By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
Friday, February 10, 2023
A look at the satellite this morning showed a trough along the coast with a low pressure area moving ashore just north of Vancouver Island and another headed into Northern California. This pushed a front thru our area that gave us about ½” of rain. We saw a few scattered light showers today that have become more widely scattered this evening and will continue to diminish overnight. The winds tonight becoming northerly 5-10, lows tonight down near 36, the snow level about 2300’.
Tomorrow we have a high pressure ridge building in again, so we can expect a mostly sunny, dry day with the winds becoming northwesterly 5-10 in the afternoon, highs near 50. Still partly cloudy tomorrow night with relatively light easterly winds, the lows near 35.
Sunday starts out partly sunny and dry but we see another trough of low pressure moving down from the northwest that will push in some clouds that afternoon, then we develop an increasing chance of rain that evening, still the light winds during the day, the high near 53. The rain is likely by Sunday night, lows near 39.
Monday a cold front moves thru early in the morning bringing more rain and winds, then by sunrise transitions to showers. We still see some breezy winds that will be pulling in some colder air so the high only climbs to near 46 as the snow level drops to near 1700’. Monday night we are still cloudy and breezy with showers and the snow level plummets to near 700’ with the overnight low near 33. This means we could see a rain/snow mix at times in the heavier showers, or maybe even a trace of low level snow if the temperature drops more. It also means the Coast Range will see accumulating snow across the passes, especially above 1000’.
If you have to travel over to Portland, or maybe even across Cascade Head or north by Neahkahnie Mountain, you will want to look at tripcheck.com and weather.gov/Portland before you go to check on road conditions. The snow level will climb to near 1000’ Tuesday but with scattered showers still in the area, more snow is possible in the higher elevation passes. Highs Tuesday around 45 then drops to near 30 Tuesday night. Fortunately, the shower activity will have diminished considerably Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
Speaking of Wednesday, it looks like a ridge will be building in which will help to push the snow level back up to around 1700’ by the afternoon with a high near 48. As it looks like a flat ridge we can still have a disturbance sneak across the ridge so we continue with a slight chance of showers thru Wednesday night into Thursday, highs near 49, lows near 34, and the snow level likely above 2000’.
Long Range Outlook, February thru April
Just in case you were wondering, here is the last Seasonal Precipitation and Temperature outlooks from the NWS Climate Prediction Center. They show that it is expected that we have an equal chance of above or below normal precipitation for the period thru April, and we are leaning below normal for temperatures in that period. In other words, they suggest we will have average rain chances but are leaning towards cooler than normal temperatures.
