By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
Weather
And now the pattern change. We had a cold front race thru this morning that brought in colder temperatures, dropping the snow level this morning to around 1500’, with snow starting at the summits of the Coast Range. The colder temperatures will work their way lower tonight and the snow level drops to near 1000’. As the air is unstable, stronger showers are possible and there is still a slight chance of thunderstorms. The winds continue from the west 10-15 gusting to 30. The low tonight near 33 which means the snow level will drop down quite low and in the heavier showers could cause snow to fall down to sea level, little to no accumulation expected.
Tomorrow looks cold and showery still with a low pressure area developing near Vancouver Island and dropping south along the coast. So, we see more rain and snow showers thru midmorning tomorrow, then just rain as the temperature rise with daytime heating and the snow level lifts to near 500’. Winds tomorrow northerly 4-8, the high near 42. As the sun goes down, so does the temperatures and snow levels. This means we start seeing a rain/snow mix in the shower activity by around 4-5pm then all snow a few hours later as the temperature continues to drop below 32, the overnight low expected to be around 23. The actual snow amounts will be very variable. If you are lucky enough to have a shower or two move across, you will see accumulating snow; if they all miss you, you get none.
Thursday the low continues to drop south but there is a model or two that slow the movement down which would keep the rain/snow going a little longer than the current thinking is. That aside, we do expect the shower activity to diminish, becoming widely scattered by around noon. With that in mind, we see snow showers Thursday morning then a mostly sunny afternoon where the high temperature only makes it to near 36. Thursday night looks to be the coldest night in some time. With the mostly clear skies, the radiational cool helps the temperature drop to near 18, and with the easterly winds, it will feel even colder.
Friday, we start to see a zonal flow that would allow disturbances to ride the flow and give us an increasing chance of precipitation for the weekend. Though we do see a slight warming of the temperatures, nighttime lows still get down to, or close to 32 so there remains some snow concerns in the overnight hours, especially across the passes.
Again I say, if you need to travel across the passes today on thru the end of the week, have a look at tripcheck.com before you go as there is a Winter Storm Warning in effect thru tomorrow. It looks like the passes could see 2-9” of snow above 1000’, and above the passes 7-13” above 2000”. Remember also that what melts during the day will refreeze at night. I think ODOT will have their hands full keeping up with the shower activity, so you could see some heavy snow falling in your area while ODOT is clearing snow in another part of the passes. Throw in the icy conditions and you can see travel could be difficult just about anywhere the next few days, and very difficult across the passes.
