By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
The calm before the storm. Today and tomorrow are highlighted by a high pressure ridge that is bringing us a couple of mostly sunny days. Then starting Wednesday, things either get wet, or real wet, and breezy, for the rest of the week and the weekend, thanks to several systems moving through. We likely even see the first season’s moderate atmospheric river event by the end of the week.
So, as I said, today we had a ridge of high pressure build in over the area that brought us a mostly sunny day, and will give us a mostly clear night though we likely do see some patchy fog developing in the calm winds later tonight, the low drops to near 41.
We enjoy another mostly sunny day tomorrow, though the ridge is starting to get pushed east by a tough of low pressure dropping down from the northwest. With the ridge moving across the area, we see another mostly sunny day with light winds, the high up near 66. A few clouds start to move in tomorrow night, still the light winds, the low only down near 47.
By Wednesday things start to change, a strong low pressure area in the Gulf of Alaska will push in an associated trough and weak front that extends down from British Columbia southwestward off the coast of Washington and Oregon. This will lead to increasing clouds on Wednesday with some showers likely in the afternoon, the winds becoming southwesterly 10-15 gusting to 20, the high temperature only near 61. More showers likely Wednesday night, the low near 49.
It looks like Thursday we continue to see showers that morning, then a stronger front pushes in some rain, and this front develops into a moderate atmospheric river event that brings some moderate rain with winds increasing to southerly 15 to 20 gusting to 25, the afternoon high temperature 63. Still rain and breezy Thursday night with the winds in town gusting to 30 to 35, down at the beaches the winds gusting to 35 to 45 with a slight chance of gusts to or over 55 through Friday morning.
We see more rain, that could be heavy at times on Friday, along with continued gusty winds, the afternoon high temperature only near 58, rainy and breezy still Friday night, the low near 45.
Another system Saturday means we continue to see the rain, along with the breezy winds, across the area through Sunday, highs near 55, lows near 43.
A word of caution to any clam diggers out there, the National Weather Service points out that this weather is causing some hazardous seas that may generate some sneaker waves this week, running up over rocks, logs and across the jetties. Extreme caution should be exercised while down at the beaches this week. As a result of this increasing risk, they have issued a Beach Hazard Statement for Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon. As this event develops, stay tuned for additional Advisories, Watches or Warnings that may be issued for our area.
The only other thing to mention covers any flooding concerns. Yes, we will likely see several inches of rain with this event, somewhere in the range of 3-5” of rain. The good news though, the rivers are still rather low so should be able to handle this rain, so river flooding concerns are low. During periods of heavy rain, Urban and Small Stream Flooding is possible.
And there you have it Tillamook, today and tomorrow are good days to get ready for this first weather event that starts Wednesday. I will update the forecast if there are any significant changes so stay tuned.