A Look Back

Tonight I've been working on a presentation for next Tuesday out at the Port of Portland (PDX).  The operations people have a yearly meeting where they get together and go over winter storm plans.  Such as…how do we get Mark Nelsen on a flight to Kauai as soon as the snow starts flying.  Okay, maybe that's not going to happen, but you get the idea.  Remember the 1996 Ice Storms?  Rain changed to freezing rain on Christmas Night, and ice continued to accumulate through much of the 26th east of I-205.  Then a second surge of cold air along with moisture from the southwest moved in late on the 27th and the 1st half of the 28th.  I clearly remember the end of that ice storm with 55 degree air around Gateway while temps 2 miles away to the north were around freezing. Good times, good times…

Back to reality and our current weather:  Nice warm front sliding up the coastline right now.  Temps in the Cascades and Valley haven't jumped yet, but they will in the next few hours, especially south of Portland in the Valley and in the mountains.  Radar shows what is probably the warm front moving into Western Oregon right now.  It should be over Portland by 11pm at the latest.

Looks real wet briefly tonight and early in the morning.  Then a decent break with most rain north of us until sometime Friday.  Lots of rain over the weekend with pretty strong westerly flow.  For now I don't see any system that sticks out as producing tons of rain or strong wind here in the Valley.  Typical very wet November weather is going to continue through next week…Mark Nelsen