sunny skies, becoming more widely scattered before diminishing Wednesday night. High temperatures Wednesday afternoon around 50, the low that night near 34, luckily the shower activity will have dissipated in these colder temperatures.
Thursday a weak trough moves across and gives us a chance of showers, the snow level that will start out around 1200’ that morning, will climb to near 1800’ in the afternoon so there is a slight chance of morning snowshowers in the higher passes.
After that the models look to build a ridge over the area. The mixed signals though are in placement and strength. This will drive how warm we get Friday through the weekend. The variation is from average high temperatures for this time of year, to above average for this time of year. For now though, we will go with highs in the upper 50s for the weekend, and lows in the low 40s. Unfortunately, it also looks like a low pressure area will be dropping south, west of Vancouver Island so we do have a chance of showers developing Saturday night into Sunday.
Come on spring 😊