By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
It’s TGIF Friday folks, and well, I must say, I am a forecaster that likes to use all the forecasting tools available to him, so, today being Groundhog Day, I checked in on Punxsutawney Phil. It appears that today he saw no shadow and therefore he is predicting an early spring. This would be only the 31st time he has done so, but he has predicted 6 more weeks of winter a total of 108 times. Don’t get too excited, even though he has been a predictor, I mean forecaster since 1887, just a few years longer than I, he only has about a 39% accuracy. I will go with mine being double that, although I have never really graded myself.
So now, let’s talk about the forecast for Tillamook, for the next 7 days, it’s a little easier task, sometimes! This morning we saw a few widely scattered showers moving northward around the weakened low pressure area that is still spinning off the coast. This low, that is opening up to become just a trough of low pressure, still has us in that moist, southwesterly flow that has persisted all week and caused some record high temperatures in parts of Oregon, along with the scattered showers. The models continue to show that trough sitting off the coast tonight so we can expect more scattered showers with the southeasterly winds still 5-10, the low temperature tonight near 42.
It looks like little will change tomorrow though the trough may drift a little closer to the coast tomorrow morning according to the models, then drifts southward so we see a few more scattered shower tomorrow morning that start to ease in the afternoon, with the winds still southeasterly 5-10, the high climbs back up to near 54. The showers end by tomorrow night as the trough moves to the south, we see some light easterly winds, there is a chance of some patchy morning fog though as the low falls to near 37./Sunday looks to be a very nice day, no rain or rainshowers with mostly sunny skies, the high up near 55, then Sunday night also looks dry, and breezy, with partly cloudy skies, the low again drops down to near 39./Now Monday also looks mostly sunny, but the models are suggesting a low pressure area that was forecasted to hang west of central and northern California will lift and bring a slight chance of rain later Monday with a better chance Monday night through Tuesday, then a trough of low pressure moves across so still a rain chance into Wednesday and Thursday. High temperatures next week a persistent 53, and low temperatures near 37. This means the higher Coast Range Mountains will again have a chance of some snow, down to near 2500’ at night, rising to near 3000’ each afternoon. So, that’s it for this week Tillamook,