GAM Weather Consulting
Monday, December 23, 2019m 11:00am
Well, that Atmospheric River event is one for the books. While the flooding was a concern, and some of our rivers did go to flood stage, the winds became the big news. Astoria Airport gusted to 58 and Tillamook Airport gusted to 52. Other maximum wind gusts included Pacific City at 62, and up in the mountaintops, Mt Hebo gusted to 76 while Cape Meares hit 78. These winds did do some damage, pulling off some siding of residences and blowing off or damaging roofing material and in one case, pulling off the roof of a storage building in the North Main area of Hwy 101 in Tillamook. The rain was also impressive, the overall winner was Huckleberry Ridge in the Willapa Hills, an impressive 11.96”. Locally, along the North Coast, Tillamook registered 6.35, Astoria 5.67, and Manzanita 4.36. In the Coast Range, Lees Camp saw 10.6” and Southfork 8.48”. This pushed the Wilson River up to 12.72’, Flood Stage is 12’. The Nehalem also went into Flood Stage hitting 15.15’, Flood is 15’. We also saw some minor tidal flooding with higher tides that also experienced about a 1.5’ anomaly.
The only other noteworthy issue was the electrical outages. We basically had sporadic outages in Tillamook County, except in North County due to a Pacificorp transmission line being down, affecting 8,000 customers from Garibaldi up past Manzanita. Kudos to our own TPUD hard working crews though that quickly fixed outages within Tillamook County!
So, Monday we were between systems. A look at the satellite picture clearly shows the next system that will bring rain back into the picture today. This front looks impressive now but will split as it nears the coast with a slug of the emergency moving into California, leaving a weaker portion for us. The rain should start around noon, or a little after, tomorrow then becomes spotty Christmas Day. The snow levels today and tomorrow are down around 1700-2500’ so the passes should be okay. If you are traveling across them around sunrise, check the temperatures as there may be some cooler spots with icy patches.
The rain eases Christmas night as the system moves inland then we enjoy another weak ridge that moves across, but this is a short lived break as another front is expected to slowly push in more rain to the north but also gives us a slight chance of rain Thursday night through Friday into Saturday when it finally drifts inland.
Another system means more rain Sunday. High temperatures run 45-50, lows 35-40.
Today (Tuesday Dec. 24th) and Wednesday (Dec. 25) are County Holidays so, everyone stay safe, have a Merry Christmas and see ya back here on Thursday.
Gordon