By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
We had a stellar weekend with the only storm being a geomagnetic storm that gave us quite a show of the aurora borealis (Northern lights) Friday night. As for today, we saw the marine clouds get pushed in overnight that gave us cloudy skies this morning, then mostly cloudy skies in the afternoon, which are associated with the weak trough of low pressure moving across that is enhancing the onshore flow that is also pushing cooler temperature inland. So, today is looking mostly cloudy with the winds becoming northwesterly 5-10, the high only near 62, still mostly cloudy tonight, the winds northerly 5-10, overnight lows near 44.
With the trough pushing off to the east tomorrow, and the ridge of high pressure starting to return, we slowly become mostly sunny, the winds becoming northwesterly 5-10 gusting to 15, highs back up near 66, then with partly cloudy skies tomorrow night, still some northerly winds 5-10 gusting to 15, the lows only drop to near 47.
Wednesday the ridge of high pressure continues to build back in, bringing mostly sunny skies with the high near 68. Then mostly sunny again Thursday, the high near 66, with partly cloudy nights, the lows near still near 47.
The models get mixed by Friday with half saying the high pressure ridge will hold, but the other half saying it goes flat, giving us a more zonal, or west to east flow. Given this, we likely see continued mostly sunny skies Friday on through the weekend, with the afternoon highs a little cooler through Saturday, only up around 62, and with partly cloudy nights, the lows around 45.
Things look to start warming up again Sunday though, still with the mostly sunny skies, we climb up to around 68 again, lows continue in the mid 40s.
As far as that geomagnetic storm forecast, first, these events are evaluated by the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center and are given a number from 1 (minor) to 5 (extreme), based on their intensity. The event Friday was the highest on the scale at G5. Some more flairs gave us some more Storms that were listed as G4 (severe), but unlike what we saw on Friday, we saw the aurora borealis retreat northward, bringing very little action this far south the rest of the weekend as it continued to drop below G1. Today the forecast suggests it goes back up to the Scale to G1 before dropping below G1 again into tomorrow. What all tis means for us is, no more aurora borealis again for a while. The last big event of this nature was all the way back to 2005.
