By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
Well, I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and now comes the last few days of 2025. The good news is that it looks like Mother Nature wore herself out the last few weeks and will now take a break for a few days. We can expect a ridge of high pressure to dominate the weather pattern, at least for the first half of the week anyway. The only negative side of this is we are seeing cooler nighttime temperatures with all the radiational cooling taking place. So, after a mostly sunny day today, we can expect a partly cloudy night with light offshore winds, the low down near 37.
We can see some early morning frost tomorrow morning, otherwise another sunny day with calm winds, the afternoon high temperature near 54, then another mostly clear night with calm winds, the low near 37. Now, a little meteorological lesson for the period. Cold air is heavier and denser, so it settles to the surface, and usually has an area of warmer temperatures above around 500 to 1000’ or so. This is called an inversion as the temperatures normally decrease with height, but in an inversion, it is just the opposite. This traps the low level air down close to the surface, which can lead to an Air Stagnation Advisory. So don’t be surprised if an advisory is issued soon for the region, especially over in the valley.
Now, Wednesday also looks mostly sunny with light winds, the high near 54, but then the models suggest we are looking at a shift in the pattern. It appears a large low pressure area in the Gulf of Alaska will have a trough of low pressure area extending southward that will push in some clouds Wednesday night, and start to give us a slight chance of rain in the early morning hours. With the warmer southwesterly flow developing, the overnight low only drops to around 40.
Thursday the water is getting a little muddy as the models are somewhat mixed, but it looks like we will have an approaching front increasing the rain chance with rain likely that evening, the high near 52, New Years Eve night is also looking rainy, the low near 43.
The forecast from Friday on through the weekend is also up for grabs as there appears to be a cutoff low pressure area developing along the coast that will be moving northward along the Oregon Coast. The trough of low pressure and that cutoff low would mean we are rainy Friday and Saturday, then transition to showers Saturday night into Sunday with highs in the low 50s and overnight lows in the low 40s.
One more, oh-by-the-way, we are slowly working our way into another King Tide period with the Garibaldi tides climbing above 9’ tomorrow morning then up to around 10’ by January 1st before peaking at above 10’ January 2nd a little before lunchtime, then slowly subside each day after that. This means there is a chance of some minor Tidal Surge Flooding in the usual spots during this period, once again.
And with that I will close my last forecast for 2025 meaning I get to say, see ya next year everyone.