By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
First, I am writing this in the afternoon on Wednesday, Veteran’s Day, so, if you are a Veteran, thank you for your service. (Thank you to Gordon and to all our veterans for their service! Here he is being appointed as the Chief in Charge of the Weather Detachment at NAS New Orleans.)
I hope you are enjoying the recent dry and mild days because there is more weather coming. Today, we had another dry day though we continue to have lots of clouds riding up across the ridge that is just off to the east. The ridge is keeping the rain pushed mainly up in Washington and Canada. These conditions will give us cloudy skies still tonight with light winds, and an overnight low of 53.
We start out mostly cloudy tomorrow, the winds becoming southerly 5-10, the afternoon high temperature near 65. Unfortunately, the ridge starts to slide to the east by tomorrow night as another trough of low pressure approaches, so we see increasing clouds, the winds becoming southeasterly 10-15 gusting to 25, the low near 50, and we can expect the rain to return in the early morning hours.
That trough continues to deepen Friday as it gets closer to the coast. This flow will push several fronts across the area that will also bring increasing winds and periods of moderate rain. So, Friday looks cloudy with breezy southerly winds 15-20 gusting to 25, the afternoon high temperature near 58, still rainy and breezy Friday night, the low near 45.
Now, starting Friday, with Gale or Storm Force Winds offshore, there is a very good chance of seeing high seas building to 20-25’ again by Friday night, which will likely bring High Surf Conditions along the coast once again, which in turn is increasing Sneaker Wave concerns.
Now let’s talk about the weekend, there is still some wiggle room in the models on just how much rain we will see from the series of fronts, or exactly how strong the winds will be, especially along the beaches, or precisely where the hose will be pointed. What we do know is Saturday and Sunday looks cloudy, and rainy, and breezy, or windy. For now, it looks like the rain, and winds will be heavier Saturday night, then breezy on through Sunday. It appears we can expect the rain to transition to showers with possible thunderstorms during the day Sunday, that returns to rain with the next front that night. The temperatures over the weekend look to be in the mid and high 50s for highs, and mid to low 40s for the lows.
Given all of this, yes, there is a chance of seeing power outage disruptions again as there is a slight chance the winds at the coast could again be gusting to 55, and 45 inland, especially Friday and Saturday. As far as how much rain, that depends on where the hose is pointed. There is low to moderate chance that the rain could be heavy enough to cause localized small stream flooding with standing water on some roadways. The river forecasts currently do not show the rivers reaching Action or Flood Stage. I checked the Tidal levels during this period and saw tidal level predictions reaching 9.0’ or more (Galbaldi) starting Friday, peaking at 9.9’ on Sunday. Add in some possible positive tidal anomalies from the high surf, and all the rain, and we could see Tidal Overflow Flooding once again in all the usual North, Central, and South County areas.
So, after all that fun, it looks like next week we will continue to be influenced by a trough of low pressure that will give us a chance of rain, along with cooler temperatures, with the highs in the mid 50 and the lows in the upper 30s.
