Another very fun weather day, but frustrating for forecasters (as snow situations always are). Considering that I put the forecast for low elevation snow at NONE last night, it was a bust for those of you down the Valley. Models clearly showed the comma-type feature of heavy showers that gave us the snow. But it looked like it would travel mainly into the S. Valley. That’s why I pretty much ignored it. The only reason we didn’t get an inch or two of snow here in Portland is that we were at the far northern edge of it.
Moving on…models show the last little batch of showers coming in from the northwest around daybreak tomorrow. I see no reason why healthy showers wouldn’t push the snow level back down to the surface again. That’s how I get the Trace-1" additional snowfall. I also notice the southerly gradient up the Valley has weakened a bit too and should stay that way overnight.
The next system is approaching very quickly from the west. 850mb temps are a bit higher with this system since it’s coming in more from the west than the northwest. Same thing for Thursday as well. Then a colder atmosphere comes back over us Friday through Sunday. Lots of possibilites over the weekend depending on which model you look at. More fun coming up…Mark Nelsen