By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
A low pressure area raced up the coast and to the north this morning and gave us a brief shot of moderate rain and winds. Things have calmed down this afternoon with only a few scattered showers around that will become widely scattered tonight. The winds will further ease this evening as the low continues northward and by tonight the winds will become light from the east with the low near 43.
Conditions improve tomorrow morning as high pressure settles in but does bring us some morning fog, otherwise, tomorrow looks sunny with light northerly winds, the high near 57. With partly cloudy skies tomorrow night and light winds, the patchy fog returns with a low near 41.
By Thursday, we see another low pressure area moving to the west of California again where it stops for a while. This brings us partly sunny skies after the patchy morning fog clears, with light southerly winds, the high near 54. We do start to see a slight chance of rain that evening with the chance increasing overnight as a cold front takes aim at our area, lows near 41.
Friday the cold front brings rain with some breezy winds, then a chance of thunderstorms as the front moves through, sometime around noon. We transition to showers but still with that chance of thunderstorms in the colder, unstable air moving in, the high near 50. The showers and thunderstorm threat continues that night until around midnight, then we just see scattered showers with the snow level dropping to near 2600’, the low falls to near 36.
The chance of showers continues Saturday, the snow level down near 2500’, highs only near 49, a slight chance of rain starts Saturday night with another approaching system, the snow level now down near 2200’, the low near 35.
There is a chance of rain Sunday, the snow level starts out around 2000’ that morning but starts to rise with the approaching warmer system, highs near 50, a chance of rain still that night, the snow level up around 3000’ for Santa’s arrival, lows near 37.
And sorry folks, Christmas Day looks mostly cloudy and rainy, but the high is up near 52.
The long range models suggest the rest of next week will be active also.