The storm is almost here, and its going to be a tricky one! Its going to be a battle between those dry east winds (Cascadias), and this large plume of moisture coming in off of the Pacific. Heres a look at the relative humidity values and the water vapor image at noon. Today’s model runs have been coming in with a bit more snowfall for Western Washington compared to yesterday’s runs. Starting with the global runs, both the 12z Euro…
Good morning everyone! Snow is spreading northward with snowflakes being reported at the south end of Puget Sound. Here’s the radar image as of 7:50am showing the northern edge of precipitation reaching Tacoma. High res models haven’t shifted much since last night and are generally showing about an inch of snow for King County, with totals decreasing the further north you go. The HRRR is a bit more aggressive with spreading that precipitation northward, with the NAM keeping everything from…
Some notable shifts in the forecast models this morning has increased my confidence that we will see some decent snowfall totals in Western Washington. Portland friends – you’ll probably be seeing a variety of precipitation types throughout the week. There was a pretty large difference in the storm tracks between the European (Euro) and the American (GFS) forecast models yesterday. The GFS was sending those storm systems well to our south, which would have kept us very cold but mainly…
It’s another afternoon of tragedy, as those massive wildfires continue to burn closer and closer to Portland. Firefighters in Clackamas county have been told to disengage due to increased fire behavior and instead focus on managing evacuations. Beyond scary stuff. Level 3 evacuations have been expanded to include Molalla, while also expanding the Level 2 evacuation zone to include Canby and Oregon City. The Riverside fire will continue to push closer to these population centers throughout the afternoon and evening….
We’re waking up to another morning of heartbreaking images coming out of Oregon as fires continue to rage, driven by offshore flow and incredibly dry conditions. This morning’s satellite image continues to show an unfathomable amount of smoke pouring out of these majors fires. So far over 587,000 acres have burned in Washington, breaking our previous record of half of a million acres burned in 2015. There are currently no estimates on how many acres have burned in Oregon, but…
Temperatures are currently below freezing in all locations. That combined with light snow accumulations from last night and wet roadways means we have a messy morning commute in store for us. While most major highways seem to be mainly clear with the exception of pockets of black ice (especially on bridges!), side roads aren’t faring quite as well with compact snow and ice. A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect until 10am for up to an additional inch of snow…
By now you have probably seen the multitude of snowflake icons on your favorite weather app, or you may have heard area forecasters mention the snow word. If you haven’t, let me be the first to tell you, it could snow! The chance of snow is high enough that I thought it best to write up a blog post based instead of responding individually to the influx of texts and messages I began to receive a couple of days ago…
Like just about every possible snowstorm in the Pacific Northwest, it’s been pretty tricky to nail down details of who will see snow, and how much. At this time we have a pretty good idea that certain areas will receive snow. However, there are many areas that may end up right on the fringe of heavy snow, including a major metro area with a population of about 2.4 million. Portland weather fanatics have been sitting on the edge of their…